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Cameroon: Sacked Gov't Delegate Charged With Illegal Land Deal
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The Post (Buea)
17 March 2008
Posted to the web 17 March 2008
Joe Dinga Pefok
The sacked Government Delegate to the Douala Urban Council, Edouard Etonde Ekoto, will likely be summoned for interrogation by the Wouri High Court over a controversial land deal.
A complaint reportedly filed by the Port Authority of Douala, PAD, says while Etonde was Government Delegate as well as Board Chairman of PAD, he illegally sold the corporation's land to a foreign company, MAERSK SEALAND, for FCFA 300 million.
Etonde is said to have struck the deal in his capacity as Government Delegate and not as PAD Board Chairman. Also, the sale of the land took place last year when Alphonse Siyam Siwe was no longer General Manager of PAD.
The matter is said to be separate from the ongoing interrogation of Etonde in the alleged embezzlement and misappropriation of funds that took place at PAD, when Siyam Siwe was General Manager from 1999 to January 2005.
Etonde as well as his lawyers have admitted that a piece of land was sold to MAERSK last year, but they say the land was sold by the Douala Urban Council, and not by Etonde as an individual.
Etonde has insisted that the land was state land and that it did not belong to PAD. As to why the piece of land had to be sold by the council, Etonde is quoted as saying that MAERSK was in dire need of the land to expand its operations at the Douala port area, and so made an appeal to the council.
He argues that the council's decision to sell the land was to promote foreign investment and economic development. It is also said that it was only a few months ago that Etonde wrote to the Ministry of Lands and Land Titles, in a bid to regularise the situation of the sale of the land. But by the time he was sacked from office last September 22, the Ministry had not yet reacted to the letter.
Controversies
There are a number of issues about the land sale, which observers say the State Counsel will definitely want to know during his interrogation of Etonde. For example, there is the issue of the real ownership of the land which is located near the River Wouri not far from the port.
The General Manager of PAD, Emmanuel Etondi Oyono, insists that the piece of land in question belongs to PAD. In 2004, the then General Manager of PAD, Alphonse Siyam Siwe, officially declared that Douala Port had a land surface of a little over 1000 hectares, and that as much as 500 hectares of the land was still unoccupied.
But Etonde claims that the piece of land that was sold was not part of the PAD land, but rather that it belonged to the state. The Post has gathered that if it turns out that the piece of land had belonged to PAD before the sale, the corporation will likely drag the sacked Government Delegate to court for illegal sale of its land.
The aspect of land ownership aside, there are other unanswered questions about the land being sold by Douala Urban Council. For example, as Etonde claims that the land belonged to the state, if Douala Urban Council had the right to sell it.
There is also the question as to why the council or the then Government Delegate decided to sell the land first before turning to the Ministry of Lands to regularise the situation. But above all, is the question where Etonde kept the 300 FCFA million from the land sale. While he claims that the money went into the council's coffers, others sources say Etonde diverted the money into his pocket.
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The retired Colonel is said to be flashing to his close friends a photocopy of the FCFA-300 million cheque which he got from MAERSK. The intention is seemingly to show that the cheque was issued in the name of the council and not in his name as some people claim.
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