Francis Tim Mbom
24 March 2008
Some Fako indigenes recently expressed dissatisfaction with government's balance sheet of projects "executed" in the Division for the past five years amounting to FCFA 16.9 billion.
Fako Delegate of Economy Planning and Regional Development, Mrs. Martha Nkwanyuo, presented the balance sheet in a meeting chaired by Fako SDO, Okalia Bilai, in the presence of Finance officials from Yaounde.
The meeting was aimed at defining a new roadmap to a second initiative government is launching to fight poverty - the Second Generation Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper, PRSP II.
But many who attended the meeting expressed dissatisfaction with the results of PRSP I. The population disagreed with some of the projects the Delegate said were executed 100 percent.
For instance, Mrs. Nkwanyuo stated that "FCFA 40 million" was spent in 2003 for the "rehabilitation of 'dormitories' in GBHS Limbe." But Fako Secondary Education Delegate, Albert Njoh Ndoumbe, challenged the records stating: "To the best of my knowledge GBHS Limbe has never had any dormitories."
There were similar projects with questionable expenditures.Some participants from Muyuka also disagreed with the Delegate when she said a project to electrify Bafia (a village in Muyuka) had been realised 100 percent.
At the end of the meeting, an official from Yaounde, Albert Ndile, admitted that government's poverty reduction drive had some pit falls. "In spite of all the millions put in? it seems poverty is going nowhere," he remarked.
It was realised that most contracts were tailored towards the renovation of government offices, purchase of service vehicles and equipment at whooping sums while citizens are wallowing in disease and hunger.
Participants suggested that for the second phase to succeed, projects should be focused on the construction of more farm-to-market roads; agricultural projects should receive more funds and control over the execution of projects be intensified. They also suggested the need for greater transparency to the public about existing or on-going projects in their localities.
A participant, Chief Mbella Sone Dipoko, from Tiko, suggested that if all the money that has been stolen and hidden out of the country could be brought back and invested, it would create a multiplier effect that would go a long way to solve Cameroon's economic woes.
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