Kini Nsom & Edith Wirdze
21 April 2008
Some donors have lauded the Minister of Forestry and Wildlife, Elvis Ngolle Ngolle, in his courageous campaign to rid the forestry sector of corruption.
They hailed the Minister in a declaration read during the second meeting of the Steering Committee on Forestry Governance, at the conference room of the Ministry of Forestry and Wildlife, MINFOF, recently.
Prof. Ngolle Ngolle's anti-corruption crusade in the forestry sector has attracted the attention of western embassies. In what was seen as a concrete action to support the Minister's courageous anti-corruption campaign that has led to the suspension of tens of logging companies for violating the 1994 forestry and wildlife law, some donors, led by the Canadian High Commissioner, Jean Pierre Lavoie, resolved to partially finance a study on the problems of forestry governance in Cameroon.
The donors justified their involvement by the fact that forestry governance is crucial for the sustainable management of forestry resources for the benefit of the masses. They said the lapses in forestry governance, have led to huge annual losses evaluated in tens of billions in fiscal revenue at a time government ought to mobilise all the country's resources to improve on the lot of the most underprivileged population.
The donors cited the Minister's appointment of new officials to correct irregular situations, the sanctioning of misdemeanours pointed out by the independent observers and the control brigade as well as the withdrawal of exploitation licences of defaulting logging companies as reasonable measures to fight corruption.
The decision by the MINFOF boss to embark on negotiations for a Voluntary Partnership Accord destined to improve on forestry governance, and specifically export only certified wood on the European market, they said, was a strong signal.
Opening the meeting, Ngolle Ngolle said MINFOF was looking for an experienced and totally independent consultant to realise this study with the help of national expertise so that the complexities of the forestry sector should be well identified.
The group of experts, he said, would be charged with the identification and eradication of corruption in the sector by July 2008. The final document, he said, must be ready in 120 days after the designation of the team in charge of carrying out the study.
It is hoped that the recommendations of the study, if applied to the letter, would result in an improvement of forestry revenue. Donors say up to FCFA 50 billion is lost annually to illegal logging in Cameroon.
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