Cameroon: Hon. Ayah Wants Prime Minister to account for budgeted but unexecuted Projects!

By Christopher Ambe Shu



Prime Minister Yang:will he Act?



Hon.Ayah:wants accountability



The out -spoken Member of The out -spoken Member of

Parliament (MP) for Akwaya Constituency of the Southwest Region of Cameroon, Hon. Ayah Paul Abine ha s, in an open letter to Prime Minster Philemon Yang, sought to know why for years, and despite repeated official complaints by the people’s representative, public investment projects budgeted for in Akwaya are never executed.Akwaya is one of the least developed localities in Cameroon.

 Hon. Ayah, the only CPDM MP who did not vote for the 2008 constitutional amendment that scrapped off presidential term limits, wondered whether the neglect of his constituency with  a population of over 70,000 people, was because he was conscientious and defending the public interest. The MP questions the PM in his letter: “Is it right of your government to use the people’s taxes as an economic weapon against the very people like my electorate for the simple reason that their representative in the House found it unconscionable to support an amendment of the Constitution that palpably betrayed the social contract between the President of the Republic and the very people?”

Following is Hon. Ayah’s open letter to the Prime Minister. It is a must-read:

Sir,

             The Year of Retaliation

  



 Soon after the adoption of the constitutional amendment in 2008, paving the way for the President of the Republic to stand presidential election indefinitely, a newspaper published that it had received reliable information from “CPDM BIGWIGS” that there would be retaliation against me for standing against the said amendment. Time has proven that the newspaper was wrong if it meant that there would be retaliation solely against me. But the newspaper was perfectly right if it meant there would be extensive and general retaliation. The truth is that my Subdivision of origin has paid a huge a price since then and the worst is seemingly still to come.



 To begin with, Mr. Prime Minister is not without knowing that prior to the amendment I had suffered sustained and repeated mental torture in the form of intimidation, blackmail and criminal defamation. To mention just two instances, I was within five days in January 2008 called up to the Presidency of the Republic and to your office where criminal accusations were leveled against me in virtually identical terms. Even as I gathered legendary courage and demanded that a judicial commission of enquiry be set up in order to get to the veracity of the criminal allegations, no such action has been taken in that direction almost three years since.



 I am in no doubt that in your capacity as head of government, you know, or at least are presumed to know that there is still no standing pipe anywhere in Akwaya that I represent; that there is not one electricity bulb in the area; that health centres exist only on paper; that Akwaya does not receive any Cameroon’s radio station, let alone television; that even as there is total absence of telephone network, the community tele-centre for which a contract was awarded some seven years ago is still only at the wall-plate level; that not one teacher has been sent to the Government High School, Akwaya, much less has the principal been appointed; that Akwaya voters are disenfranchised in that not one identification post does exist in the area up to now, etc.



 I know it is Cameroonian for you lightly to answer that those situations existed prior to the constitutional amendment in 2008. But granting that so was the case, you still would owe the people of Akwaya an explanation as to why in 2008 alone three major projects meant for their area have not seen the light of day some three years since the passing of the Finance Bill. I know you know what I am talking about because for these three years I have asked questions about those projects without anyone condescending even to vouchsafe me a reply. Even as I am writing these words, I have before my eyes signed acknowledgement by your office of my latest representation to you about the projects.

But if you want me to refresh your memory, I should like to point out that, in the first place, 60.000.000 francs was allocated in the 2008 investment budget of Cameroon for the first phase of rural electrification for Akwaya. Not only have I received no reply from the relevant minister to my questions as to what is holding back the start of the project; but my correspondence to you has remained unanswered up to the time of writing these words.

 Again, the sum of 43.500.000 francs was allocated in the same budget of that same year for the construction of a workshop in the Government Technical School Akwaya. We are at the end of 2010, three years since, and nobody has information as to what has become of the allocation, much less as to when the project will be started.



Similarly was the sum of 800.000.000 francs allocated for the feasibility studies of the Mamfe-Akwaya-Befang road. For the same length of time have we waited to see only the presence of anyone on the road even deceiving the people as in the past that some effort was being made to link the area to the rest of Cameroon by road. Even the absence of a road which has exposed our people to humiliation, torture and extortion in Nigeria for so long has received little attention from your government!





 How on earth would you expect anyone with a reasoning faculty to pretend not to see a link between the constitutional amendment and the infliction of pain and poverty on the people of Akwaya as the newspaper had predicted? And is it right of your government to use the people’s taxes as an economic weapon against the very people like my electorate for the simple reason that their representative in the House found it unconscionable to support an amendment of the Constitution that palpably betrayed the social contract between the President of the Republic and the very people?

I hope that you shall clarify the situation soonest and after careful and necessary introspection, Sir!

 Hon. Ayah Paul Abine,

 MP for Akwaya

NB: Hon. Ayah’s letter was first published in The Recorder Newspaper, Cameroon, on September 16, 2010