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  Cameroon Concord's Arrey Echi Agbor-Ndakaw speaks of the prevailing situation since the Biya regime decided to increase the price of fuel--------- 

 

For some few months now, the talk on everyone’s lips is the cost of fuel and transportation. The sudden price hike in fuel means people have to make some drastic changes in their mode of commuting and going about their daily business of survival and putting food on the table.

For those accustomed to going about in plush comfortable cars, the price hike means very little or nothing for them. However, for the average citizen who has to go through a day hopping from one taxi to another, the pinch of this hike is solely felt and what a painful pinch it is.

In big cities like Douala and Yaoundé where the cost of living is generally high, commuting thro and fro is one of the constant headaches for the Johns and Janes Doe. Add this to dealing with insolent taxi drivers especially during a long tiring day and a glaring picture of what all this means to the average person forms into the mind.

Picture a scenario where being used to paying 400-800 frs a day, a person earning 200,000 or less starts spending between 500- 1500frs a day. Sometimes, trying to bargain a price especially for short distances, while some drivers readily accept and take you, others insult and look down their high horse on you as if by making that bargain you committed the worst crime ever heard of in the history of transportation.

In cognizance of the difficulties this price hike may cause to the average Doe, the government released a statement to readjust the salaries of its workers by about 5%. This may be all good if the press release is actually true and not one of those many rumours plaguing the mainstream media. It might actually help some of the commuters in the quest and struggle for survival.

In this instance therefore, those who will really feel the pinch of this fuel price hike will be those in the private sector unless, the powers that be follow suit with the government press release and readjust salaries as well. It just might be too much to ask for considering the fact that many of these private bodies feel they are doing people a favour giving them jobs and as such what they are paid is enough. Others devise all kinds of means possible to delay paying their workers and yet, they expect them to be at work daily.

This begs for some explanations!  How are people expected to be at work day in day out when they are yet to receive salaries for upwards to three or four months at most? Will they be expected to fly or use the natural vehicles God gave them aka ‘Leggdisbenz’?

When one thinks about the repercussions of this price hike, people somewhere in a rural community feel the pangs doublefold. In addition to the scarcity of cars and roads in most of our rural areas, the few available ones will probably be charging passengers an arm and a leg. This makes it extremely difficult for people in rural communities who probably have to trek long distances from scarcely accessible roads carrying heavy farm loads. While those with cars will continue to enjoy their plush rides, the Johns and Janes Doe will continue to brave the elements, unruly taxi drivers and benskineurs as they adapt or hope for a silver lining in regards to the price hikes while wondering if this will be the only hike or if more will follow?

 

 

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Ngwa Bertrand

21.Jul.2014

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Petrol Price Hikes, Bravadoes and Negotiations
 
Issa Tchiroma is in town again, professing his usual incongruities. As always, he is accompanied by political lackeys, hatchet men, spooks, conspirators and all types of dealers.

They are trying to manage the mood of the nation by sending us to wild-goose-chases following the price hikes in the petrol sector. They are peddling one confusing idea after the other, making the best effort to fool all of us.
 
And so noises about strikes, negotiations and agreements are filling the air. Mark you, there are no strikes, and there are no real negotiations. It is all about the lackeys and others we have  mentioned above trying to increase the volume of currency notes they will take home by the time attention is turned to other issues to let the price hikes have their desired effects.
 
Those who know the story of South Africa know that it is trade unionists like Cyril Ramaphosa that used skills they had honed in negotiations with powerful mine bosses to bring an end to apartheid. He was head of the most powerful African trade union, the National Union of Mineworkers. It is in that union that he learned how to cut a deal, and about power which he regularly wielded "to bring mines to a standstill through strikes." As he says himself in "Anatomy of a miracle" by Patti Waldmeir, "The bosses outclassed us. We were not sophisticated in our approach to negotiation; all we had was a sense of injustice and a mission to improve the lot of workers, and the raw power of a strike…After being caught a few times with our pants down, we learned to do our homework…"
 
And so by the time the negotiation paradigm moved to centre stage in South Africa, Ramaphosa and his colleagues "had been through negotiations par excellence in the mining industry" as his opposite number Roelf Meyer would later recall, referring to the effectiveness of Cyril Ramaphosa in their negotiations.
 
All this is to say that the acts of bravado from so-called trade union leaders here in Cameroon lodged in air-conditioned offices are bereft of any negotiating power. Since they are always "negotiating" when their members are not active in bringing anything to a standstill, the "negotiations" always last just hours and the bosses – most of the time the government  – always come out the winner. No real negotiated settlements; no real skill honed; no deal cut!
 
The years of structural adjustment (SAP) dealt a serious blow to our development, and left us with a new habit that ignores social policy in economic decisions. The set-up and management of the state in Cameroon condemns us to the reality that, increase in the prices of commodities like petrol enriches the state, but does not transform the lives of citizens. This is because of rampant embezzlement of state funds, filthy corruption, impunity and the greedy appetite of members of a regime that lacks vision, a conscience and a heart for a bleeding nation the regime has taken hostage.
 
We are suffering from the consequences of the policies of a regime that for over thirty years has shown a frightening incapacity to diversify our economy to broaden the tax base. This has left us with poverty and suffering because the economy depends too much on a mismanaged commodity like petrol. We are suffering the effects of the policies of a regime that daily trumps creativity and hard work by ensuring that individuals gain wealth mainly by embezzling state resources. We are suffering from the obscurantism of a regime that lacks exemplary leaders, while notion-of-support midwives abound. Indeed, they use motions of support as a parapet for regime failures.
It is no longer news that the claim that high petrol prices are subsidized by the government is false. The high prices are the result of the numerous taxes levied by the government on the very cheap commodity before it is sold to us. The low prices of petrol in oil producing Gulf and Middle East countries are testimony to this.
 
It is usually said that "black gold," as petrol is called, often brings hardship and misery to the societies where it is found. This seems to be the case in Cameroon because rather than being the motor of development and social advancement, the commodity is a major source of enrichment of regime barons, puppets, sycophants and peddlers of motions of support.
 
The future stability of Cameroon may need skilled negotiators to get us out of the impasse in which the society is immersed today. Trade Union leaders have to learn the tactics of generating standstills to gain the power of negotiation that they need to cut good deals for the people they claim to represent. Who knows? Those skills may also turn out to be useful to us all tomorrow.
 
Tazoacha Asonganyi
Yaounde.

 

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Ngwa Bertrand

10.Jul.2014

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On June 24, 2014 in Cameroon’s economic capital, Cameroon Railways (Camrail) announced in a press release that the railservice concession holder has officially ordered 25 tank cars manufactured by the Indian company Texmaco which specialises in railway material construction.

With a pricetag of 1.6 billion FCfa for the Bolloré Logistics subsidiary, the new tank cars “are equipped with cutting-edge technologoy and align safety and environmental protection.”

The new tank cars, which have a per-unit capacity of 55 m³, will enable the improvement of Camrail transport capacities as the company “serves, through its railway network, the SCDP (Société camerounaise des dépôts pétroliers or Cameroonian Oil Depot Company) in Yaoundé, Bélabo and Ngaoundéré,” indicated the company.

In addition, the Cameroonian rail transporter ordered on the same June 24, 50 new platform cars built by the Chinese manufacturer, CSR. These new acquisitions are intended to “to strengthen the container transportation capacities of the Douala-Bangui et Douala-N’Djamena.” The total cost of this latest investment is 2.6 billion FCfa.

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Ngwa Bertrand

26.Jun.2014

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                                                                  By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai

The Cameroon Diaspora has, over the last two decades, grown exponentially as many people from Cameroon seek new ways of kissing goodbye to the humiliating poverty that has become the hallmark of their country.

As the number of Cameroonians living abroad increases, many development experts are still wondering why the country is one of the most underdeveloped in Africa. The country's roads leading to all the regions – are really begging for an extreme makeover. During the rainy season, these roads are simply non-existence. This has affected the country's trade with neighboring countries such as Gabon and Nigeria and farmers, in particular, are feeling the pinch as most of their produce decomposes in their homes as they cannot move it to other parts of the African continent which serve as a good markets for Cameroonian produce. It is estimated that post-harvest losses in Cameroon alone stand at about 70% as the country is noted for its perishables such as oranges, mangoes, cassava, cocoa and coffee. But getting highly needed foodstuff such as beef, cabbage, maize from other nearby African countries such as the Central Africa Republic and Chad into Cameroon is proving to be very challenging as the main roads to the country remain impracticable.
This unfortunate situation is causing food process to escalate, making life unbearable for residents of nations like Equatorial Guinea, Gabon and Chad. With regard to healthcare,Cameroon has divisional and provisional hospitals some which became operational in 1972. Over the years, the hospitals have been reduced to consultation clinics with many Cameroonians ending up in the mortuary for little health issues such as constipation and seasonal flus. The outdated equipments and lack of commitment on the part of the Cameroonian medical staff have made Cameroonian hospitals a gruesome environment whose main role is the issuance of dead certificates. Also, as education in the area is unfortunately underfunded, the country which is noted for its talented people has taken a huge blow to the liver. The educational infrastructure is suffering from acute ageing and most of it is crumbling with Cameroonians looking helplessly. This, coupled with the grinding poverty, unemployment and despair is making many Cameroonian to simply bid farewell to formal education which was in the past, the region’s hallmark. However, many development experts remain hopeful, especially as the Cameroon Diaspora grows exponentially, with the majority of them living in Europe and in North America. But what role can and will this growing Diaspora play in efforts at reshaping life and mentalities in Cameroon that is begging for meaningful economic and social investments?
Making the Diaspora part of the development process in many developing countries is an idea whose time has come, even in Cameroon. While Asian communities have been using their Diasporic communities since the 1970s to boost their development efforts, African countries have just recently embraced the idea and, in Cameroon, there has been some reluctance even among members of the ruling CPDM crime syndicate due to past experiences and mentality issues. However, there are efforts underway to help members of the Cameroonian Diaspora to embrace this new idea. Members of the Cameroonian Diaspora have to understand that there is power in numbers and that their little contributions could, if well managed, turn things around for their beloved country. The Diaspora, it should be recalled, constitutes a huge treasure trove of development information, experience and investment resources.Cameroon is mired in abject poverty and the country's Diaspora can work towards rebuilding modern schools, upgrading hospitals and clinics in the region. Their contributions could transform these clinics from glorified mortuaries into life-saving institutions. Cameroonians living abroad have the means to help make their country an earthly paradise. This is, if they change their thinking and believe that working together is an idea whose time has come. They must understand that development ideas might not necessarily be theirs. They should rather look at the merits and good such projects will spin out to the people in the Cameroon. They have to quit their old squabbling and bickering mentality to embrace collective effort which is a notion that is very much alive in their new countries. Little contributions of about US$50 a year from every member of the Cameroonian Diaspora will go a long way in changing things in the country. This implies paying US$4 a month. This sounds small, but its impact will be marvelous. With such contributions, school infrastructure can be built, hospitals could be equipped, scholarships could awarded to smart kids on a yearly basis, programmes to transform mentalities could be launched, and mayors in all major Cameroonian cities could be given an opportunity to travel abroad and learn from mayors in large Western cities. The Cameroonian Diaspora could work for twinning projects with cities in the West. Other Diasporic communities such as those of Kenya, Ghana and Nigeria are already making the most of these opportunities.
Furthermore, the collective efforts of those living abroad can help transform the mentality of those back home. A bad mentality is a poverty generator. Our people are mired in poverty because their thinking has not evolved for decades. They still believe in having many kids and wives including a harem of mistresses! The days when people were proud to have large families are long gone. Fighting poverty requires sharing information with those who are not lucky to have access to that information. With Cameroonian Diasporic communities setting up many organizations abroad, they should understand that those organizations could be used as NGOs for the sensitization of those who have been caught in humiliating poverty back in the Cameroon.
With some Cameroonian organizations clearly playing significant roles in Cameroon's development efforts, these organizations could be empowered to play an educational role in the whole of Cameroon. Our people could be helped to understand that there are educational courses in life that can open more doors. Besides, the students could be made to understand that it is not just enough to have certificates. It is a lot better to have a certificate and be knowledgeable to defend the certificates we have. And this can only be achieved through continuous reading and research. If the Cameroonian Diaspora can build libraries back home in Cameroon, it will be able to make reading a culture and many poor kids in Cameroon will have reliable places where they can conduct research and have access to information that can help transform their lives.
This does not apply that the Cameroon Diaspora is not doing a lot back home. There is much going on right now at the individual level, but most of these efforts are personal and the results are hardly visible. Currently, capital flows from particularly the Nkwen, Manyu, Fako, Kumbo, Lebialem,Bali, Metta, Mankon,Douala, Bassa, Bamilike, Ewondo, Beti and Fang Diaspora are currently spent on education, hospital bills and the consumption of foreign-made goods such as TVs and clothes. However, if the country has to benefit from its large population abroad, the numerous Cameroon organizations abroad have to work hard to bring the Diaspora together. The leaders out there must embrace new ways which are predicated on reliability and transparency. Back home, the Diaspora must ensure that it has reliable partners to work with. Without reliable partners in Cameroon, the Diaspora’s efforts will only go that far.
All across the Sub Saharan African region which I covered as a news reporter some two decades ago, there are huge infrastructure gaps which have made the region less competitive when it comes to trading with neighboring regions and countries. Poor roads, unreliable energy systems and declining state-owned telecommunication systems clearly explain why Cameroon, Gabon, Chad, Equatorial Guinea and even mighty Nigeria cannot put its best foot forward against other regions of the African continent. But some of these shortcomings can be reversed through the transparent management of Diaspora remittances and the Cameroonian Diaspora must shake off old ways of thinking and embrace new ones. Consensus building is an idea whose time has come. Cameroonian leaders – both at home and abroad – must ensure that they and their people are reading from the same script when it comes to development projects. If Cameroon has to develop, the Diaspora must understand that it has a significant role to play and living abroad comes with a huge price tag – that of reaching out to those who are unfortunate in life. That is where annual individual contributions come into play. Cameroon has a chance to move forward as its people migrate. There is power in numbers, but Cameroonians have not yet seen those benefits. The Cameroon Diaspora must ensure that huge development opportunities do not pass the country by. Other Diasporic communities are transforming the lives of their people. The Cameroon Diaspora has to wake up from its slumber and indifference if it has to be counted among the important Diasporic communities across Africa. It must be united and purposeful. Squabbling and bickering will not take anybody anywhere. Like my mentor Chief BisongEtahoben of the Weekly Post newspaper regularly observed " A stitch in time, saves nine"

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Ngwa Bertrand

25.Jun.2014

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The emergence of new media technologies in the twentieth Century has not only raised enthusiasm about citizen political participation in the public sphere in the digital era, it has also given the voiceless a chance to express their views and hold their leaders accountable. The enthusiasm is based on the popularity of new media technologies and the fact that they enjoy relative autonomy from state and commercial control and influence. New media technologies are not only considered as extremely effective means to record, store and distribute information, they are believed to allow for asynchronous as well as synchronous two-way information flow while at the same time being independent of spatial constraints. They are exceptional tools when it comes to helping individuals and groups promote their causes to public officials and interested members of the public.

The use of new media technologies for participatory communication in the public sphere is viewed as a significant path to the advancement of deliberative and participatory democracy across Africa. As pointed out by communications scholars such as Wasserman, Nyamnjoh and Hurwitz, research on new media technologies has underscored the relationship between new media technologies and greater citizen participation in the democratic process in both Western and non-Western cultures and these new technologies are serving as engines that are galvanizing public interest and participation in modern democracies such as those on the African continent. Currently, across the continent, many people view the Internet, in particular, as the new communication tool par excellence and the venue for political groups of all stripes to propagate their political messages and win sympathy and new members to their political agenda. Compared with the Platonic ideal of individual citizen action and participation, new media technologies constitute new phenomena that are facilitating mass communication in technologically-equipped societies. Unlike old media, new media technologies are facilitating new forms of two-way communication and political participation, encouraging interaction among citizens and public officials and providing a rich forum for the discussion of contentious political issues.
In recent years, these tools of freedom are being employed by advocacy and interest groups to organize their supporters for online lobbying of local, national and foreign officials. Youtube, Twitter and Facebook are making it a lot easier for citizens to share their perspectives and expose crimes committed by dictatorial or democratic governments that engage in undemocratic and abusive practices. These new technologies have been instrumental in significant political changes in Africa. Across the continent, social media have reduced the cost and complexity of organizing mass numbers of individuals into a single, cohesive, political force and they have, in the process, redefined social activism, attracting and enabling the young and the old to make common cause where necessary and such actions have resulted in the downfall of brutal dictators such as Gadhafi of Libya, Hosni Mubarak of Egypt and Ben Ali of Tunisia. What is more interesting is that new media continue to evolve, creating new opportunities for political expression that becomes increasingly difficult for others to suppress like the recent demonstration in Egypt following the military’s overthrow of Egypt’s democratically elected President, Mohammed Morsi. Thanks to new media technologies, platforms such as Twitter and Facebook are redefining the way political participation in the public sphere is occurring. Given its growing membership, Facebook is now the third largest country on earth and it is now among the electronic platforms of choice for many political organizations and people across the world, including Africa, for them to share their political views and participate in their countries’ political activities.

These technologies are all the more appealing due to their interactivity, universality and the freedom they provide to citizens to choose the information that meets their needs. They are popular means of communication because they are free from control by political authorities and market forces. This implies that with new media, the gate-keeping role of journalists in traditional media has been diminished.
However, at the heart of this debate is the issue of access. If citizens must participate in the political and democratic process, they must have access to information which plays a key role in how citizens participate in the political process and how they make judgments about the performance of their political leaders. The extent to which new forms of democratic participation in Africa can be developed using new media technologies will also depend on how these new communications technologies are regulated. It will also depend on who has access. Despite their relative autonomy, more than two decades after their introduction, there are questions about access, inequality, power and quality of information. Though online communities are emerging across Africa, they are mostly among the elite. Discussions about new media have often disregarded the unusual African terrain which defies many of the technological innovations said to be reconfiguring the structures and processes of communications globally. This includes poor telecommunication networks in most parts of Africa, resulting in low levels of Internet usage. While new media technologies have a role to play in enhancing citizen participation in the public sphere, their potential and effectiveness in Africa must be viewed in light of the continent's economic, political and cultural realities.
For new media technologies to actually enable African citizens to participate in their countries’ political and democratic processes, these citizens must have unfettered access to these tools of modern communication which have resulted in greater citizen political participation in other parts of the world. In Africa, especially in Sub-Saharan Africa, there is a huge gap between those who have access to new media technologies and those who don’t have. Many people in rural parts of the continent are not technology savvy and do not have the resources and requisite telecommunications infrastructure that can enable them be part of the new information age. This therefore calls into question the notion that new media technologies can radically enhance citizen participation in the public sphere in Africa. With media censorship in the era of new media a reality on the continent, citizen participation in the public sphere is unlikely to increase.
The new media environment is still the bastion of society's more privileged members, and has done little to encourage participation among the traditionally unengaged. Even as the Internet user base increases and becomes more ordinary on the continent, it still is not available to millions of citizens who do not have the resources and skills to participate in the new feast of ideas. In some ways, the Internet has widened the political information and participation gap between societal 'haves and 'have-nots' on the continent and this is gradually eroding the initial hope and excitement about the Internet being a public sphere of unmediated discourse

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Ngwa Bertrand

25.Jun.2014

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