Driving Tiko into a modern day city

Chief Moukondo Daniel Ngande is already three years into his five-year mandate at the helm of the Tiko Council. He was elected Mayor on October 16, 2013 after his party, the Social Democratic Front (SDF), secured victory at the September 29, 2013 municipal elections.
During a ceremony to commission him into office on Saturday, November 23, 2014 at the Tiko grandstand, Fako Senior Divisional Officer, Zang III described Chief Moukondo Daniel Ngande as a square peg in a square hole.
Popular acclamation given the mayor three year on only confirms that he is indeed a square peg in a square hole like the SDO had said.

Bouncing back strong after eleven years in the political wilderness, Moukondo Daniel Ngande was certainly aware of the stakes of the office and was prepared to meet up with the great expectations of the people.
Zang III told Moukondo to immediately get to work and develop Tiko when he said “...You have to tackle challenges like the fight against urban disorder and uncivil behaviours, fight the illegal sale of council land, reorganise council staff, ensure the removal of abandoned vehicles around Tiko Town, ensure effective implementation of the council budget and above all mobilise resources through local taxes to finance investment projects. You have to provide social amenities to the population.”
Moukondo indeed was aware of the challenges. In a chat with The SUN moments after his installation three years ago, he had said this:

“We are going to prioritise the needs of the Tiko people and we will attend to these needs gradually. We shall meet up with our obligations... The work culture had been dead in the council. The first thing will be to fine-tune the staff situation in the council, to make them to be more work conscious. You may have all the money, but if you don’t have the personnel to manage the resources, you will never succeed”.
“From there, if you look at Tiko critically,” he continued, “the main issue is that of roads. All the roads in the municipality are bad. We will start tackling the problem of roads, then move to health, the schools, social situation and other things. I think the most pressing issues are the roads.”

Also, some members of the CPDM in Tiko had said it will be an abomination for an ‘SDF’ Mayor to welcome President Paul Biya at the Tiko Airport during his visit to preside at celebrations to mark the 50th anniversary of Cameroon’s reunification. Moukondo mobilised and set the stage for the Presidential visit, a goal he achieved.

Quietly but steadily, Moukondo is assuming the mantle of a transformational leader who knows where he is coming from, where he is and where he is going to.
Three years into a popular mandate entrusted to him and the other 40 councillors, Tiko, a town seemingly abandoned in the doldrums of underdevelopment, is gradually seeing the change promised at the eve of the September 30, 2013 elections.
Doubters and cynics are already revising their prejudices as they initially thought Moukondo and his team will fall short of expectations – prophets of doom had no friendly prayers for the mayor and his état major. In fact, many are those who did all to kick out the SDF list. They failed.

Tiko has a history and a past before Moukondo, no doubt, but what he is successfully doing is consolidating and expanding the horizons of the municipality to meet its growing stature. After all, he is only continuing from where he stopped when he left the council in 2002.
As the mayor himself puts it, the council has grown in size, reason why he has transformed the town into a vast construction site. “We want to clean Tiko, we want to develop Tiko. This is what we shall be able to leave behind when we leave the council.”
Before we get disapproval from those who don’t see anything good in Moukondo’s three-year stay at the helm of Tiko, it may be wise for them to see destiny seems to have thrust Moukondo on the municipality. Let us straight away say that it is not a 100% scorecard judgement that we are passing because there is still a lot to be done and a lot to be better managed. Only the passage of time will afford us the opportunity of making a more elaborate appraisal.
But because the expectations and the negativism at the onset of Moukondo’s mandate, especially because the former administration of the council is thought to have failed, were so low and high, a rundown of what Moukondo and his team have been able to realise is a telling and poignant reminder of the levels to which one can be propelled through self-belief and determination to achieve.
Be it in the domain of health, hygiene and sanitation, education, infrastructure, social and economic advancement of the town, Moukondo has handled the issues with the sparkle of a tried and tested politician, a charismatic leader.

The Sun