The one man to sympathise with at this very crucial moment of our aspirations towards our dream – economic emergence targeted for 2035, is Mr. Vincent Nduma Nji Government Delegate to the Bamenda City Council.
Mr. Nduma is frantically chasing the shadow of FCFA 371 million alleged to have been swindled from the council’s coffers.
While the Government Delegate is busy chasing the shadow, he already seems to be receiving counsel on how to reach the substance, that is, the process involved to recover the money.
It is difficult to understand how such a colossal sum of money can be smuggled out of the coffers of the council by three different persons within a long period undetected.
To get the right answer to this riddle is to discover how our system breeds thieves, facilitate their actions, sustains them and even protects them.
For example, many Cameroonians may not know that there is a clause in our finance law which states that when an official is caught up in such an act of shortage of money, his monthly earnings will be shared into three, and one part goes to repay the swindled money.
Just when the full amount will be refunded depends also on how much the earnings of the said official is, and on the other hand, how much money is involved.
In the case of the Bamenda City Council, a total of FCFA 371 million francs is involved, also involving the former Municipal Treasurer, Ndula Dorothy Nkeng, who allegedly left with an unaccounted shortage of FCFA 221 million.
Two other former treasurers who could not account for FCFA 98 million and FCFA 52 million respectively, also went away with impunity.
Surprisingly, these deficits could not be detected while the concerned persons were still on seat, until recently when officials from the Ministry of Finance in Yaounde came to audit the council’s accounts.
We in this Newspaper share our sympathy with Mr. Nduma only because he is only chasing the shadow, while the substance resides comfortably where the system demands it to be.
We hold this strongly because when the law states that only one third of Dorothy Nkeng’s monthly earnings will be required to pay back the FCFA 221 million, it is easy to conclude that this is indeed an irony.
Dorothy Nkeng may even reach her retirement age without refunding even half of that amount and Mr. Nduma is also not likely to be the Government Delegate to see his wish through.
To make things even worse, the First Assistant Senior Divisional Officer for Mezam, Pierre Ndumbe Dika, suggested another option, which is, for Mr. Nduma to write to the Minister of Finance to look into the situation because, in his words “there is also a possibility that the money could have been trafficked amongst those on the line of control”.
This is a laudable probability. Since the Government Delegate by law cannot call the Treasurer to order, those in the line of control should be included on the list of suspects, for what could be justifiably described as a dereliction of duty.
The question to ask is why did the control line find itself disconnected without raising any alarm? And while we would want to agree with the SDO that the only thing that should be done and how to avoid similar situations is to revise that law that allows so much leeway for swindling and embezzlement, we would also want the Minister of Finance to share the blame.
He is the boss after all.
The chain of blame should also run down to our law makers whose attachment to toeing party lines, robs them of their ability to distinguish between a good law and a bad one. This is a serious case study for both the government and the MPs.
Mismanagement and embezzlement of public funds is a leisure activity for those managing public finances.
In the case of the Bamenda City Council, involving FCFA 371 million, we see no excuse why Mr. Minister should turn his eyes the other way.
We certainly have to devise a means of checking embezzlements like the one at the Bamenda City Council. Once more, Mr. Minister, the ball is in your court.
