Councilors blocked Gov’t Delegate’s drive to privatise public tabs

Some Senior Councilors of the Limbe City Council have challenged a decision by the Government Delegate, Andrew Motanga Mojimba, to privatize public taps in the city.

The Councilors expressed their misgivings during their first Ordinary Session dedicated to examination of the accounts of the City Council for the year 2015.

After the Councilors had examined and approved the 2015 accounts, Motanga introduced the two bills, one, to adopt the 2016 budget with an additional sum of FCFA 1 billion. This raised the budget for the City council in 2016 from FCFA 6 billion to FCFA 7 billion. The bill was overwhelmingly voted and adopted by the councilors.

However, when the second bill to privatize public taps was read by the Secretary General of the council, Charles Nkongho, the seemingly quiet hall began witnessing murmuring here and there in disapproval of the bill. The Government Delegate sensing the misgivings, quickly broke the silence retorting “ this one does not call for any further debate because it had already been adopted during the plenary, that was when committees were presenting their reports.”

But he was directly opposed by the Mayor of Limbe I council, Ro-Danny Mbua Mokako, indicating that water is the only resource that the common man who cannot afford pipe-Bourne water in his residence depends on. He vehemently said, he will not sign the bill.

Another opposition came from Senior Councilor Ngomba Ngalle, who cried out loud that the CPDM party stands no chance of winning any future elections in Limbe if that bill is adopted.

Some argued that it is unthinkable for a council worth FCFA 6 billion to descend so low as to deny its inhabitants water.

There are well over 30 public stand taps in Limbe I and II municipalities.

After counter arguments, the anti-privatisation motion prevailed and the decision was withdrawn from the final resolution of the session.