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MP's lambast gov’t over parliamentary procedures

Parliament

Jeu., 31 Juil. 2014 Source: news.vanguardcameroon.com

The First National Vice President of the SDF Joshua Osih Nambangi who doubles as the Vice Chairman of the Finance and Budget committee of the National Assembly and his colleague Peter William Mandio of the CPDM who is also a member of the Social and Cultural committee of the National Assembly have both rubbished the government of Cameroon for tele-guiding deliberations in the National Assembly.

They also lambasted the government for making parliamentary procedures entirely dependent on the executive arm of the government, thereby making parliament a mockery of an institution in a Democracy.

Both men were speaking shortly after the end of the June session of the National Assembly that ended recently. According to Honourable Joshua Osih, the 143 CPDM parliamentarians of the National Assembly have reduced themselves to stooges of the executive arm of government given that they do not give room for debate in parliament. He went on to point out that, Cameroonians will now have to face the consequences of such ridiculous methods of the CPDM regime following the recent adoption of the Cameroon –European Union accords that recently went through parliament. He pointed out that though the law was not in favour of the ordinary Cameroonians, parliamentarians went on to vote it into law on grounds of party discipline or simply because their party asked them to do so.

On the recent visit of the former Ivorian warlord and president of the Ivorian National Assembly, Joshua Osih expressed shock that after doing all without success to set Cameroon on flames, the Biya regime has now gone all out to invite Guillaume Soro who used arms and provoked a war in Ivory Coast to get to power. He said it is regrettable that a man who for over ten years took up arms to kill and destroy his country is now being presented as a democrat to be emulated in front of honourable gentlemen and women. He said history will know that the action of the SDF to jeer and walk out on Guillaume Soro was a commendable one.

Citing the example of the recent scandalous purchase of the MA 60 plane from China that has seen the embezzlement of over 20 billion francs cfa ,Osih said the responses of the Minister of Transport on the matter justifies the putting in place of a commission to carry out investigations.

Corroborating the SDF MP, his CPDM counterpart, Honourable Peter William Mandio said it is regrettable that it has now become a rule to ridicule parliament by making sure that each time a bill is to be presented before the deputies for examination, they are given just a few hours to go through voluminous documents because the mass is usually said before the plenary proper. He said there were quite a number of things to be said about the statute of MPs but they were not given any time as they were asked to vote by a show of hand so that anyone who did not toe party lines would be identified.

He went further to point out that the presence of Guillaume Soro, the Ivorian warlord cum president of the National Assembly is not a good example for Cameroonian youths going by what he did in Ivory Coast. On the issue of the fraudulent plane purchase Peter William Mandio said as far back as the March session of parliament, he and Honourable Joshua Osih were the first to start putting pressure for a parliamentary group of inquiry. He expressed hope that with the putting in place of the congress which will unite both houses of parliament there would be greater debate, concluding that there is need for the much awaited Constitutional council.

Source: news.vanguardcameroon.com