The long yearned-for ring road in the North West Region is so far at an advanced stage.
It runs through Baba 1, Babessi, Jakiri to River Bui (Kumbo) stretch. As if this silver linen in a thick cloud is irritating to some authorities, a nasty development is being observed on the entire stretch from Bamenda to Nkambe- poor old abandoned Nkambe.
That development is called “Routiers” in the parlance understood in Camerounaise context as Traffic Police!
The Picture
Long before the ongoing work, passengers travelling on it were forced with three burdens in the form of levies.
First, they didn’t just pay for regular transport cost; they paid for the bad state of the road, as drivers had to charge them to pay boys to push the cars once on bad spots of the road; and thirdly, they also paid to make up for the amount the driver “bribed” the “Chefs Oficiers” on the way with.
Consider the case of a passenger travelling from Nkambe to Bamenda. The official transportation fare we learned is cfa 3000, but what was being paid until recently was cfa 6000. Here is how the other cfa3000 is shared.
From Nkambe to Ndu, we saw two check points manned by gendarmes and police.
Then there is the so-called “Road Safety" team. From Ndu to Jakiri, you have five check points, with two of those “Road Safety” guys. From Babessi to Bamenda, you have four control points and one “Road Safety” check point.
In all, we have eleven (11) police/ gendarme checks, and four “Road Safety” points.
According to Global Information Network, GLOBINET, findings, at each check point, the driver doles out a thousand francs (cfa1000) to the police/gendarme controls (each force takes cfa500…while each of the “Road Safety” crooks gets five hundred francs!
This means that in each one-way trip, the driver doles out eleven thousand francs to the supposed security guys in uniform, and two thousand francs to the “Road Safety” officers.
That means, if the regular five sitter car loaded and charged the regular acceptable four passengers at cfa 3000 each, he collects 12,000 FRS.
He fuels it and on return trip may end up with a meagre balance of less than 7000 FRS…everything being equal.
So, what the driver resorts to in order to make a little gain for himself is to double the load, double the transport fare, carry seven passengers at 6000frs each, making 42, 000frs.
After dishing out 13,000 FRS, to what should aptly be described as official highway robbers in uniform, and fueling the car for say 17,000 FRS, he is left with 22,000 FRS from which the park boys squeeze out 7000 FRS as “camp," with the Municipal council having less than 500 FRS.
If he were to make an immediate return trip, he benefits as the “Control Officers” will shut their eyes to him! In all these arrangements, the loser is the state and the travelers.
Notorious Routiers
Just as travelers on the Ring Road were breathing an air of relief and raising their hands in Thanksgiving to God when the fare dropped from 6000 FRS to 5000 FRS, Bamenda-Nkambe, there came the introduction of these other state agents – blood suckers, the Routiers (Traffic Police).
Hitherto, their abode used to be at this dangerous spot on the rough climb from Bambili to Sabga - less than 500meters from another gang up at the Sabga Plateau. Usually, they are there as early as 5a.m. in two beautiful luxury cars and a huge state motor bike.
They sit in the cars smoking and sipping some expensive wine with a pencil, a notebook and a whistle nearby.
The regular customers (drivers), know the rules. Whether your car is in order or not in terms of licensing, whether your car is overloaded or not, you have to stop some ten meters away from them, step out of the car ( often the driver tells the 7th passenger to put his left foot on the brakes!!!) runs over to the ‘officer’s car, and simply drops the thousand francs.
If by some spirits of bad luck you pretend to have forgotten and try driving through without stopping, they blow their whistle, and you stop, and if luck fails you, you pay 2000 FRS!
Passengers have been grumbling and wondering why a state of law that the gov’t of Cameroon says it is, will allow such a criminal enterprise perpetrated by paid civil servants to go on for so long unchecked.
In February, a 4-seater car plying the road was overloaded - had 8 passengers onboard. As usual, it went through all the check points settling all the uniform men in their diabolic ritual.
However, three kms away, the car somersaulted killing four of the eight passengers on the spot. The rest of the occupants, five of them, including the driver, later perished in the hospital – the reason?
Overload, forced on the transporter by a band of corrupt gov’t officers.
CRTV’s Morning Safari show cried foul - it called for the officers who were on duty that morning to be charged to court for having “closed their eyes” when this car drove through their check points!
Up to this day, nothing has been done – reason being that the officers get instructions from above and do also settle their bosses well for the pain they are to innocent citizens.
In fact, instead of punishing them or removing them altogether, their check points on the Ring Road have since multiplied.
Now, they’re even more visible with new sophisticated motor bikes and cars at Nkar, Kakar and Binshua doing the same reckless job as counterparts in Bambili. They are arrogant, fierce and lousy. They understand only two languages – English isn’t one of them. It’s French and a Thousand francs!
GLOBINET’s findings indicate that less than two transport vehicles are charged to court each year for illegal operations. Yet, so many of them operate without due licenses.
Why is the Cameroon gov’t not demanding accountability? The gov’t ought to be pressuring it’s operatives to charge them to court to at least have them pay for their crimes in gov’t treasury?
Since that hasn’t happened and the gov’t authorities careless about it, it is no over statement to conclude that the state of Cameroun is openly endorsing bribery and corruption, yet pretending to fight same.
Addressing the Syndrome:
In 1998, the Roman Catholic Bishops of Cameroon stated that corruption has attained a suicidal level in the country.
Today, it has culminated to being a normal way of life - those who practice it no longer feel the slightest guilt – their consciences are sealed.
There is this girl at GBHS Bamenda. She kept coming late to school on Wednesdays and Fridays. When the Master of Discipline sought to know why, she explained that her father “works” on Tuesdays and Thursdays.
That when he returns at night, she is forced to sleep late because she has to do the ironing and straightening of all the money notes he squeezes from drivers on the highway.
She even said she had once queried the dad as to whether he issues receipts to all those who give him the cash, and he replied that it is a deal from the top in Yaoundé, and that if he doesn’t “work hard” to bring at least cfa500, 000frs a day, he risk losing his job.
She said her dad keeps 10% of what he collects and hands the rest to his immediate boss who keeps his share and sends the rest up, until the Big Man in Yaoundé gets his own share.
Sadly, when reports like these are presented to the Head of State, he brings in the concept of “onus of proof."
Isn’t it time that the Cameroon gov’t puts in place an Ombudsman’s office to hear citizen’s complaints headed by civil-society organizations like GLOBINET? It is time to adopt a “Zero-Tolerance policy where officials caught in fraudulent activities are summarily dismissed or imprisoned.
Botswana was rated the least corrupt African country, yet it is not the richest country in Africa. It is the nation with the best governance policy.
It has an arsenal of measures against corruption, with an autonomous Directorate on corruption and Economic crime. Cameroon can do same.
Fighting against corruption is a fight for social justice, because the poor are corruption’s biggest victims.
It is time the Cameroon gov’t stops this phenomenon the best way it can. It has to begin by doing away with these obnoxious and offensive behaviors of the so-called security guys on our roads.
Martin Fon Yembe is Global Information Network’s (GLOBINET) Regional Coordinator for West Africa. He publishes The Frontier Telegraph.
