SDO orders inquiry into suspicious building permits

The Senior Divisional Officer, SDO, of Fako Division, Zang III, has ordered the Government Delegate to the Limbe City Council to immediately set up a Commission to probe into the issuance and payments made for building permits within the Limbe Municipality.

Zang III said the geometric rate at which houses were being built in Limbe was not commensurate to what the Limbe City Council was making in terms of revenue generated from the issuance of building permits. According to the SDO, the Council stands to make more money from this sector given the numerous houses that are planted, almost daily, in Limbe.

Zang was speaking on July 11 during the first ordinary session of the Council which had been summoned for the examination of how much money the Council raised in 2013 and how the said money was spent.

The Government Delegate, Andrew Motanga, had, initially, indicated that the City Council collected the sum of FCFA 5.589 billion. Motanga remarked that the bulk of the money: FCFA 236 billion was raised from business licenses and additional Council taxes.

The SDO, after congratulating the Delegate and his staffers, nevertheless, said that the analysis shows that the bulk of the money came in from State-owned sources and very little from local sources like building permits. It was based on this reason that he ordered that the Delegate sets up a Commission to fully ascertain who is building what, paying how much and where, in Limbe. The SDO said he will be waiting for the report of the said Commission in his office soon.

The SDO also seemed worried about the fact that petty traders who had been sent off from the sidewalks, prior to Biya’s coming to the Region during the Re-unification, were back to the street corners.

“If you have to make Limbe a modern city as in America and Europe, then, all these people must be cleared from the streets,” Zang said. He also ordered that something be done by the Council to eject all illegal transport cars from the heart of the town.

On floods that have become a permanent headache to the town, Zang urged; “the Council should constantly clean the drainage system in Limbe, educate the population against the habit of haphazard dumping of waste and punish defaulters.”

Motanga, earlier on, stated that his Council was doing everything possible to minimize this year’s floods.