IRIC officials scrutinize budgets

The board of directors of the International Relations Institute of Cameroon, IRIC, met behind closed doors, August 5, for the first time in over five years in an extraordinary session overseen by board chair, Pierre Mokoko Mbonjo, who doubles as Minister of External Relations.

The board meeting seemed to have been prompted by rising calls for order to be reinstated in the once reputable institution recently rocked by entrance examination scandals.

The meeting had as main agenda, the examination and adoption of the 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013 and 2014 administrative accounts and budget execution reports.

“I had a preliminary statement which I would have loved to make before we begin working, but it seems I would have to change my mind in order not to fuel the press,” said Mokoko Mbonjo in his opening remarks; which remarks prompted protocol to usher journalists out of the hall.

To the dismay of the reporters, Mokoko denied granting an interview to the press after the extraordinary board meeting which was immediately followed by an ordinary meeting of the same board. “We have not finished yet,” the minister said, as reporters gathered around him with recorders and microphones.

The extraordinary meeting ended, then the ordinary meeting followed, ended and still, the minister would not take questions from pressmen. “We had an extraordinary meeting, an ordinary meeting and resolutions were taken, what do you want to hear from me?” the minister asked rhetorically as he walked away.

The Cameroon Journal, however, gathered from anonymous sources that the accountant who was supposed to confirm and sign financial reports for the years in question had died, and a certain Tatsa, IRIC accountant from 2012 to 2014 is currently on retirement. We also gathered that there was a problem of handing over of offices for financial controllers designated by the minister of finance.

Though the final communiqués for both meetings were not handed to press, The Journal was hinted one of the resolutions was to call back some former employees of the central administration of IRIC, including the accountant on retirement to confirm and sign financial reports.

“The minister is the head of the board, since he has refused to speak, no one has the right to utter a word. But know that it has been resolved that a technical committee will be set up and given a one month deadline to regularize the accounts of the institution,” the source hinted.

Meantime, we also gathered that the ordinary session centered on the regularization of the current budget of the institution. “You know that, if one were to go by the performance based budget system, one will realise that we were functioning in illegality. So now we have to explain how we have been using the money set aside for this institution in the state budget. When that will be done, we will state how we intend to execute the remaining budget starting with the eight month.”

Our source also said that adopting the budget for any year in IRIC will be difficult because the lapses in past budgetary allocations always have an impact on preceding ones. “Though it was difficult for the directors and observers to reach a consensus on proposals, it is good that the meetings took place after all,” he said.