It took a long time in coming, but when State Property, Surveys and Land Tenure’s Minister, Jacqueline Koung a Bessike’s whip cracked recently it caught quite a few actors at the forefront of the now infamous Fako land-grabbing saga, pants down.
A CRTV national station 1: PM broadcast, suspended Mrs. Paul Kamchang and Florence Eya Bate of the Southwest Regional Delegation of State Property, Surveys and Land Tenure from office, for a period of three months each.
A Commission, headed by Vanire Ndengue, Inspector General in that Ministry, is presently in the Region, carrying out investigations into the land grabbing claims.
It is expected that by the time the said Commission’s brief is done and dusted, much more information would have been uncovered regarding the land-grabbing hue and cry.
Ndengue’s Commission arrived earlier, and discreetly served the Regional Governor and Fako Senior Divisional Officer, SDO, with copies of the suspension letters of Kamchang and Eya.
Shortly before the CRTV Ministerial Order was read, the suspended duo were served their shockers and taken to their respective offices where they were allowed to take out their personal effects and nothing else. The offices remain sealed as we write.
The Ministerial Order also suspended the Chief of Service, Courier Services, at the Central Administration of Koung a Bessike’s Ministry. Those acting in lieu of the suspended officials shall, according to the Minister’s Order, hand over to who shall be eventually appointed to fill the vacant positions.
At least, one Mayor of the Division, known to have been named in the land racket, took off for Yaounde by weekend, in the hope of knocking on such doors as could let the suspended officials and other potential suspects off the hook, The Post learnt on good authority.
He was accompanied in the troubleshooting mission by Ms. Eya and some local Chiefs, known to have been linked with the land-grabbing bonanza. They are said to be employing political means to address issues that are strictly legal and potentially criminal.
It would be recalled that the alarm of land-grabbing on a mind-boggling scale was first raised by the CRTV Southwest Regional Station some time last year.
The programme on which the issue was raised was shut down by Regional administrators, apparently because of being linked to the racket. And then The Post carried out investigations that pointed in the direction of untidy land administration as well as desperate cover up attempts.
Florence Eya, a Category 7 staff of the Delegation, who was due retirement since last year, was, the paper indicated, by dint of the ‘deals’ living on the lap of luxury; in provocative opulence.
Her home opposite the Public Works School Annex, Buea; the ‘Holy Sabbath’ in Tiko, which was largely put up, thanks to her largesse and inaugurated by the church’s Nigerian founder said much of this lady’s opulence.
Similarly, Kamchang’s “Dieu Gratias” multi-storey buildings opposite Sarah Etonge’s house in Molyko-Buea, virtually reduce the Mountain Queen’s abode to a shack.
Shortly before he was appointed into that office, Kamchang could only boast a single plot in his native West Region, and another single plot near the AES-Sonel thermal plant between ‘Village’ and Yassa-Dibamba in the Littoral.
Surprisingly, Senior Police Superintendent, Helen Dina Essoka, who opened investigations into the racket, has been on suspension from duty now without pay, for over a year. Her crime is to have ventured into opening investigations into the land-grabbing sleaze.
Ironically too, security operatives who ensured that the suspended Lands officials complied with the Minister’s Order to the letter belonged to the unit where she worked until certain forces found fault with her policing.
