Tuesday, June 19, 2012

National Assembly & the 1995 Camair Plane Crash: What Manner of Lawmakers?

Cameroonian MPs have consistently demonstrated that they are a breed of gutless politicians, loud in empty talk and weak in making decisions that advance the public interest. But never before have elected officials held up our country to ridicule in this manner. Our MPs have caused considerable embarrassment to the country. They are a disgrace to this nation! It’s a shame.

By Ekinneh Agbaw-Ebai*

The failure of the National Assembly to accede to the demand by the SDF for a parliamentary enquiry into allegations of corruption related to compensation for the victims of the 1995 Camair plane crash is disappointing and unacceptable. It was an annoying dereliction of duty by anybody’s standards and indeed an insult to the Cameroonian people. It is completely silly; a scandal of grand magnitude and a distressing irony of the way things work in this country. But it is pertinent to ask: what is really important to these MPs? There must be money involved in this logic-defying decision; if there isn’t, let someone tell us.

Our lawmakers need to be reminded that they have been elected, some insist selected, well whatever, to defend the interests of the Cameroonian people. All 180 parliamentarians individually earn a net salary of FCFA 871,000, in a country where the official basic minimum wage is FCFA 23,000. They are also allocated FCFA 8 million each to purchase cars; ironically called “non-refundable car loans.” And that is not all; these useless bunch of money-eating hand-clappers are also entitled to FCFA 1.2 million sitting allowance for each ordinary session. Multiplied by the statutory three ordinary sessions per year, it amounts to a FCFA 3.6 million each, which is a combined total of 648,000,000FCFA for the 180 MPs, per year. Besides other fringe benefits like all-expenses-paid trips at home and abroad; free hotel accommodation, MPs pay only one-fifth of the cost of their medical expenses.

It is even more annoying considering the fact that Bureau members and Parliamentary Group leaders earn far higher stipends and have more juicy financial entitlements. Adding to the advantages reserved floor members, the House Speaker gets a non-refundable car loan of FCFA 60 million; the deputy speaker is entitled to FCFA 50 million; the five vice presidents each get FCFA 45 million, Questeurs FCFA 40 million each; Commission Secretaries FCFA 35 million while the Secretary General of the National Assembly gets FCFA 40 million; all these only to buy their cars. To which should be added the annual FCFA 8 million micro-projects grants which multiplied by the five-year mandate amounts to a whooping FCFA 40 million which most MPs simply pocket or engage in inconsequential projects like donating chalk, benches and didactic materials to schools.

All this is a lot of money. And yet what do Cameroonians get in return for this huge investment (waste actually)? What they get is a navel-gazing Assembly that is more interested in the alimentary needs of its members rather than the Cameroonian people. The shame is on the ruling CPDM party which has 153 of the 180 Parliamentarians. The majority of the MPs who rejected the demand for the enquiry in the Petitions & Resolution Committee are members of the ruling CPDM party who refused in this instance, to put the public interest above parochial partisan considerations.

The reasons advanced for the rejection of the probe by Hon. Blondeau Talatala, chairman of the Petition & Resolution Committee are lame excuses that can hardly be justified. The Constitution has given parliament three broad duties which include law making, representation and oversight. Quite often, such probes allow MPs and law enforcement agencies to conduct and conclude investigations and all those indicted will be duly investigated and prosecuted if a prima facie case is established against them.

Against this background and given the seriousness of the scandal, the mischievous claims by Talatala that Hon Mbah Ndam did not present convincing arguments to justify the enquiry are preposterous and unconvincing. This scandal is more fundamental as it involves corruption and lack of political will to tackle the problem. It is a clear case of how criminal negligence combined with government inaction took the lives of some Cameroonians. Compensation to the tune of FCFA 32.5 billion was paid to the victims of the accident but the money disappeared until Marafa blew the whistle with nerve-jangling allegations that the money was embezzled by top government officials including Issa Tchiroma Bakary (then Transport Minister and current Communications Minister) and Jean Foumane Akame, Special Adviser to the President. These are substantial allegations that must be investigated.

It is disappointing that the National Assembly failed to lead by example. Indeed, the lukewarm attitude of the MPs reflects their laziness and general lack of desire to work. What is in abundant supply is the conspicuous consumption, primitive accumulation and self-aggrandizement exemplified by the “My-Pajero-is-bigger-than-yours-mentality” that prevails at the Glass Palace. Beside the moral impropriety of this act of omission by the National Assembly, the relevant officials at the Presidency cannot be ignorant of the implications of such willful failure by a public institution to respond to a legitimate request to investigate corruption at a time when the President himself has made the fight against corruption, the cornerstone of his transformational agenda. Proof: Henri Eyebe Ayissi, Minister Delegate at the Presidency in charge of Supreme State Audit who chairs the Budget and Financial Disciplinary Council has been calling out top government officials and holding them accountable for their mismanagement of public funds.

Obviously, the failure of every citizen to speak up against acts of impropriety in public and private conduct is inimical to democracy. In turn, this damaging deficiency fuels the lack of transparency in governance and the moral and financial corruption that thrive in public institutions. Indeed, by falling foul of its oversight responsibilities, Parliament demonstrated its strong anti-disclosure credentials. Good governance, development and social progress are predicated on transparency, accountability and an open government. Those MPs who voted against the probe must be reminded that it is a civic right for Cameroonians to know how public affairs are managed by elected and appointed officials. In the absence of a Freedom of Information law, the instrumentality of the exercise of ‘the right to know’, can only be vested with the people’s elected representatives, who possess the constitutional power, the stature and the influence to uphold the responsibility and accountability of government to the people.

The ostrich inaction of Parliament’s refusal to act in a case of embezzlement of what unarguably is FCFA 32.5 billion “blood money” was another reminder (if at all one was needed) that Cameroonian MPs have an infinite capacity to shock and scandalize. Although we live in an impoverished society, the ravenous appetite of our MPs has so inured them to the realities of our circumstance that they have lost all sense of equity in their conduct. When questions arise about corruption, embezzlement and the reckless expenditure of public funds, we are confronted with a group of dishonorable men and women who choose to play the three monkeys who prefer to see nothing, hear nothing, and perceive nothing.

The rejection of the Parliamentary enquiry reminded me of the puritan American poet and novelist, Josiah Gilbert Holland who wrote in his 1872 poem, “Wanted” that: “God, give us Men! A time like this demands strong minds, great hearts, true faith and ready hands; Men whom the lust of office does not kill; Men whom the spoils of office cannot buy; Men who possess opinions and a will; Men who have honor; Men who will not lie…Tall men, sun crowned, who live above the fog in public duty and in private thinking…” If there is any Cameroonian MP who fits this profile, please stand up and be counted!


*Ekinneh Agbaw-Ebai is a public intellectual and graduate of Harvard University John F. Kennedy School of Government where he was Managing Editor of the Harvard Journal of African-American Public Policy. A former Research Analyst for Central Africa with Freedom House, he is a consultant and lives in Boston, Massachusetts, USA. Talk back at ekinneh@yahoo.com.

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