EDITORIAL: CHECKING EMBEZZLEMENT

The one man to sympathise with at this very crucial moment of our aspirations towards our dream – economic emergence targeted for 2035, is Mr. Vincent Nduma Nji Government Delegate to the Bamenda City Council. Mr. Ndumu is frantically chasing the shadow of FCFA 371 million alleged to have been swindled from the council’s coffers.

While the Government Delegate is busy chasing the shadow, he already seems to be receiving counsel on how to reach the substance, that is, the process involved to recover the money. It is difficult to understand how such a colossal sum of money can be smuggled our of the coffers of the council by the different persons within a long period undetected. To get the right answer to this riddle is to discover how our system breeds thieves facilitate their actions sustains them and even protects them.

For example, many Cameroonians may not know that there is a clause in our finance law which states that when an official is caught up in such an act of shortage of money, his monthly earnings will be shared into three, and me part goes to repay the swindled money when the full amount will be refunded depends also on how much the earnings of the said official is, and on the other hand, how much money is involved.

In the case of the Bamenda City Council, a total of 371 million francs is involved, also involving the former municipal Treausrer, Ndula Dorothy Nkeng, who left with an accounted shortage of FCFA 221 million, and two other former Treasurer who could not account for FCFA 98 million and FCFA 52 million respectively.

Surprisingly this deficits could not be detected while the concerned persons were still on seat, until recently when officials fronm the Ministry of Finance in Yaounde came to audit the council’s account.

We in Cameroon Headlines share our sympathy with Mr. Ndumu only because he is only chasing the shadow while the substance resides comfortably where the system demands it to be. We hold this strongly because when the law states that only one thirdly of Ndumu Dorothy Nkeng’s monthly earnings will be required to pay back 221 million francs; it is easy to conclude that is an irony. Dorothy Nkeng may even reach her retirement age without refunding even half of that amount and Mr. Vincent is also not likely to be the Government Delegate see his wish through.

To make things even worst, the First Assistant senior Divisional Officer for Mezam, Pierre Ndimbe Dika suggested another option, for Mr. Ndumu to write to the Minister of Finance to look into the situation because, in his words “there is also a possibility that the money can be trafficked amongst those on  the line of control”.

This is a laudale probability. Since the Government Delegate by law cannot call the Treasurer to order, those in the line of can be included on the list of suspects, for what could be justifiable be described as a direction of duty. The question to ask is why did the control line find itself disconnected? And while we would want to agree with the SDO, that the only thing that should be done to avoid similar situations, is to revise that law that allows so much leeway for something and embezzlement, we would also want the Minister of Finance to share the blame. He is the boss.

The chain of blame runs down to our law makers whose attachment to toeing party line, rabs them of their ability to distinguish between a good law and a bad one. This is a serious case study for both the government and t the MPs.