Cameroon:Yaounde archdiocese in desperate need of 6 billions FCFA bailout!

Bailing out failing institutions is now a world-wide practice. In Cameroon the Yaounde archdiocese, the flagship of the Catholic Church in Cameroon is in desperate need of a bailout.
The archdiocese is in the red by a staggering 6 billion debt. Schools and other production activities of the archdiocese have shut down because teachers and workers have not been paid for three months. All projects are at a standstill. The archdiocese cannot even pay its debt servicing that amounts to 300 million a month nor can it pay its management consultant anymore whom it owes 30 million. This financial failure is indeed a paradox because Victor Tonye Bakot the archbishop since undertook a restructuring of the activities and finances of the archdiocese which led to raising school fees, annual contribution by parishioners, creation of lucrative businesses and services. But all of this hasn’t yielded. Instead the diocese continues to sink financially. Critics think that poor management and the loss of goodwill caused by the archbishop’s style which antagonises priests and lay collaborators. His long-standing feuding with his recently posted assistant Christophe Zoa also alienated the big, rich and powerful Ewondo elite. Priests say Tonye Bakot does not trust anyone except his tribesmen to whom he has handed the real management of the diocese. He has strained relations with parish priests over weekly church takings. In dire straits Tonye Bakot, it is widely believed, is cap-in-hand seeking rescue from Paul Biya who earlier this year already underwrote the huge expenses (still undisclosed) of his five months hospitalisation in Paris. It is believed the president, who already has the archbishop in his pocket, will jump at the opportunity of rescue. To reward Biya, Tonye Bakot uses his position as president of the Episcopal conference to lend the government much needed political support viz: validation of the flawed 2007 legislative elections and of this year’s unpopular amendment of the constitution for Biya’s mandate extension. Helpful as a government bailout for the archdiocese might be to prevent it from outright collapse that will raise important questions both for the state as for the church itself. What justification would Paul Biya have to concede such a huge sum of money to a religious body when the country itself is in dire need of money for its badly neglected schools and health infrastructure? The government already gives a yearly subvention to private and religious schools why should it again bother about other problems of the church, problems caused by abusive management? If the government gave such huge bailout money to one religion would it be willing to do same to the others who are also always in financial stress? Wouldn’t that be a dangerous precedent? The question can also be asked as to what benefit the government would expect to get from making do with such huge money to the church? In a responsible government with an independent parliament the debate would be very heated, shor ot being acrimonious. From the side of the church, would it be healthy for the independence of the church as a moral authority to ask for and take such huge money from the state? Already Tonye Bakot is heavily criticised for being a crony of the regime. How do other archbishops like Christian Tumi in Douala and Esua in Bamenda keep their own corporations afloat without leaning on Etoudi? Why does Tonye Bakot not seek their support? The other question to ask is whether even with the bailout the Yaounde archbishop wouldn’t sink back into debt in a short time? This last question is important because it seems certain that it is the personality of Tonye Bakop that is at fault. Wouldn’t a bailout with him still there only postpone the problem?
The Observer