In his twenty-six years in office Paul Biya has nurtured a public system that thrives on conflict, disorderliness and uncertainty which nevertheless strengthens his power. But that has not helped the country to advance either. Cameroon ranks very low in surveys of just every aspect of modernisation. How long will the present system continue without posing a threat to his hold on power which to him is primordial?
Last month Yaounde hosted a conference of African ministers of the public service whose purpose was to discuss prevention and resolution of conflicts in the public system.
In a way the holding of that conference in Cameroon was ironical because it is by conflict that public administration in Cameroon thrives. Intended in theory to function as a unified, coherent and efficient whole, public administration in Cameroon is in practice anything but that.
The government’s evident reluctance to address the crying inefficiency and disorderliness of the administrative system clearly suggests that the president who presides over it benefits from the way things are.
As the ultimate arbiter of conflicts, Paul Biya enjoys the increasing sense of power of control of the public sector which he derives from having the last word.
Last week witnessed the flare-up of an ugly conflict between the minister of sport Augustin Edjoa and Iya Mohammed, president of FECAFOOT, the football federation. After reportedly discussing the late start of the football season every year because of the long wait for the Cup of Cameroon presided over by Paul Biya usually in December, Iya Mohammed announced the start of the new season.
Edjoa waited until the teams had travelled to their away-leg destinations and stopped the beginning of the championship! Of course he invoked respect for Biya’s agenda, which begged the question.
Interesting it is to note that FECAFOOT has shared loyalty. As a member of FIFA, the world football authority, it is independent of the government. FIFA usually suspends national federations that their home governments interfere in. The two men were again to meet to sort out matters, if the meeting wouldn’t provide yet another occasion for a twist in their war of nerves.
Still Edjoa only takes part responsibility for the confrontation. Paul Biya is the real cause. He refuses to respect FECAFOOT’s calendar by dragging the Cup of Cameroon to mid-December as is the case since more than a decade, something that should be done in July.
While that situation finds a solution there was another flare-up the week before. The press reported a clash between Ephraim Inoni, the PM on one side and Lazare Essimi Menye, the finance minister and Gounoko Haounaye, the transport minister on the other side. The latter categorically refused the prime minister’s order to append their signatures to a document in connection to the supply of aircraft to CAMAIR.Co, the new air carrier in the process of creation.
Albatross-like scandal
The two ministers are said to have openly cast doubt on the genuineness of the transaction. They appeared so suspicious of the PM that they reportedly leaked out their disagreement to the press supposedly for fear that there be no forgery of their signatures behind their backs which would put them before a fait accompli.
Apart from wanting to save his head in the event of an Albatross-like scandal in the future, Gounoko is said to have developed some reticence over the CAMAIR.Co project because as minister of transport he was not associated with it from the beginning or in any significant way.
Again Paul Biya is at the origin of the problem. He should have respected the division of labour and handed over the CAMAIR.Co project but to the ministry of transport. It may be useful but it is actually unimportant that Louis Paul Motaze to whom the project was given, has considerable experience in the area after several years as a senior official of Cameroon Airlines.
Another remarkable war of nerves in recent times was between former Public Service minister Benjamin Amama Amama and Ephraim Inoni. Their disagreement began with an ENAM admission list to publish and extended to other areas. The man’s utter disrespect for his chief assumed the dimension of a scandal. Paul Biya took the first opportunity to chuck him out of the government (in September 2006).
But the minister who became a thorn in every other minister’s flesh was former finance and economy minister, Polycarpe Abah Abah. Without sufficient cash in the treasury, being a finance minister is a truly testy experience. You must know how to pay Paul Biya’s bills as an urgent priority. They don’t come small or few and sorry for you if you must give an excuse for lack of cash.
For that reason and other obligatory disbursements many ministries actually function with only a fraction of their budgetary allocations. Colleagues call and pester the financier until he nearly runs mad.
It takes character and a well-developed sense of human relations to handle that. But that did not happen to be Abah Abah’s strength. He sometimes even refused to take colleagues’calls! They feared and hated him.
“Have you ever heard of a finance minister who was loved by his colleagues in the government?” Abah Abah once replied to a question by this newspaper about complaints against him by other ministers. His removal from government in September 2007 was to many good riddance.
Under Biya friendly networks are common phenomena whose only purpose is to frustrate enemies. Friends help friends but block enemies. The public system is uncomfortable with success. As soon as an official is perceived to be doing well negative forces quickly mobilise themselves to frustrate him. “What does he want to show us” is the ruling thought.
Some of the most active war theatres are board meetings of government corporations where chairmen render life impossible for general managers. Supervisory ministers are also a great danger for GMs.
GMs are several times better paid and enjoy lavish fringe benefits which easily court the jealousy of their ministers or chairmen. Unless the latter feel well treated they don’t cooperate and that messes up the GM.
In recent years there has been a succession of transport ministers who were ruined by gory fights with their Douala port general manager who was more suave in the system. Even then he too in the end paid dearly for his years of abuse.
Simmering conflicts
It is not all the time that relationships of conflict or rivalry come to a boil. A great majority of them are simmering. The ministers of secondary and basic education are for instance not at ease with each other, to say the least. There is hardly a minister who works in harmony and respect for the secretary of state in his ministry. Assistant ministers are conveniently relegated to the backwaters of the ministry’s life.
There is always the lingering fear that putting up your assistant is placing him on the highway to your job. Fear of losing one’s job is a permanent mental state for public officials at all levels without exception. In their suspiciousness, people are readily antagonistic towards persons they think are scheming to replace them. And it takes only an unkind gossip and the hatred and witch-hunting begin.
Because of the absence of defined profiles for job applicants and the fact that people are appointed by the president’s whims and caprices anyone feels qualified for any job. Against the many intrigues he suffered as an outsider, former PM Simon Achidi Achu used to content himself saying: “After all here am I a butcher.” Also Biya has been quoted in one of his moods as telling Ephraim Inoni: “You begged and begged me for this job; see what you have made of it.”
Paul Biya also does not help with the cause of harmony and discipline in working relationships. He very often deals directly with ministers where he should have given all his directives through the PM. Some ministers are sensible enough and inform the PM immediately. But that is not the case with some others who assume a certain favouritism and become a nuisance to everyone.
Vice-versa Biya has very often discussed matters of certain ministries and given directives about actions to be taken to the PM completely leaving aside the appropriate ministers who should have been invited to the meeting. These ill-considered procedures are huge generators of conflict.
Paul Biya is quite well informed of the wars and tenuous relationships taking place around but usually prefers to keep out of them. Even when his attention is drawn to some important damage arising from foul relationships between key officials he is shockingly nonchalant.
Because he refuses to act predictably or to give the impression that he was prodded to action, the president waits for his own moment to apply the weapon everyone knows - sacking people from their jobs. That delay sometimes causes untold hardships and irreversible damage. That, unfortunately, is not the president’s problem so long as he remains in control.
But the government cannot continue forever to function in such disorderliness and indiscipline. If Cameroon will continue to ask for foreign assistance from its partners and expect to receive its own share of the much promised development aid it is doubtful that donors will continue to tolerate the extreme degree of inefficiency that prevails.
International watchdogs have already for some years now been showing the very low ranking of Cameroon among other countries in their annual surveys viz: corruption, human rights, governance, governmental efficiency, etc.
How long will Paul Biya accept that merely holding on to power does no one any good – not even himself in time?
Courtesy, The Herald
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