Firewood, coal kill 1.5 million worldwide yearly

WHO proposes a shift towards ‘cleaner, more modern fuels’ that are unfortunately beyond the reach of pauperized majority of Third World dwellers

By Ntaryike Divine, Jr. in Douala

A recent WHO report warned that primitive methods of cooking and heating were tacitly snuffing some 1.5 million lives yearly, and mostly in the Third World.

The report, published last year, additionally indicated that more than 3 billion people worldwide
depended on solid fuels like firewood, dung, crop residues and coal for cooking and heating purposes. Such reliance, it said, caused indoor pollution which in turn provoked diseases like pneumonia and chronic respiratory complications affecting mostly women and kids.

Solid fuel dependence and subsequent indoor pollution accounts for 5 per cent of all deaths and diseases in the 21 most-affected countries named in the report which are Afghanistan, Angola, Benin, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cameroon, Chad, DR Congo, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Madagascar, Malawi, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Pakistan, Rwanda, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Togo and Uganda.

After noting that solid fuel usage has become one of the ten most significant menaces to public health worldwide, the WHO is proposing a drift from the primitive and polluting heating and cooking methods to more contemporary, safer and cleaner fuels like biogas and kerosene. In fact, energy and environment ministers from some of the concerned countries met in New York late April within the scope of the UN Commission on Sustainable Development.

Their intention was to settle on whether or not to rank indoor pollution on country policy agendas. If that were to be the case, it would imply that strides be engaged towards reining in dependence on solid fuels especially in the worst-affected countries. The same countries would also imperatively have to ensure that costs of contemporary fuels like the aforementioned biogas and kerosene are slashed.

That is already almost unimaginable in a country like Cameroon where despite its poise as an oil-producing nation, fuel prices have galloped steadily over the past couple of years. Kerosine currently costs almost 500 FCFA (about 1 USD) while the cost of a 12-kg bottle of cooking gas skyrocketed to 6.500 FCFA.

Even in the urban areas where dependence on solid fuels was relatively low compared to the rural parts of the country, households have returned wholesale to solid fuels, disconnecting gas bottles and depending on candles for lighting amidst frequent power cuts, and firewood for cooking.

Fear of another uprising: Biya orders Russian helicopters to shoot demonstrators, rioters!

The government is deeply apprehensive of the state of national security. The unpopularity of the recent amendment of the constitution and the ever-rising prices of food and essential commodities have combined to create a sense of nervousness among the masses which could easily find expression in a popular uprising. Rather than address the issues, Paul Biya has opted for the use of brutality

By Ntaryike Divine Jr. in Douala

President Paul Biya seems determined to have his way at all cost; and to use as much brutality as is necessary which is already the hallmark of his 25-year regime. To cope with the simmering tension in Cameroon following popular disapproval of the recent amendment of the constitution permitting him to stay in office beyond 2011, the government has placed armed troops across towns in Cameroon.

This is to forestall a poplar uprising similar if not worse than that of February.
Apart from popular anger over the amendment of the constitution, the hardship of the masses caused by ever-increasing food prices provides yet another reason for a real possibility of problems for the authorities.

Intelligence sources have told The Herald that the government is not taking the situation lying low.

In addition to the already announced intention of the government to recruit at least a thousand more hands
into the army, The Herald has learned that Russian war helicopters are on order to strengthen the government’s already heavy hand in dealing with any possible uprising.

The helicopters which are said to be nine in number and ordered through a private Swiss supplier will be used to shoot gatherings of rioters, our sources say.

The government’s fear of a possible uprising is so real that a fortnight ago President Paul Biya called off a journey abroad at the last minute.

A government decision last month to reduce the price of foodstuffs and essential commodities which received wide public approval has proved a failure. Not only is the public disenchanted, retailers are gradually being turned against the government because of the hard measures of authorities of the Ministry of Trade which
include locking up shops, seizing wares of recalcitrant traders and forcing down unacceptable
reductions on retailers.

These developments only add to the existing state of mass youth unemployment, which prepare the ground for a possible people’s uprising.

The civil society has also warned the government to try to act quickly and adequately to provide solutions to the crisis in which people live.

Closing a recent meeting of the Catholic Episcopal Conference, Archbishop Samuel Kleda who chaired the meeting warned the government that unless it acted in time it should be ready for another uprising which will embrace the whole of Cameroon and render last February’s riots a child’s play.

The government appears rather to be preparing for the use of brutal and excessive force instead of turning
the same resources towards lasting solutions.

Camair And The New Deal

Prof. Tazoacha Asonganyi, Yaounde

The fate of Cameroon Airlines (Camair) today reinforces the idea that ownership by the state is
ownership by an impersonal entity which amounts to control by politicians and civil servants.

The aim of the privatisation process started a long time ago was to sell off public enterprises in order to shift the balance from the inefficient, unaccountable state to the more efficient private
business.

It was supposed to introduce popular capitalism by ensuring the widest ownership of shares by members of the public, to reduce the power of the State and enhance the power of the people. In State-owned structures like Camair, targets are set, new management appointed, performance monitored, warnings given; but these never work like in private business because it is the State that accounts for weaknesses to the State, not management to shareholders.

Crony-run public corporations like Camair have since discredited the public sector that dominated left wing and third world economies, because they allowed too much borrowing and expansion without due regard for adequate returns. The corporations were bossed by inexperienced civil servants and shielded from the discipline of the market, so they were run on unprofitable bases and created no wealth.

This failure of State-run services contributed to the convergence of certain economic views between the socialists and capitalists and led to the resurrection of the market in all modern democracies - whether they were run by the left or the right.

This is why with the collapse of Soviet communism and the re-emergence of Russia, the Russian republic launched a grand privatisation programme. By the end of 1993, some 6.5 million State-owned apartments (about 20 percent of total) had been privatised.

By 1994, more than 139 million Russians had invested their government-issued privatisation vouchers, a participation rate of 94 percent; 70 percent of Russian industry (20.000 of the 28.000 large or medium sized industrial enterprises and 90.000 small firms) had been sold off.
Indeed, by July 1994, cash in-flow into Russia was around $500 million a month due to the explosive growth in stock prices!

Within this backdrop, how did Camair get to where it is today? Following the collapse of Air Afrique, Camair was established on July 26, 1971, as the national airline of Cameroon, a company owned by the Cameroon Government, 96.43 percent, and Air France, 3.57 percent.

In June 2000, probably to catch-up with new economic exigencies, Yves Fotso took up duties as
"Administrateur Directeur Général". He was later replaced by Dakayi Kamga, and then by Paul Ngamo Hamani who was appointed provisional administrator in February 2005 to prepare for
"privatisation/liquidation".

In 2006, the Cameroon government reached an agreement with SN Airholding, the mother company of SN Brussels Airlines to revive the airline, without much effect. Then a Presidential decree created a new company known as Cameroon Airlines Corporation, CAMAIR Co, to
replace Camair.

On 14 March 2008, government sacked Paul Ngamo Hamani and the Minister of Finance extended the mandate of the Liquidator of Camair by 12 months, with a co-liquidator, who would handle judicial matters about the privatisation...

To understand the present fate of Camair, it would be appropriate to examine the situation of other airlines related to it in one way or the other. Kenya Airways is said to have expressed interest in the privatisation of Camair. Kenya Airways was established in February 1977, after the demise of East African Airways and was wholly owned by the Kenyan government until April 1996.

As far back as 1986, the Kenyan government expressed the need to privatise the airline, "in line with the country's need for economic development and growth". The government named a Board Chairman in 1991 with specific orders to privatise the airline. In 1992, government set the privatisation of the airline as top priority.

In 1994 the International Financial Corporation (IFC) was appointed to provide assistance in the
privatisation process which ended in KLM buying 26 percent of the shares in 1997 and becoming the largest single shareholder. The shares were floated to the public and the airline started trading on the Nairobi Stock Exchange. Presently, it is owned by individual Kenyan shareholders (30.94 percent), KLM (now Air France-KLM) (26 percent), Kenyan government (23 percent), Kenyan institutional investorsCorporate-Governance-Ira-Millstein (14.2 percent), foreign institutional investors (4.47 percent) and individual foreign investors (1.39percent).

Kenya Airways has won the 'African Airline of the Year' award five times in seven years. In 2007,
SkyTeam, the second-largest airline alliance in the world, welcomed Kenya Airways as one of the first official SkyTeam Associate Airlines.

What of Air France, a partner of Camair at birth? In September 2003, Air France and KLM Royal Dutch Airlines merged to form Air France-KLM. With the merger, Air France shareholders owned 81 percent of the new firm, (44 percent owned by the French State, 37 percent by private shareholders), former KLM shareholders the rest.

By reducing the French government shares from 54.4 percent to 44 of the newly created Air France-KLM Group, the airline was effectively privatised. In December 2004 the State sold 18.4 percent of its equity in Air France-KLM to own less than 20 percent of the shares. Air France-KLM is the largest airline in the world in terms of operating revenue and third-largest (largest in Europe) in passenger kilometres.

These are examples of success, while Camair moved from failure to failure. So, why have others worked these "miracles" of success while our own national airline continued to move from crisis to crisis? Why is the "transformative intelligence", other people use to bring prosperity to their countries, absent in Cameroon?

Why are others busy putting into practice the knowledge they got from the schools we all attended together while we in Cameroon are busy celebrating the certificates and bathing in cronyism, tribalism, corruption and other unpatriotic ills? Why is the government stock with the privatisation of Camair?

Central to using "transformative intelligence" to conquer underdevelopment and mass poverty and generate economic development is the ability of the individual citizen not only to form and hold conceptions of excellence but to realise them. This is only possible with "free", happy individuals! Such individuals are a product of the rule of law, checks and balances, strong social contracts and the attendant universal rights of the human being.

These concepts we parrot everyday were conquered through serious struggles in history to put the individual citizen as the centrepiece of the modern political and legal systems. The individual citizen is protected and glorified by the universal declaration of human rights and freedoms
and the African charter on human and peoples' rights, and highly valued and respected in their countries because all "transformative intelligence" is the product of the human mind.

Indeed, the material culture that defines much of what we call "development" flows from the minds of individual citizens. This is why it is usually said that the individual citizen represents the hen that lays the "golden egg" of development for a country, and so must be provided the environment to mature the eggs! The individual citizen has a lively, fertile mind full of ingenuity, imagination and creativity, but it all depends on nurture.

When the appropriate environment exists, the individual citizen meets the challenge of laying the
golden eggs everyday; when it is absent the eggs dry up! The chaos, injustice, corruption, favouritism, tribalism, immorality and deprivation in our society are the causes of the sickness that is weighing down Camair. Camair is a mirror that reflects the nakedness of the New Deal regime.

Who Breeds Vandals?

By Ngu Tekwe Samuel

The Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary defines vandalism as the crime of destroying or damaging something, especially public property, deliberately and for no good reason. A vandal is therefore a person who commits acts of vandalism. We are witnesses of past and recent acts of vandalism especially that which happened in Cameroon a couple of weeks ago. It is easy to condemn those we saw at the scene, especially the youths. Perhaps it is more appropriate
to ask who is really responsible. Are there other forces behind?

Maybe the best thing is to look at those involved in these inhuman acts. There are orphans who might be victims of AIDS, those who lost their parents at early age through other disasters, those whose parents lost their job in one of the State Corporation or private companies, or why not disgruntled unemployed graduates.

Who takes the statistics of such children and who cares for them? Children from single parents might have missed the love of a mother or the control and love of the father. The society too may fail in its duty to provide what they lacked in their homes. There are children from problematic homes where parents have no respect for one another. There may be fighting as well as the use of vulgar language. Parents may have no common plan for their children’s future.

Children of widows and widowers may be sickly and poor and lack basic care. Some parents soon depend too early on their children who are not yet viable. Children that push the truck and off-load vehicles try to fend for themselves too early. If high taxes don’t make them penniless they become acquainted with street life at an early age. They have lost their innocence already.

Children from wealthy homes may rarely feel the presence of one or all of the parents. Left to the
care of the baby-sitters they can give society half-baked training. Most of these house helps are
victims of trauma from poor homes and they pass these lapses to so-called well-to-do homes. The economic situation of our country and the high death rates can only populate the nation with youths that are already delinquent.

The next stop for the lucky ones may be the school. What are the conditions of the teachers that might make an impression on them? How long is the teacher with them? How many of them does he teach at a time? Imagine that you have a class made of the categories of children given above. The few that find themselves in the hands of some teachers may not receive the best
treat. While some might be abused further because of their vulnerability, others would be too traumatized to learn. Are there provisions in our institutions to cater for the recalcitrant dropouts?

When they have lost their homes what next? The society says it is none of its business. Nobody bothers about the food, health, employment and marriage that the adult world is supposed to bequeath to these children. If no one listens to them and cares about their plight
what happens to them when they are about thirty? The lawmakers or enforcement officer comes and clams down on these wayward lads without asking themselves what actually went wrong that they behave the way they do. We are so eager to harvest from where we did not sow. Where were these laws at the time the children needed formation and molding? Should the law not mould rather than punish?

Where is the government that is supposed to regulate the welfare of the children, their parents, and guardians? When the youths are deliberately sidelined, that is not given due attention with regards to their existence and well – being, we can only reap what we sow. Mission schools do a lot but this is only a small percentage. Why is conduct not given a priority in preparing the youth for their future in an environment that is already rotten? In some countries the state pays those who are unemployed. The law protects the young, sometimes even against their parents when they prove unhelpful. The worse thing the state can do is to turn a blind eye to the plight of the young or to be heartless when they are desperate. It gives them the feeling that they do not belong; it is their country. Then, why were they born here? For a young to curse the day he was born is not good news for the nation, his parents and the society. Is calling a deprived child vandal making him more cultured or traumatized? I hope the man who does that will have a comfortable seat in God’s Kingdom. But he has an axe to grind in order to be freed from
condemnation.

Catholic bishops warn Biya: Address youth problems quickly or face another strike!

Meeting for the first time since the social strike of February, the Catholic bishops took the opportunity to tell the president that the explosion of last February was the result of the failures of his polices. And it is in correcting them that he could avoid a repeat
experience

By Roland Akong Wuwih in Yaounde

A three-day meeting in Yaounde of the Episcopal Conference of Cameroon, the executive organ of the Catholic Church in Cameroon, has called on President Paul Biya to pay even greater attention to the social problems of Cameroon and particularly of its youth.

A keynote address made at the opening of a three-day conference that ends in Yaounde today warned the president that unless he addresses these issues with a measure of urgency there would be another social crisis before long.

The speaker was Bishop Samuel Kleda, co-adjutor of the Douala diocese, who chaired the meeting as its vice president in the absence of Victor Tonye Bakot, the archbishop of Yaounde, who is in France for medical reasons.

During the meeting the bishops also discussed how to get the youths of Cameroon join in the world Catholic Youth Day.

It was disclosed that of 400 Catholic youths sent to participate in this event in Italy in 2002 only 30 returned to Cameroon, while the rest used the opportunity to migrate, one reason why the Catholic
Church is concerned about the government resolving the issue of youth unemployment.

Last February, a transporters’ strike instantly became a welcome opportunity for the wide public to express their dissatisfaction with the policies of President Paul Biya that have over the years visited poverty and other economic hardships on the people.

The strike was accompanied by rioting, looting and extensive damage of public and private properties.

More than 100 youths were killed, most of them by live bullets in clashes with armed law enforcement agents.

Promiscuity, negligence and poverty are blamed for the rising number of infections in a province that already counts the highest number of patients

source -The Herald

Promiscuity, negligence and poverty are blamed for the rising number of infections in a province that already counts the highest number of patients countrywide

Of 6.700 tuberculosis patients residing in the Littoral province, 4.500 are Douala city dwellers. The statistics, which place the province at the top of countrywide TB prevalence rates, were unveiled Monday, 24 March as the world commemorated the 15th international day for the fight against the killer ailment.

Fon Elizabeth, provincial coordinator for the fight against TB, said the Littoral showed the highest
infection rates in the country. It is home to 24 percent of the 24.000 TB cases recorded in hospitals nationwide last year, she said. In other words, the figures could be far higher if all affected persons sought treatment.

The medic, however, noted that the authorities were not relenting in their strides to check the incessant spread of the disease. Of 30 approved TB treatment centres across the province, 19 are located in Wouri division which has Douala as its headquarters. Treatment at these centres is provided gratis upon consultation fees of only 1.000 FCFA, Dr Fon reiterated.

She said some 4.300 patients in the province were successfully treated in 2007, amounting to about 75 percent of the detected cases. Unfortunately, 15 percent of patients under treatment chose to abandon the free treatment. An ongoing program put in place by the Douala City Hall aims at detecting the escaped patients to force them to complete treatment. Medics
said interrupting treatment could mean prolonging the process especially for cases of chronic TB. Treatment can span between two and six months in the worst cases.

Promiscuity, negligence and poverty were largely blamed for the unwavering spread of the disease here. According to WHO statistics, TB registered a towering nine million patients worldwide in 2007, killing 1.7 million. Officials of the organisation that has been the urgent need for governments to reinvigorate said the rather dangerous situation prevailed because TB
had been largely forgotten and/or neglected by many governments around the world.
Modest drop in Cameroon TB incidence

Meanwhile the number of people suffering from tuberculosis (TB) in Cameroon is on the decline,
health authorities said Monday in Yaounde at a press conference on World Tuberculosis Day.

According to the Public Health minister, Andre Mama Fouda, the figures have dropped by about 1000 – from 24,879 in 2006 to 23,975 in 2007.

Despite this drop, which health officials described as significant, but which is obviously modest, the permanent secretary at the National Committee for the Fight Against Tuberculosis, Wang Hubert, noted that Cameroon still does not meet the World Health Organisation’s (WHO) target.

He said one of the main objectives of the tuberculosis committee is to attain the WHO target by next year.

The committee, he said, also has the task of intensifying the follow-up of patients who have often
abandoned treatment, a reason why Cameroon is lagging behind in attaining the WHO target of cutting down figures by 85 percent.

Cameroon has, however, done very well in screening for the disease. Authorities say 93 percent of Cameroonians have been screened, over 20 percent more than the WHO target of 70 percent.

This increase in screening, and the drop in the cases of tuberculosis, Wang said, is a result of the
increase in the number of tuberculosis centres, the availability of free treatment and media campaigns against the disease.

He called on people who have not been screened to make sure that they are tested, especially when they begin to suffer from persistent cough.

The coming crisis: Only the courageous acceptance by Paul Biya of what is now obvious will avert disaster

Editorial Comment by The Herald Newspaper

Even the greatest fool in the realm now knows that both Cameroonians and their foreign partners are overwhelmingly and vehemently opposed to Paul Biya’s plans to continue in office beyond 2011. Wasn’t that the unequivocal message of last month’s strike? We of this newspaper urge the president not, in his disappointment, to let his regime continue on its path of non-achievement. But to buckle up, change course, and hire a crack team to make the very best of these last three years.

Since the last fortnight there has been continuous talk of another government change that should be due any moment. Until last month’s strike this regular exercise of Paul Biya’s supreme authority through the appointment of friends and allies seemed alright.

But no more so since the strike which now forces the president to undertake a major overhaul of both the substance and methods of his politics in order to avoid a crisis that will compromise the last years of his regime.

The lessons of last month’s strike actually oblige the president to accept, if not embrace, a change of course. It is that change that should help Biya be more realistic in determining his new team.

And, should that be the case, a true and effective government wouldn’t be a matter of appointing to please friends or removing a banana just to put another in its place. This is, unfortunately, what some of the names that have been making the rounds in Yaounde amount to.

One thing is sure. Paul Biya is presently going through the kind of soul searching he has not known since his political career. The problem gnawing him is the prospect that he might not after all continue in office after 2011. Yet that is the stark lesson that last month’s strike brought home to him; twist and turn as he likes.

What is terrible is the fact that the president now stands alone and is going through this all alone. Biya feels a devastating sense of betrayal by his own regime. This feeling is reinforced by the president’s habitual distrust of his own aides.

It seems now certain that Paul Biya knows that those who took advantage of the strike to achieve political ends were not of the opposition but of the ruling CPDM.

The president also now recognises that the strike symbolised popular rejection of his policies, not least of which is the proposed constitutional amendment.

The third and perhaps most painful lesson of the strike was the president’s discovery that disagreement with his plans is widespread within his own regime, particularly among those who benefit from his favours.

Also, the Americans are pressing Biya to live up to a promise he voluntarily made to George Bush during his visit to the White House five years ago to retire in 2011.

No doubt the noose appears to be tightening around Biya and he now feels it. The president was openly sour and accusatory when he met with the government early this month. He was so austere that many believed that the much-awaited change of government had come.

Besides the unnerving feeling of betrayal by his own assistants who would willingly take advantage of some problem to nail him, Biya is now apprehensive of a new and dangerous enemy, ie the spontaneous action of the streets, ‘people power’, as we call it in this newspaper.

It is against this new danger that the president has let loose, hardly justifiably after the recent wave of arrests, an unforgiving military operation over the striking provinces to ‘seek out and deal with’ rioters, looters, etc.

It is regrettable that Biya has become a victim of his own policies and methods. In his 25 years in office, he has not brought economic growth and prosperity to Cameroonians, the overwhelming majority of whom live in abject poverty.

The Biya regime is also disrespectful of basic social justice. Biya favours in a permanent manner some provinces against others in the distribution of public appointments and privileges.

Paul Biya’s record on democratisation and good governance is dismal. Corruption is endemic.

To compound matters, the president is still not much concerned about being decent in his relations with the wide public, his party militants or his collaborators.

Paul Biya is distant and elitist. He does not receive people. He does not travel within the country and makes little contact as such with Cameroon or Cameroonians and how they live.

The president adopts the same attitude towards members of his ruling party. Unjust selection of grassroots leaders and election candidates in recent times turned the base of the party against him and created conflict among the party’s cadres.

Biya has refused to address that situation which will continue to cause him problems such as boycott of elections and instigation to riot during the recent strike, as revealed!

With his immediate assistants, Biya maintains a studied distance and unpredictability. He is difficult to approach, leaving aides to work very often in a vacuum.

The long term damage for Biya is that aides relate to him in fear and subservience rather than in loving loyalty. When they have to express their opinions on some matter, assistants are too cautious to be useful.

What we are saying here is that all taken together Paul Biya has become a huge burden on Cameroonians and his foreign partners. The sooner he goes the better will life be for all. This is what the strike brought home to the president.

It is no more a matter of choice if the president will avoid trouble for himself. This is where we suggest that instead of leaving crestfallen; Biya can still make up for failure by courageously adopting a u-turn in policies and style.

Only then, we believe, a change of government will make sense. Then it will not be a matter of pleasing friends anymore but even going across party lines to look for capable partners who can truly change things.

Paul Biya must fight to make the best of his three years left so he does not have a zero score card after 28 years of office in peacetime.

Those familiar with English history will probably recall the short but catastrophic reign of Queen Mary Tudor (1553 – 1558) which English historians easily believe to be the worst of any English monarchy.

Mary failed in everything she set out for. Not by any means an evil person, she burnt as many as 227 heretics at the stake in less than four years, in a desperate attempt to restore Catholicism that her father Henry VIII had repudiated in quest of a male heir. In the end not even England’s relations with the Vatican did she maintain!

Mary also lost Calais, England’s only remaining symbol of international power. Then she took ill with dropsy and while she was in agony Philip of Spain, her husband, who had never really loved her, left her. It was a marriage she contracted against popular opinion. The separation also affected relations with Spain, the leading world power at the time. Failure after failure was all she knew.

When at last Mary died at the young age of 44, it was the entire realm that heaved a great sigh of relief.

Surely Cameroonians deserve more in 2011 than the English had in Marian England in 155