Cameroonians die attempting to cross to Europe

They perished in their quest for pastures green alongside other African nationals when their boat ran out of fuel

By Ntaryike Divine, Jr. in Douala

Several Cameroonians are now known to have perished in an umpteenth futile attempt to sneak into Europe from North Africa . A Tunisian daily said Monday that in all 50 people including other African nationals died.

The exact number of Cameroonians involved in the incident was not known. The Tunisian Arab language daily, Assabah Ousbouii said 16 people out of a total of 66 survived.

According to details of the story that shocked the world Monday, 12 May, the illegal immigrants including “mostly Cameroonians, Nigerians, Kenyans, Tunisians and Moroccans” embarked on the perilous journey from the Tunisian coast. The 66 traveled aboard a
5-metre-long boat.

Unfortunately for them, the boat soon ran out of fuel on the high seas some 400km off the coasts of Libya and several nautical miles from the nearest Italian island. They floated without direction for five days. Assabah Ousbouii reported that initially, some 47 of
the passengers died of hunger, thirst or just froze to death.

Unable to bear the stench, the surviving passengers flung the dead into the sea. The boat apparently drifted back to starting point. It was discovered on a Tunisian beach around Monastir with three cadavers and sixteen people dangling between life and death.

World Bank `Destroyed Basic Grains' in Honduras By Alison Fitzgerald, Jason Gale and Helen Murphy

May 14 (Bloomberg) -- Fidencio Alvarez abandoned his bean and corn farm in southern Honduras because of the rising cost of seeds, fuel and food. After months of one meal a day, he hiked with his wife and six children to find work in the city.

``We would wake up with empty stomachs and go to bed with empty stomachs,'' said Alvarez, 37, who sought help from the Mission Lazarus aid group in Choluteca in January. ``We couldn't afford the seeds to plant food or the bus fare to buy the food.''

Honduran farmers like Alvarez can't compete in a global marketplace where the costs of fuel and
fertilizer soared and rice prices doubled in the past year. The former breadbasket of Central America now imports 83 percent of the rice it consumes - -a dependency triggered almost two decades ago when it adopted free-market policies pushed by the World Bank and other lenders.

The country was $3.6 billion in debt in 1990. In return for loans from the World Bank, Honduras became one of dozens of developing nations that abandoned policies designed to protect farmers and citizens from volatile food prices. The U.S. House Financial Services Committee in Washington today explored the causes of the global food crisis and possible solutions.

The committee examined whether policies advocated by the bank and the International Monetary Fund
contributed to the situation. Governments from Ghana to the Philippines were pressured to cut protective tariffs and farm supports and to grow more high-value crops for export, reports by the Washington-based World Bank show.

Haiti Pressure

The IMF pressed Haiti, as a condition of a 1994 loan, to open its economy to trade, Raj Patel, a scholar at the Center for African Studies in the University of California at Berkeley told the committee. When trade barriers fell, imports of subsidized rice from the U.S. surged, devastating the local rice farmers, Patel said.

``That is very odd,'' said committee chair Barney Frank, a Massachusetts Democrat. ``For anyone to have looked at Haiti at that time and thought that it was a functioning economy is a sign I think of ideology going rampant.''

``Of course they got it wrong,'' said Robert S. Zeigler, director-general at the International Rice
Research Institute, southeast of Manila. ``It will work if you're an extremely wealthy country and you
can import rice at any price. But if you're not an extremely wealthy country, I think that's very poor
advice.''

`Command and Control'

The bank's strategy -- summed up in a 1989 article by its chief economist for South Asia, John Williamson --became known as ``The Washington Consensus.''

``The focus of the liberalization was on lowering domestic food prices,'' said Mark Plant, the IMF's
deputy director of policy development in Washington. Governments' ``command and control'' policies
increased consumer costs and cut farmer income, he said.

Williamson, now affiliated with the Peterson Institute for International Economics in Washington, said in a May 9 interview that the ideas are still sound, though they may have been pushed too hard by the World Bank.

``My own view is that all those things are good for countries,'' he said. ``But I'm not terribly
sympathetic with the World Bank going in and laying down a list of things countries have to do.''

Highest Tariffs

Honduran agriculture stagnated through the 1980s because of subsidies and market controls, prompting
the bank to recommend economic changes, said Adrian Fozzard, the institution's manager for Honduras.

Rice farmers in Honduras were protected by the highest import tariffs in Central America when former
president Rafael Callejas took office in 1990 with the economy stalled. The trade barriers that helped the country meet more than 90 percent of domestic demand were dismantled under an agreement for a World Bank loan in September that year, allowing cheaper imports to flood the market.

The requirements for the loan included eliminating import restrictions and surcharges and reorganizing
the agricultural finance system, according to Eurodad, a network of 54 European non-governmental
organizations that was granted access to the World Bank's loan database to monitor loan conditions.

Prices Plunge

Prices paid to farmers fell by 13 percent in 1991 and 30 percent more in 1992, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization in Rome.

In August 1993, the World Bank advised Honduras to adopt a second round of economic changes as part of another loan, according to Eurodad. Those conditions included eliminating all price controls and cutting tariffs further.

``Remaining trade and price controls should be eliminated,'' bank officials said in a 1994 internal
report. ``The program of privatization of state silos should be completed; and the use of a grain reserve
for price stabilization should not be reinstated.''

The report's author, Daniel Cotlear, now a World Bank economist for Latin American and the Caribbean, declined to comment for this story.

The bank pushed the policies because food prices fell in real terms for at least two decades, and few
economists expected that to change, said Mark Cackler, manager of its Agriculture and Rural Development Department. Free trade and open markets remain the best path to competitiveness, he said.

``There are actually opportunities to reduce protectionism that have a beneficial impact,'' Cackler
said.

Tegucigalpa Rally

There now are 1,300 rice farmers in Honduras, compared with more than 20,000 in 1989, according to human rights group FIAN.

``The international lending agencies have destroyed the basic grains industry in Honduras,'' said Gilberto Rios, executive secretary of FIAN Honduras. ``The best land now produces things like African palms, which are not for consumption.''

Last month, thousands of activists, students and farmers blocked highways and rallied in the capital,
Tegucigalpa, to protest food prices and policies that made their country the most open to free trade in
Latin America -- and one of the poorest in the Western Hemisphere.

Per capita income rose by 0.5 percent a year from 1990 to 2004, one of the slowest growth rates in Latin America, a January report by the International Food Policy Research Institute found.

Not `a Boon'

``Trade liberalization does not appear to have been much of a boon to the Honduran economy,'' the
Washington-based institute said in the report.

In the Philippines, the World Bank encouraged the country, the world's biggest importer of rice, to stop
striving for self- sufficiency and instead to diversify into crops like tropical fruits which have
greater export value.

It approved a $60 million loan in 2004 to help the Philippines' Department of Agriculture become more
market- oriented, diversify crops and stimulate private investment.

A World Bank Group technical working paper in June 2007 said the government shouldn't stockpile grain to stabilize prices. Rather, it should keep enough on hand for disasters and social welfare programs. It also advocated opening the domestic market to competition by cutting tariffs.

Philippines Reverses Course

Philippine President Gloria Arroyo now says the country has to change course toward being able to feed itself.

``We must move toward more self-sufficiency, not necessarily 100 percent, but more self-sufficiency,
less import dependence on rice,'' she said last month.


African nations including Ghana and Mali similarly followed World Bank advice. In 1992, the bank required Ghana to cut tariffs on rice to 20 percent from 100 percent, leading to a tripling of cheap rice imports, Patel said.

In 2004, the bank advised Ethiopia to stop providing fertilizer and credit to small farmers as part of a
debt relief package, and it persuaded Indonesia to dismantle its rice marketing board, according to
Elizabeth Stuart in Washington, who is the head of relations with the World Bank and IMF for Oxfam
International, the U.K.-based alliance fighting poverty.

Now farmers are asking the Honduran government to reverse policy and provide cheap, long-term loans to buy the seeds and fertilizers they need to survive.

The government of Honduras yesterday asked the IMF to send a team to the country to examine how the rising food and fuel prices are affecting the economy and whether they should reconsider some aspects of a current economic program, the IMF said in a press release.

``We haven't seen the worst of it yet; that's to come,'' said Jarrod Brown, president of the Mission
Lazarus. ``They need help now.''

For Alvarez and his family, help can't come quickly enough.

``We want to go back to our land, it's all we have,'' he said.

Avoid High transfer fees, and help fight poverty by choosing the right transfer service!

By Hinsley Njila (a princereport contributor)

Many immigrants abroad have at one point or another used Western Union or similar services to send money to their families or friends around the world. Among the good things about these services; Western Union for instance is easy to access especially in third world countries, money can be sent quite easily (online, in-person etc), money can be picked up in minutes; their logo has bright yellow and other colors.

For all you who regularly use especially Western Union, take a second to see how just picking the right services can make an even bigger difference in the lives of your families, friends, communities, and above all help reduce poverty. No one can discount the great benefits of services like Western Union; they have breached the gaps in the complexities of currency trading markets, helped immigrants connect with their communities for decades now, and in so many situations have been the only reliable source of money that has actually helped to fight the severe poverty that exists in many of these communities.

Whenever you exchange currency through Western Union per say, you are simultaneously selling your own currency and buying the foreign currency. There are two main factors that affect your money transfer costs: the exchange rate and the spread. The spread is the difference between the bid price (the price you sell at) and the ask price (the price you buy at) of a currency pair, quoted in a decimal value called pips. Basically, the lower the spread, the better the exchange rate, and the less you pay in "fees" to your broker.

Pick up your last Western Union receipt and look at the price you sold your currency to Western Union for, then go to services like oanda.com or yahoo.com, and check the rate the currency was being offered on the global forex that day and you’ll understand what I’m talking about. Western Union, which incidentally is the most used money transfer service, has the largest spread of any company. What does this mean for you, your family, friends and communities?

Well the immediate impact is that potentially millions in your local currencies are being withheld from your families and friends every time you use Western Union’s services. Money that would otherwise go to start a local business, send a kid to school or maybe just help a family put food on the table is being taken by Western Union because of reasons of excess profits. Choose a different service with a lower spread even by a few pips and you’ll get more money to your communities without actually putting more money in your transaction.

In addition to large spreads, Western Union also charges some of the highest transfer fees of anyone. If you think for a second that Western Union which has no employees of its own in these countries, no offices and therefore no operating costs besides a few percentage points paid to the banks as an outlet, it’s pretty amazing what they charge for transfers.

Several years ago when I withdrew money from Western Union at a location in Cameroon, I found that the services were NOT transparent, cost-effective, convenient or secure. The lack of transparency was due to the fact that the person dispensing the money is usually corrupt, exploitative and would often keep a few hundred of the local currency because the receiver did not know exactly how much the exchange rate was at any given time. It wasn’t cost-effective because it was certainly expensive and it wasn’t convenient or secure because people who receive money through Western Union are usually not respected at banks especially in Africa. The scene is usually a very long line, with people waiting several hours at a time, no privacy, no respect and often with a rude teller left to attend to them.

You would think a multi-billion dollar company like Western Union that has spent decades exploiting poor people in some of the most depressing conditions around the world; would do a lot to help some of these people get out of poverty, but you’d be wrong. I have NEVER heard of a Western Union scholarship in any of the poor African or South American Universities, or maybe there is a Western Union water project I missed in Zimbabwe, Nigeria, Kenya or elsewhere. At what point does social responsibility kick in for some of these companies doing business in third world countries?

Well, make the right choice by choosing the right service to send your money, and I bet these companies doing business in third world countries will have no choice but to embrace socially responsible that helps alleviate poverty. Social responsibility, accountability, and profitability should be mutually exclusive. In the fight against severe poverty like what we have in Africa, every little ‘pip’ reduction counts and could potentially mean the difference in whether someone stays hopeful or dies in poverty.

Oil prices drop as dollar rises against euro

Crude oil fell on the global market by 2 US dollars to sell at 12.80 US dollars on Friday

Oil prices dropped more than 2 US dollars a barrel Friday on the international market as the U.S. dollar rose against the euro.

Light and sweet crude for May delivery on the New York Mercantile Exchange was down by 2.06 to 112.80 US dollars a barrel in electronic trading by Friday afternoon in Europe.

On Thursday, the May contract rose to a record 115.54 dollars as the dollar fell to a new low against the euro.

In London, Brent crude futures dropped by 76 cents to 111.67 dollars a barrel on the ICE Futures exchange.

A host of supply and demand concerns in the U.S. and abroad, as well as the depreciating dollar, had pushed crude prices up more than 4 per cent last week.

Investors have been buying oil contracts as a hedge against the weakening dollar, betting that rising commodity prices will offset dollar declines.

But on Friday, the dollar rose slightly, after falling to an all-time low against the euro, which peaked at 1.5982 dollar. The euro stood at 1.5830 dollar in Europe last Friday.

«Oil has been taking so widely its directional clue from the dollar that when the dollar does not move, oil does not know where to go,» Olivier Jakob of Petromatrix in Switzerland said in a report.

Traders were also keeping an eye on unrest in Africa’s biggest crude producer. A militant group in Nigeria said it had sabotaged a major oil pipeline operated by a Royal Dutch Shell PLC joint venture and promised further attacks on the country’s petroleum industry.

A spokesman for Shell had no immediate comment on any attack. Attacks since early 2006 on oil infrastructure by the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta have cut nearly one quarter of Nigeria’s normal petroleum output, boosting oil prices.

The militants say they are fighting to force the federal government to send more oil industry revenue to their areas, which remain desperately poor despite decades of oil production.

86bn French debt relief funds lying fallow at BEAC!

The funds accruing from debt relief granted Cameroon in 2006 by the French government, following the attainment of the HIPC completion point, are intended to finance development projects in the country

By Ojong Steven Ayuk in Yaounde

The funds already accruing from debt relief following Cameroons attainment of the completion point of the HIPC initiative are quite enormous and are destined for the financing of urgent development projects in the country.

But in spite of the market under-development of the country and the abject poverty to which the masses have been subjected over the past two decades, government still seems short of ideas as to what viable projects could consume the money and better the lives of Cameroonians.

And because of this, over 86 billion FCFA of the nearly 160 billion FCFA so far deposited in accounts at the Central Bank, BEAC, thanks to debt relief granted Cameroon by the French government following a contract signed between the two countries on 22 June 2006, is still waiting to be used, and this until the government presents viable projects.

So far the government has only been able to withdraw close to 80 billion FCFA to finance mostly
rehabilitation works in Yaounde and Douala, and a smaller part to pay salaries of contract teachers. In fact, over 11 billion FCFA (8 billion in 2007 and 3 billion in the first half of 2008) has been used for payment of contract teachers’ salaries.

Following the 2006 contract for debt relief with the French government, money intended for servicing of debts owed France is deposited in two accounts at BEAC. This money is ploughed back into the economy to finance development projects under the HIPC-C2D programme.
At a press briefing here on 15 April, the Director of the French Development Agency, Pascal Collange, said that by the end of the first part of the C2D programme that ends in 2011, Cameroon would have benefited some 352 billion FCFA from France.

Pascal Collange said Cameroon has so far respected deadlines for the servicing of her debts, to the tune of 70 billion FCFA a year.

He said through an agreement between the two governments, the civil society has been brought in to contribute in the follow-up of the execution of projects under the C2D programme. This to ensure adequate use of the funds and proper execution of projects.

According to Marc Bikoko, president of the syndicate of public servants (CSP), the role of the civil
society is to identify problems with the execution of the projects and ensure that corrective measures are taken.

THE GREATEST SILENCE: RAPE IN THE CONGO - by Lisa Jackson

by - Hinsley Njila

HBO television channel in the US (hbo.com), in the month of April 2008 has been airing a documentary - Lisa Jackson entitled ‘the greatest silence: rape in the Congo’. I watched the entire program with disgust of course, and I’ll recommend that everyone get a chance to watch the program and witness the damaging effects of poverty and bad governance in action. Because I watched the entire program, and have lived long enough and know a lot about Africa, I have gathered a few lessons that reflect what is happening all over the continent at this moment.

Read at your own risk.

For as long as I live, I will never get over images of Africans chopping each other’s heads off (especially helpless women and children) in Rwanda, Burundi, Kenya, Cameroon, Nigeria, Ethiopia, Congo, Zaire etc especially for some of the most asinine reasons imaginable to even a fly that’s left to digest a lot of these corpses.

I can understand a lot of discrimination, even though to me ALL discrimination should be criminal, but that which occurs in Africa which is often between people who cannot even tear each other apart if not for the languages they speak makes you think there’s some truth in what many think about Africans as being less of REAL human beings. I have a hard time telling the difference between Ivorians, Cameroonians, Nigerians, Gabonese etc, and I was born in Africa.

As much evil as I have seen and witnessed in Africa, I doubt I’ll ever be surprised in my life as to how far Africans will go to inflict pain on each other. Parliamentarians would take bribes and completely disregard the future of their country. But I'm not surprised because history tells us Africans for money sold their own children as slaves to white people.

In the HBO documentary, the translator makes a point to say that if a society cannot protect its women and children, then it’s a jungle. In my assessment, 90% of African countries are currently worse than jungles. You look at countries like Cameroon and Sudan where investment in women and youth is not only non existent but criminal if anyone attempts, and you find it hard to be hopeful about a system that is actively destroying its very own future. Paul Biya would much rather see the youth die a slow painful death, than do anything to help them for 25+ years. Bashir in Sudan would rather buy Chinese weapons, and bribe overseas bankers to hide his money while ordering his soldriers to rape and kill women and children in Darfur than help them out.

All the problems in the documentary would NEVER happen in such grand scale if Africa boosted leaders who thought more like humans than animals. I look at the likes of Biya, Mungabe, Mumbutu, Abacha, and you can go on until you hit 92% of them and realize exactly why the future for Africa is dangerously hopeless. Paul Biya would rather stay around and embezzle billions and destroy generations of Cameroonians while exerting his military powers than give them hope by building schools and allowing for free enterprise that generates wealth and end poverty. He would rather there be violence and for thousands to die and be psychologically scarred for life by pursuing selfish, asinine goals than leave and inspire the youth to take responsibility for solving problems that he created over the years.

The only way any of the problems in Africa would make sense to me is if somehow someday, someone successfully proves that Africans have less than a normal human size brain. In so many ways, I’m really hoping for that outcome…because when I saw 4, 11 etc years old girls raped in that documentary, I knew it couldn’t have been by monkeys. I saw a woman with elephantitis raped and killed, another about 60 years old and so on. Even some wild animals that live in the jungle like Lions, Tigers etc have been known to protect abandoned young children; human or order wise. The only way you wouldn’t care as a leader of a country in the face of all these is if your brain is not able to comprehend that these things cannot be ignored, and justified. If we cannot give the youth hope, and build a society that teaches them to give back and be better human beings then we'll fail without a doubt.

On my worse day, i'll be a better president that 99% of ALL current and 98% of former African leaders, especially since I'm confident I have a normal human sized brain that is capable of rational and critical thinking.

I hope this is proof that most African countries are ruled by Apes, at least they exhibit the cognitive abilities of Apes or lesser developed animals. We have have a responsibility to leave a better society than that which we inherited, unless you're the likes of Paul Biya, their militaries and the likes. God bless us all.

CEMAC call for modern and efficient services in Microfinance Only 677 of 1000 operate legally

By Harry Ndienla Yemti

The importance of the role of microfinance in the development
of the economies of Central African countries in particular and South Saharan countries in general need not be over emphasize. But unfortunately the sector is not properly organized. According to a study carried out by Central African Banking Commission (COBAC) in collaboration with the Bank of Central African States (BEAC), only 677 out 1000 microfinance establishments in the six countries of the Central African Economic and Monetary Community (CEMAC) operate legally after having been assessed financially and institutionally.

In order to free the sector from previous scam and reshape its destiny, experts in the sector met in Yaounde, Cameroon, recently to discuss the future of Microfinance. For three days, the experts discussed ways on how to best canalize the activities of microfinance establishments through a legal framework that will enhance the environment for their continuous growth. Philibert Andzembe, Governor of BEAC, emphasized that “the putting in place of a legal framework and cleansing of the sector appears necessary for, this sector has registered very strong expansion in its
activities”. He said by the end of 2007, the number of clients served by Microfinance establishments rose to over 1.3 million against 445,000 previously.

Javier Puyol, head of the European Union to Cameroon, underscored the fact that microfinance sector remains a veritable instrument for the fight against poverty. Reason why he enjoined the BEAC governor in calling for the putting in place of a friendly environment for the development of the sector. Consequently the European Union, he said will continue to support all measures aimed at promoting the sector.

Essimi Menye, Cameroon’s minister of finance who presided at the expert meeting saw nothing less than microfinance sector being an indispensable instrument to stimulate the economies of the sub region. Like the head of the European Union to Cameroon, Essimi Menye, considers microfinance as one of the best channels through which countries of the sub-region can get out of poverty. The minister of finance made it clear that in Cameroon the sector was given and will continue to be given an important place in the Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper.

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.

Cameroonian gay asylum seeker’s repatriation delayed

Pressure from Amnesty International forced a u-turn in plans by Swiss immigration officials to deport the Cameroonian homosexual as announced last week

By Ntaryike Divine, Jr. in Douala

A self-proclaimed Cameroonian homosexual who saw his asylum-seeking dreams recently dampened is now guardedly smiling. Pressure from the human rights watchdog, Amnesty International, has partially paid off and 18-year-old Anatolie Zali’s application for refugee status in Switzerland will be reconsidered after an initial rejection last week.

Zali was listed for deportation by the Swiss Federal Migration Office on grounds that his request for asylum lacked convincing substantiation. Until last Wednesday, he was due deportation «anytime.» But thanks to scaled up mobilisation by Amnesty’s Swiss branch, the repatriation is on hold.

In all, 500 protest letters from local members were addressed to the immigration office demanding the respect of Zali’s rights. At term, immigration officials buckled and decided to re-examine his application file. Amnesty last week announced satisfaction with the Swiss immigration decision u-turn expressing the hope Zali will eventually be granted the «life-saving refugee status.»

Amnesty hinted that the Cameroonian gay initially met hurdles Poverty forced him to represent himself in the asylum proceedings that were initially rejected. Zali told Swiss immigration that he fled his native Cameroon from fear of a jail term of between six months and five years in the country where homosexuality is punishable by law. When news of his stalled asylum venture broke, he then said he risked even more torture and physical punishment from Cameroonian police if he were deported.

He said he had a cousin in Cameroon who had been arrested because of his alleged homosexuality, and then related how gay inmates were usually molested by guards and fellow prisoners in Cameroonian jails.

Cost-cutting in operating government: Praiseworthy but demanding wholesale, thorough-going application

EDITORIAL, The Herald

The announcement last week by Ephraim Inoni of bold and enterprising cost-saving moves within the government are in every respect praiseworthy, late though they are. The next challenge is to make sure they work. And if they work that will redeem his lacklustre tenure. The arguments and timing are perfect, but rivals and enemies are permanently at work. Paul Biya has every interest in giving this new initiative all his backing. He himself must try for once to show exemplary leadership by admitting that the present state of the economy cannot truly sustain his ideas of a big president. His very expensive trips abroad, the balloon size of the government and the
excessive number of diplomatic missions abroad, etc. These all require drastic trimming.

Outside their fellowship value, the monthly meetings of members of government are of little use. It does not formulate or discuss policy. And questions are not usually asked on reports that select ministers present on aspects of their work.

But the March-end meeting that took place last week was surprisingly different. Ephraim Inoni broke free of the humdrum of his office and announced ground-breaking policy initiatives!

In one fell swoop Paul Biya’s PM announced an end to the purchase of new vehicles, a scrupulous review of public expenses, and a wholesale downward revision of the official price list of supply items.

Furthermore, ministers would have to limit their foreign travel, and when they do so their entourage must also be kept to barest minimum.

These measures were in a bid to cut down drastically on the running cost of the government.The measures were déjà-vus. Peter Musonge, Inoni’s immediate predecessor had tried without much success to urge Biya’s deeply corrupt and free-wheeling regime to reconsider its wasteful practices.

There is no reason why it took Inoni so long to try to resume cost-cutting in government, a very standard management objective, given the opportunity he had to work towards debt-cancellation (in the HIPC initiative) shortly after he took office in December 2004.

Better late than never, though. The measures now appear more opportune with the government sweating it out to bring down the cost of living. The measures were instantly hailed as easily the most significant policy initiative of Inoni’s lacklustre tenure, “if only he will stay long enough to implement them.”

During last week’s ministers’ meeting Luke Magloire Atangana Mbarga, trade minister presented his report of a losing battle he is having with local suppliers of foodstuffs and essential commodities.

For most of the items the price reductions are insignificant. Even the salary increase will turn out
to be insignificant for the lowest earners. It is easy already to see swelling public anger arising from a sense of disappointment.

To strengthen the purchasing power of civil servants a better approach probably would have been to grant a far greater increase at the bottom and gradually decrease it on the way up towards the topmost salaries. That approach would also address the important problem of the wide gap between the two ends of the salary scales.

On price reductions, the government should have demonstrated its goodwill by making a sacrifice on the cost of fuel which is an important input factor in the cost of all goods and services.

For food items like rice and fish, a suggested approach would be to negotiate prices but with big
foreign suppliers. Some countries like the US have even given Cameroon rice as part of their aid. Isn’t this the time to ask for more such aid!

The US and Canada actually destroy food items in order to keep their market prices stable! Couldn’t we, now in difficulty, have the humility of asking for the free gift of their excess production – in grain and protein?

By and large the problem of increasing prices is only the direct consequence of demand and supply, which we learn from basic economics – no more. The answer is to provide more so as to lower the prices.

It is, of course, clear that we in Cameroon, have little if any influence in the control of many items.
But the catch is that as a country we have not worked hard enough to provide those food items we could easily grow in more than sufficient quantities.

The reason is pure neglect. It will never be clear why Paul Biya deliberately left to die all those
integrated rural development projects initiated by his predecessor, Ahmadou Ahidjo Ahidjo had it clear that it was important for Cameroon to be self-sufficient in food production.

Ahidjo tagged his agricultural policy the ‘green revolution’ and organised a five-yearly agricultural
show to promote this praiseworthy endeavour. But Biya killed it all.

To reverse the present trends, the government must start a vigorous agricultural policy. There is plenty of fertile land all across the country, the people are hard-working and there is good dependable market for the export of excess production.

The government should order or seek aid of cheap genetically modified animal feed to boost animal production. In a fraction of the time of traditional methods of grazing and wasteful transhumance, cattle can be raised and plenty of cheap beef placed on the market.

Cost-cutting and the elimination of waste are an integral part of efficient management. For its own
sake it is desirable. Now it is urgent in order to free up funds needed to pick up the 8 billion fcfa
Essimi Menye says the increase in salaries will cost, money which was not budgeted.

Inoni has every reason to make sure this new policy works. The arguments are strong and the time seems ripe. He should get to work without delay before his enemies and rivals figure out how to frustrate him. A report on how much will be saved might also help to sustain the interest of the president, his unpredictable boss whose support is never so sure.

For cost-cutting to succeed and have a long-term effect it must be thorough-going and become part of the management habit of the entire public sector, which it is presently far from.

It should not be something limited to some sectors or people. Inoni as head of government must be an example but should also be seen as being exemplary.

It is regrettable that Paul Biya refuses to lead by example whereas it is example that truly defines
leadership. The president’s lifestyle is nothing short of a scandal in the reckless use of public funds for a country which has severe poverty problem.

How does Paul Biya justify to his own conscience that he and his family must hire a wide-body
intercontinental aircraft to fly them several times a year abroad at the staggering cost of about 1 billion fcfa per journey?

The size of the government is too large and Cameroon’s diplomatic apparatus is too vast. This is senseless megalomania that is bleeding a miserable country to death.

These and many more areas of cost-saving could free substantial funds to be used to fight inflation and stimulate productivity, and give a whole new boost to our poor ailing country.

The masses are more likely to bear their pains patiently when they see that the government is itself embarked upon a thorough-going campaign of waste control and a prudent lifestyle for its officials up to the highest.