Chief Ephraim Inoni’s 100 Days In The Star Building:Promising Start, More Mountains To Climb

By Francis Wache

When, on December 8, 2004, the long-awaited post-presidential election cabinet reshuffle was finally announced, the man named to head that government took most political pundits by surprise. Although not a political dark horse, Biya's choice of Inoni stunned most observers because he came from the same tribe as his predecessor, Peter Mafany Musonge. However, long before the cabinet shake-up, it was widely whispered that Musonge would go. He had stayed on for a record eight years and had to go.

Besides, time had taken its toll and, worse, there had been panic when Musonge collapsed in public and had to be rushed to the hospital for emergency treatment.

He should have been replaced after that but the crucial presidential election was next door and Mr. Biya did not intend to rock the political boat.Shortly after the announcement, jubilant crowds surged to Inoni's residence where the new PM was feted with shrieks and ululations of joy. The feasting did not last long.

As soon as the handing-over ceremony between the outgoing Musonge and his successor, Inoni, was over, the work began for the new PM.He began by visiting some Ministries where he discovered that civil servants, particularly those at the top, sauntered to their offices without respecting punctuality.

Probably to signal that he meant business, Inoni sacked - on the spot - two of those he found absent from their posts and instructed that, henceforth, gates would be closed and those not on seat would be considered as having stayed away from work.

With Inoni seemingly goading them out of stupor, public servants are, at last, rousing out of their debilitating slumber. Will it last? A big question.

Generally considered a workaholic, Inoni has displayed a stupendous capacity for sticking to the task. In the One Hundred Days Inoni has been the tenant of the Star Building, he has embarked on a flurry of activities: cabinet meetings, dismantling a network of ghost civil servants, disbursing HIPC funds, holding working sessions with national and international stakeholders.

This whirlwind of activity is, to a large extent, just a pointer to the Inoni style. To be convincing, he must maintain the momentum and dissipate the skeptics in some quarters who argue that these are theatrical selective acts devoid of substance.

Today, March 18, marks the first One Hundred Days of Chief Ephraim Inoni's stewardship as Cameroon's Prime Minister, entrusted by Mr. Biya to carry out his campaign slogan of "greater achievements". Today marks a beginning as well as an end.

A beginning because, from now, Inoni will have to convince cynics that that slogan was not just a matter of hurling dust into the eyes of gullible Cameroonians. Today also marks an end because the honeymoon is over. Public opinion will thereafter be critical of the Prime Minister's every move.

For PM Inoni to succeed, he will have to tackle some anachronistic practices. For instance, the fact that after every senior appointment, the beneficiaries have to return to their villages for orgies of festivities is, to say the least, obscene. The message they send is that we, too, have now been hoisted to the plum tree and its our time to eat.

Needless to say, they then use every available opportunity to plunder the State plum tree and share with their fellow villagers. The Prime Minister must put an end to this obnoxious practice.Of recent, the number of intellectuals and professionals fleeing our shores for other lands has reached alarming proportions.

In fact, it can be said that Cameroon is suffering from a brain haemorrhage. To make the best use of these human resources, Inoni's government should not only stem the tide but also take vigorous measures to woo those who have left, to return. There are hordes of them in the Diaspora, who, with an enabling environment would sacrifice the lure of lucre and return home in order to put their talents at the service of the nation.

The government could envisage dispatching a delegation (preferably led by Inoni himself) to say, the US, France, Great Britain and Germany. In the bid to build this nation, all hands must be on deck. The policy of exclusion, where only avowed CPDM bigots - sometimes with dubious or approximate abilities - are entrusted with responsibilities, should be considered a thing of the past.

There are, indeed, Cameroonians who are indifferent about political affiliations but are patriotic enough to serve in their fields of specialisation, if given the opportunity and the impetus.Corruption was the bane of pre-Inoni governments. It will continue to be his headache. The point is that corruption has become ubiquitous in Cameroon. It permeates all strata of society.

It is, indeed, a cankerworm that has gnawed deep into the fabric of our society. In combating to curb or extirpate it, Inoni will need to implement novel and innovative measures. Slogans, alone, haven't helped. They won't this time around.

So far, the Inoni dragnet has succeeded in trapping only small fry; the sharks are still splashing merrily around the murky corruption. Will Inoni's government go the whole hog and indiscriminately book all miscreants? That is the question burning most lips.

To entice investors to Cameroon, Cameroon's reputation as one of the most corrupt nations on the globe must be dismissed. By vigorously crusading against corruption, Inoni could rebuild confidence within the business community and trigger a renewed interest in Cameroon's economy

It would, of course, be naïve to imagine that the ill would just evaporate. Still, there should be palpable evidence that the fight is on.Perhaps Inoni could borrow a leaf from next door Nigeria, where the authorities are waging a merciless battle against and, reportedly, scoring successes.

According to Nigeria's Minister of Finance, to wrestle with corruption, you have to admit that it exists. Then, craft solutions to eradicate it. And, finally, implement those solutions. Sounds easy?  True, the fight against corruption often sounds like gathering wind in the hollow of the hand. Yet, given the stakes, it is a task that must be done if the PM wants to get Cameroon out of the prevalent socio-economic malaise.

Cabinet meetings should, henceforth, become a regular feature of Inoni' s government. They should not be rituals where communiqués are issued. Rather, the Prime Minister should use these sessions to brainstorm with members of his team about the intractable ills plaguing the society.

Differently put, these sessions should not hold on an adhoc basis. Instead, it should be adopted as a style of governance, holding on a regular rather than sporadic basis. Cabinet meetings with supposedly some of the finest brains the nation can boast of, should be the ideal moment when issues are raised, discussed and debated.

The government as it stands is indisputably bloated. It should be trimmed - both for coherence and efficiency. There is a need to fuse some of the Ministries. Clearly, the manner the government is currently structured leaves room for untidy overlaps. For instance, there is the argument in some quarters that you could have a Ministry of National Education with the Higher Education, Basic Education and Secondary being Departments to be headed by Directors.

Some Ministries are sheer replicas of others.There is also the problem of wanton trampling of the citizens' human rights characterised by protracted detentions, arbitrary arrests, brutality by the police and army, harassment of journalists and molestation of those who dare hold opinions that differ from those of the ruling class.

Above all, the Inon government should ensure that the common people are provided with the basic necessities that will lift them out of the grinding poverty and misery: water, electricity, housing, roads, medical care and quality, affordable education.

Admittedly, these are daunting challenges but if Inoni wants to be remembered by History not in a footnote, he must, willy-nilly, muster the willpower, courage and the wherewithal to launch and wage a relentless war against these ills.

Unlike Musonge, an outsider from the private sector,who spent prodigious hours working to well-nigh exhaustion, poring over the minutiae of statecraft, Inoni, a quintessential insider of the system, doesn't need to be diverted by claiming to be learning the ropes. For years, he has mastered the burning 'dossiers'. In addition, he has worked closely with the Head of State as Assistant Secretary General in the Presidency, mastering Cameroon's labyrinthine bureaucracy. Thus, if Inoni has the will, he should speedily set out solving rather than dissecting problems.

Moreover, Inoni must remember that the microscopes of international monitoring organisations are focussed on him and that, at the end of this year, they will come out with their assessment. They include, notably, Amnesty International, Transparency International and the US State Department.

In this issue, The Post revisits and focuses on those One Hundred Days - and the challenges ahead.

Comments

[A A Ticha]

Kudos Messrs Wache, Atatah, Nsom, Manga, Manyong, Pefok, Mbom, Nana, Mbunwe; the ladies Tambe N, Azangeh, Ejang and all. your online version is incredulously promising!

The 5 franc question has been so daring. About the Inoni ascendancy, maybe we need to give him more time to see if the weeds will not try to outgrow the mustard seed he is planting in good faith. Our country seems to be so full of people who abhor positive change, for fear of exposure. The Aristocratic landlords will always want to keep their unkempt land even if the working class tenants showed proof of their ability to keep it tidy. It is a fundamental downside of capitalism which we have copied and pasted to our system with expired ingredients. And now, that it is a bit confusing who really calls the shots (because we are never certain about how strong the King of the forest is), how much weed will this wind of change uproot out of Central Africa's garden? That could be another 5 franc question.

You guys deserve an African award, for using - perhaps -so little to churn out so much.

Thanks for being one of my main sources of info as I make more meaning of conceptual thinking in the South.

[Gerald]

Biya and Inoni should know by now that Cameroonians are not stupid and immidiately put an end to this drama in the name of 'Grand Ambitions'. How do you expect civil servants to be assiduous and duty conscious when the head of state spends most of his time out of the country rather than in his office attending to important state duties? The only time most Cameroonians see the president is when he is been escorted to the Nsimalen airport by a litany of state officers (abandoning their posts) on one of his incessant trips abroad. How many times have state ministers abandon their offices for months in the name of campaigning for the CPDM. Civil servants are mainly operating in a 'laisser faire’ system that Biya himself initiated. This is a man who in his reign has never separated the state from his political party and his private life. Whenever he is making a private trip abroad, top state officers must accompany him to the airport and whenever there is a CPDM rally anywhere in the country, it is a big state event.
The funniest part of it is the much heralded fight against corruption.They started by naming a government which they claim is tailored to address the pressing issues facing Cameroon.Can somebody tell me how a country of only six state universities, a couple of private institutions and a paltry number of primary, secondary and high schools has up to three ministries in charge of education. Can you also tell me the difference between the ministry of Environment and protection of nature and the ministry of fauna and forest? Instead of streamlining the already superfluous cabinet, Biya is busy creating avenues for his cronies to fill their pockets in the name of ' Great ambitions' and the result will be billions of state funds unaccounted for. This is a man who asked for ‘proofs’ when Cameroonians started crying about corruption. Inoni is busy asking some civil servants to go for retirement when he has people around him who have been Generals before some of us were even born. Any genuine intention to initiate change in Cameroon should begin from above. Inoni and his ministers should start by declaring their assets. As usual, the so called fight against corruption is aimed at a minute and vulnerable group of the corrupt elite while the real culprits continue to empty state coffers. It will interesting to know what will happen to the 1 billion plus CFA franc that has been recovered from corrupt state employees. So Mr., INONI, we are already used to this drama. Your predecessor started it and you know what happened to him. Running around ministries in Yaoundé would not solve the endemic problems of poverty and unemployment that have been foisted on Cameroonians by Mr. Biya and his acolytes (including you). The root causes of these problems are corruption, embezzlement, tribalism, nepotism just to name a few. If you genuinely intent to institute change, then start from above instead of victimizing poor civil servants who are mainly surviving the ‘Biya way’.

[Aminde Nkem Atabong, Cyprus]

Biya is simply trying to be smart and to make the outside world know that he has anglophone cameroonians at heart which is virtually wrong.This is an irony because he hates anglophone cameroonians and if he could make a better decision, he should have prefered all anglophones be wiped out and francophones left to run the country.All he has done is put another stooge like he did to Mafany Musonge who was a big stooge. How can you be called the Prime Minister and Head of Government in a democratic country like cameroon but you can't make any decision in the absence of the president.Take an example, when the Moungo bridge collapsed, God being so kind Biya wasn't in the country, it took the government a few weeks to try and resolve a solution to the crisis that made the prices of many basic commodities go up.Mafany had to wait for the instructions from the president who was out on one of those his mischievous trips to europe.If Mafany wasn't a stooge in the government, he could have made a big move to render southern cameroonians helpless of the situation but he was waiting for his father or his mentor Biya to come back from his luxurious trip. Now where is he? he is back home is Bokova his village nursing his wounds that he had during his mandate as a stooge(sorry PM).Inoni is no better than Mafany because they are all birds of the same feather flocking together.We should not look upon Biya as a god just for post.The same thing was in the CRTV where many anglophones who did not heed to Papa Asimba's ways had to be suppressed but now, someone with charisma and better eduucated and not a tribalist has come in replacement of papa asimba and he is ready to mend the wounds of the anglophones evebthough our useless and most corrupt minister of communication does not support the idea of anglophone promotion in CRTV.Someone should please brief me if cameroon is actually a bilingual country or french country." Oh poor anglophones i pray God guides us successfully to achieve our aims". Inoni is there to serve as ping-pong and probably a doll or a remote control for Biya.I pity us and hope we fine solace somewhere.If Inoni wants to back his Premiership(not Barclays premiership in England), then he should stand firm as he has begun and don't slow down, and moreso, he should also be given the right to sack and replace corrupt ministers, but i doubt if he could ever touch some ministers like Ferdinard Leopold Oyono, Marafa Hamidou Yaya, Ahmadou Ali,Polycarpe Abah Abah amongst others because these are Biya's Hench men or his close collaborators with whom they join hands in stealing cameroons little money.