Recruitment Of Workers Into Cameroon's Civil Service

At the dawn of unification, the two states of West and East Cameroon, for the sake of providing equal opportunities to Cameroonians and ensuring equity in every aspect of life, adopted in matters relating to employment of civil servants, a system known as planification.

As the name indicates, the number of candidates to be recruited was plannified and the way of doing it was enshrined in the provisions of a presidential decree relating to public service exams "CONCOURS" in French.

Its provisions indicated the number of places per administrative unit and the number was determined by the population size of the administrative unit. Many places were given to administrative units with a big population and vice versa.

This system worked well and was accepted by Cameroonians. This assertion is evidence d in the fact that wrangling like the recent one in which the Prime Minister, the Public Service Minister, and the Director of ENAM were the main protagonists were taboo and consequently unheard of!

That even came on the heels of the "famous" Minlo Medjo massive recruitments of Betis into the national police force to detriment of job seeking Cameroonians who watched on, licking their lips like orphans.

Government action, which was hitherto typified by coherence, solidarity, teamwork, and respect of the hierarchy, is not characterised by cliques, tribalism, and fight for influence. This state of affairs is revolt provoking to any normal Cameroonians and particularly to the founding fathers of this country whose main preoccupation was peace and harmony.

The list of such aberrations remains inexhaustible. Immediately you finish reading this article, just take a walk to the nearest taxation service, and bother to find out the ratio of workers of Beti extraction to those from the country.

The phenomenon is most revolting in Douala, Yaounde, Bafoussam and in the Southwest (Buea, Lime, Kumba).I have been observing, like many of you probably, these injustices and hesitating to comment on them in wiring because I thought that some day, the inner voices of those popularising them would influence them to change.

But from observation, the germ is only eating deeper and deeper into the fruit. Proof of this is the fact that the Ministry of defence recently joined the queue. How could it be otherwise when on page 20 of Cameroon Tribune number 8592/4791 of Friday May 5, 2006 he advertised a competitive examination for the recruitment of trainee medics into

the Cameroon army and shrewdly excluded Anglophones west of the Mungo by not including English as a subject for the recruitment test as he did with the French language? Besides, recent recruitments into the army have virtually frozen the candidature of people of the queen's language west of the Mungo.

It is as if we are not longer considered patriotic enough to serve the fatherland in the domain of defence. Cases in which Anglophones' rights to employment have been denied them abound but the above few are edifying enough to advocate a return to the

plannification system-a plannification system w2hereby competitive exams could be conducted, corrected and the results published at the level of each province. Then candidates selected at the various provinces could then converge to a training centre if necessary.

In this way, the quota of places for each province would be respected particularly if each candidate competes only in his province of birth.The present dispensation, which adopted the "square peg in a square hole" adage, has failed. Over the years the "anglos"

west of the Mungo have receidivingly and recurrently been the sacrificial lambs to the joy of the candidates of the ruling tribe as if Anglos are simply a pack of numskulls devoid of "square pegs" good for the "square holes" of the prime's protégés.

Year in year out, scenarios are hatched (rumours say) to favour them; secretly recruited soldiers injected into the army via the presidency, Betis domination in the employment of temporary workers, Betis domination in the recruitment of policemen, Betis domination in all appointments to posts of responsibility both in the civil service and the forces etc.

In the light of these social injustices, no Anglophone should procrastinate over this issue. Let our honourable parliamentarians, ministers, chiefs, Fons, politicians irrespective of their party discipline cry fowl now and fight for legislation which will protest the Anglophones' share of the national cake.

Please Anglophone parliamentarians, don't lose sight of the fact that "party discipline" is a deadly drug in the hands of those ruining our future and that of our children. So shake it off and fight for legislation that will restore our confiscated rights in matters of employment.

If the dust of the HIPC completion point is cleared off our eyes, we may join other Cameroonians to perceive the fruits politicians are now vulgarising. If it came to pass, legislation, which caters for our interest, will be an indispensable legal tool in our hands to fight for our own share of the fruits.

So, our survival in the present dispensation is dependent on that otherwise the Anglophone west of the Mungo will remain in the present state of serfdom "ad-infintum".
Tobias Kiwiyi Wan Ndezenyuy

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Comments

[Che Sunday (Dr.)]

All of a sudden, Ahidjo is being revived. Oh! how far we've come only to realize we took the wrong turn.

[neba funiba]

This article hits the very core of the decentralization shenanigan that has been going on in Cameroon after Joseph Owona (massa yo) single-handedly plagiarized excerpts of the French constitution (the worst by western democratic standards) that was adopted by the so-called parliament in 1996 or 1997 depending on which piece of paper you are reading. Even before that, the right to equal treatment, ipso facto, leveling the playing field in Cameroon was decimated in 1972 when the ruthless, sacrosanct, self-serving dictator, Amadou Ahidjo, conducted a referendum (the charade) whose outcome began the internal colonization of West Cameroon. Fallout from that charade, internal colonization of West Cameroon, is exacerbated by the fact that the West Cameroon elite has been nothing but a despoiled mythomaniac and emasculated political dweeb, a narcissistic “belly politiker” on whose watch the marriage between the two ethnolinguistic factions that was supposed to be based on mutualism and symbiotic co-existence has instead become a sociopolitical and economic Abu Ghraib for the West Cameroonian.

[GEORGE]

Funiba,
Your ENGLISH IS TOO BIG FOR THE COMMON MAN. DID U HAVE A PHD IN ENGLISH FROM HE OXFORD UNIVERSITY? PLEASE MY GRAND MOTHER READS POSTNEWSLINE EVERY WEEK, DONT BREAK HER EARS FOR ME COS SHE IS ALL I HAVE GOT.
tAKE CARE.

[Ndiks]

Comrade Kiwiyi,what you just wrote has long been noticed since 1985 by the NEW SOCIAL ORDER.You are doing a good job to sensitize. But your optimism of a sudden change back to the Federal days or decentralization as Funiba said is a fleeting delusion.The current CPDM colonial voodoo machine has no intention to change or at least listen to les Anglo.You are already awair that West Cameroon is under a helot status perpetuated by would be Cameroun Brothers and sustained by local obsequious cohorts.Ambazonia republic saw this long ago.Don't count on MP's from your West cameroon.They are helpless but hungry men.The dynamic of change must come from us now.It would not be handed on a gold platter.Keep on with your sensitization.

[Tita Mofaw]

I think they Betis have a better qualification.The are better eductated and are really smart.Why do you think they are able to stay in power for so long.

We have ministers,PM and before, we actually controlled the national assembly and what did we do/have we done now?
We sit back and send motions of support. Do we really understand the meaning of a motion of support? In a a very simple sense,it means, we support your system of governance Mr. Paul Biya.Go ahead with you good work.

Why turn around and complain about a system that we spend all our energy supporting? Anglophones are really hypocrites. Paul Biya really need a long spoon to eat with les anglos.
hahaaaaaa

[Fritzane Kiki Hong Kong]

What is really surprising in this debacle of public examinations selection process, is the fact that Anglophones have always been serene and accept the verdicts of the results though rocked with corruption,discrimnation and tribalism.

It is clear that the big guns are always spellbound to deliberately fraud by bringing in their 'own candidates' who automatically 'must' pass the exams.Another delemma to those who don't have anywhere to go for help.The most disturbing issue is the financial expenditures encured by these lone candidates and some even go as far as 'bribing' those at the head of the selection process to no avail.

I beleive the most pertinent and essential solution will be to establish a regulatory body or mechanism to cater for these exams at the provincial level.I think with this there can be hope for the reduction of bribery,corruption and favoritism in the scrutinisation of candidatures,which has maimed the exams of its credibility and reliability.Atleast with this move Anglophones can be rest-assured of their rightful place and opportunity within the civil service.

Fritzane Kiki
Hong Kong

[DANGO TUMMA]

the only solution

BE YOUR SELF, AN INDEPENDENT FREE
COUNTRY OF OURS CALLED FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF AMBAZONIA. IS THE ONLY SOLUTION.
BLACKMAN HAS NEVER WORK TO FEED ANOTHER BUT HIS WIFE AND KIDS.
WE NEED ROADS, WE ALONE (6.5M< AMBAZONIANS HAVE TO DIG THE ROADS, WE MUST STOP PAYING OUR TAXES TO CAMEROUN, GOVERNMENT INSTEAD CONTRIBUTE THE MONIES FOR OUR NATIVE AUTHORITIES THAT WILL BE HEAD QUARTERS ALL OVER THE NATIONAL TERRITORY OF AMBAZONIA.
DESIGN AND BUILD OUR OWN POWER PLANT ,TO
POWER OUR CITIES, OUR OWN TELEPHONE . RAIL SYAYTEM FROM VICTORIA, THRU KUMBA TO BAMENDA
VIA MAMFE. . WE CAN DO IT IF WE STOP THINKING THAT THERE EXIST SOME ONE OUT THERE THAT CAN HELP US, , JUST OUR SELF WE CAN.
ITS CALL, DO IT YOURSELF.

[Ernest Chi]

Nice insights. For a second my usual calm demeanour was provoked into anger. I am trying to reason why Cameroonians are the way they are. Is it something to do with the lack of an educational system that promotes common doctrines that emphazise oneness?

We clamour for equality in trade and opportunities at the international front while right in our backyards we promote nepotism, favouritism and tribalism.

I am sure that even the above writers being Cameroonians if they succeed a post of responsibility, at some point, they will favour the people they know and who grew up in their backyards!

Just how can cameroonians fight this ill? First and foremost, i am against the French colonial system of writing competitive exams into professional schools. What are the functions and uses of universities if they cannot churn out a breed of individuals ready for the job market?

Big economies such as the US and England etc thrive on university brains where after leaving university, one is competent enough to get directly into the job market and deliver with distinction! We just waste time going around in a vicious circle designed to keep power concentrated in the hands of a few! I have a believe that we Africans design everything to be delibrately slow. Maybe we are just so dumbed that we have to go to a professional school to be indoctrinated on how to live the rest of our lives in servitude to the powers that be? A total pillage of the power of innovation and inventiveness as universities become places to teach people on how to sit and pass public competive exams into professional schools!

Such things as public exams into professional schools open up avenues for fraud such as people buying their way into such schools and a way for officials to have a stranglehold over selection processes! Things must be decentralized in Cameroon including recruiting people into the public service or such schools should be converted into universities and people apply through normal processes and be admitted on meritorous basis as a normal university application is granted! Employment thereafter should be a function of performance.

Jobs must be publicized and should be based on competence and experience. Region of origin to me is inconsequential. Like that we will learn to be competitive with one another in a healthy way without the need to have an uncle sitting up a laddar to catapult you past 10 rungs into the privilledge rung. Everyone should learn to speak French and English as such a criterion should be essential in job recruitment strategies in Cameroon without any exception.Those 2 languages are our identity and bridge towards understanding each other!

However, who listens to the voice of the people in Cameroon? I wonder if the people that hold post of responsibility ever listen to the common man's voice without considering them a threat and something to be incapacitated before their next words are uttered!!