By Kini Nsom
The socio-economic and developmental change Cameroonians expected when President Paul Biya came to the helm of the state in November 1982 is yet to come. No doubt many changes have taken place but development has remained stunted.
Economists have identified lack of effective planning by the New Deal regime as the bane of development. When the New Deal government come to power, the five-year development plan instituted by the regime of late President Ahmadou Ahidjo as a matter of policy was relegated to the background.
And since any government that fails to plan for its development policy plans to fail, Cameroon's development initiative began to hit the rocks. The cankerworm of corruption installed itself in the country with government officials and civil servants lining their pockets from the public till.
Thus, money that was allocated for development projects from the State budget was diverted into private pockets through acts of corruption and the embezzlement.That is why Cameroon was plunged into protracted economic crisis in the mid 80s.The crisis went the whole gamut and gave Cameroon the status of a bankrupt State.
The Biya government that had earlier declared that it had nothing to do with the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, went to the Bretton Woods, begging for the structural Adjustment Programme, SAP, therapy.
As the country bowed to the SAP therapies that did not work, the greatest victim of the economic asphyxia was the country's development.The construction of roads, schools and hospitals came to a stand still. Competitive examinations for the recruitment of youths into professional schools were suspended. Unemployment skyrocketed and unemployed youths sought solace in banditry and 'con-mania'.
The MP for the Donga Mantung constituency in the Northwest Province, Hon. Awudu Mbaya, once qualified the New Deal reign as an era of abandoned development projects and unfulfilled promises.The MP that took Parliament hostage for a few minutes and cited the Hotel des Finances in Bamenda and what is today known as Immeuble de la Mort in Yaounde as examples of abandoned buildings'
The MP expressed regret that many years after President Paul Biya promised to personally supervise the construction of the ring road in the Northwest Province, nothing has been done. The former MP for the Boyo constituency, Hon. Paulinus Toh Jua believes that lack of adequate road infrastructure has stalled Cameroon's development in many respects.
It is often said that where a road passes, development follows.That is why enclave areas like Akwaya in the Southwest Province and Furu-Awa in the Northwest Province have continued to be in the doldrums.The MP for Akwaya, Hon. Paul Ayah Abine has been ringing the alarum bell about the plight of his area in vain.
The only road that leads to Akwaya goes through Nigeria. The road is impassable during the raining season. One administrator recently drowned in River Katsina-ala as he made a desperate attempt to go to Fura-Awa. Some apologists of the regime might have qualified Nigeria as an aggressive expansionist neighbour but the truth is that the government neglected the area for a very long time.
Some roads have been constructed since 1982. But in the present dispensation in which the national budget has more or less quadrupled, the Biya Regime cannot get a development pass mark. Cameroonians expected the persistent increase in taxes to trickle down to them in the form of road infrastructure and other development projects.
But of the 50,000 km of roads that Cameroon has, only 5,000km have been tarred. Only 19.000 km of earth roads are taken care off by the government. Local communities and councils maintain as much as 26.000 km of roads. The Mamfe-Ekok Road that could enhance inter-border trade between Cameroon and Nigeria, is still begging for construction.
Although agriculture is the engine of Cameroon's economy, production of cash crops has continued to dwindle over the years. The low production of coffee and cocoa has greatly affected Cameroon's balance of trade, because the country has little to export. The subsidies that government use to give farmers was long abolished.
Besides, corruption has come into play, thereby diverting the funds that are allocated for rural development.A study conducted in the Ministry of Agriculture in 2004 indicates that for every FCFA 100 allocated for rural development only FCFA 5 reached the target. FCFA 95 went into private pockets through shady deals.The Association for the Defense of the Collective Interest of Citizens, ACDIC, that did the study said the Ministry is stinking of corruption.
In the health domain, the New Deal claims to have done very much. There are now 12 provincial hospitals, 178 District Hospitals, 155 Divisional Hospitals and 2447 integrated health centres. This is what the regime considers as its best. But critics hold that that best is not good enough for the health care of a population of over 18 million inhabitants. Many of the hospitals created lack personnel and drugs.
The same situation holds sway in the educational domain. Many of the schools government created lack basic infrastructure and teachers. In the face of such a situation, there are fears that Cameroon may not meet the UN Millennium Development Goals that calls for Universal primary education for all by 2015.
Government some what pledged its commitment in executing reforms in the health and educational domain as stipulated in the Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper, PRSP. Much still remains to be done even after Cameroon reached the completion point of the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) Initiative in April 2004.
Some observers have warned that Cameroon can only win the war against poverty and socio-economic underdevelopment if it succeeds to clip the wings of corruption in the country.
The US Ambassador to Cameroon, H.E Janet Garvey puts it in very unequivocal terms that corruption siphons huge sum of development funds into private pocket and undermines collective wellbeing. The current Human Development report published by the United Nations Development Programme, UNDP, indicates that Cameroon is a country in which poverty and under development triumphs.
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