Paul BIYA and the need for economic transformation of Cameroon

By

Elie Smith

eliesmith@yahoo.com

 

There is no time left for debates on whether Paul BIYA (1) won or lost the last presidential elections that took place in the Cameroon’s. 

 

This is because, even a blind person knows that without unorthodox means, that is vote rigging, BIYA would not have won.

 

Presently, what counts is how Paul BIYA will want to be remembered either when he leaves office when his current 7-year mandate ends or when the curse of God onto our ancestor, Adam, comes calling.

 

While waiting for either of the two eventualities to happen, Paul BIYA’s image and record in the minds of many Cameroonian is nothing to talk about. 

 

Nevertheless, he still has enough time to change or make some improvements on his soiled character and governance policies for the past 20 years that he has ruled Cameroon. 

 

However, this is on the condition that, he and his entourage are aware that nobody in the country holds them at heart.  As concerns the prospect of Paul BIYA leaving office when his 7-year mandate expires, there is no hope.

 

As there seem to be no prospect for BIYA to leave the helms of affair in Cameroon, one would have expected the other levers of the society to force him to consider plausible patriotic options for his country.

 

Sadly in Cameroon, the levers that would have led to peaceful democratic revolution which are the political opposition; civil society and the independent press are in a state of perpetual coma. 

 

Some might want to know the links that exist between political change and economic prosperity.

 

To those who question this links, it will be nice to refer them to all places in the world where economic growth is beneficial to the majority. 

 

There, they will discover that real multiparty democracy breed progress and economic prosperity. 

 

Even though Democracy alone doesn’t work out the miracles, hence it must be accompanied by clear cut open market economy in which government has lesser role to play. 

 

In Cameroon none of the latter do exist, it democracy is a cosmetic one whereby electoral results seldom reflects the wishes of the majority. 

 

The economy is in shambles.  To qualify for the new scheme of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, aimed at resuscitating indebted countries its authorities had to tamper with statistics such as the figure of its population. 

 

Cameroon just like most African countries have retrograded in the last two decades and it also have all the ingredients of a failed state that will soon be fraught with spiral of regionalo-lingustic and tribal warfare. 

 

Impossible is not Cameroonian is the slogan heard around Cameroon from its administrators and while this has been true in football, the areas where it has not applied is in governance.

 

Nonetheless the Cameroonian government should be taken into consideration with its slogan and therefore given the benefits of the doubt that, it will not soon become another Ivory Coast or the Democratic Republic of the Congo. 

 

Whatever the case it should not run out of our memory that, Cameroon is what it is today because of the assistance that it is still receiving from it former colonial master, France.

 

Any change of government or policies in Paris might propel Cameroon into chaos, as it is now the case with Ivory Coast.  This so because France’s influence in French-speaking Africa is melting by day (2). 

 

The wishes of France are no longer horses in its former colonies.  More so they no longer have the economic power and the old cold war deal, that left France total-control of French-speaking Africa is no longer valid. 

 

All powers especially the United States of America and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland want to have a say all over the continent. 

 

The African restaurant is no longer a la carte menu; it is now a self-service open to all.  In this wise, only the Samsons are sure to eat to their satisfaction. 

 

Here no biblical story of the type of David and Goliath is applicable.

 

This does not spell well for Cameroon and to most of the continent, for one should get ready for merry go rounds of troubles even in the most stable countries of the continent, eventually. 

 

Nevertheless, where it is slated to happen more will be in French-speaking Africa. 

 

For leaders in these countries and zone are those least prepared for political change and as far as the economy is concern, they are all dwarfs, because everything until date is done from Paris.

 

Cameroon is therefore in a crossroad and its leaders must decide and act fast especially in the area of the economic transformation.

 

A Herculean task

 

While there is no doubt that Paul BIYA might be taking Cameroon for his own tribal chiefdom, the constitution of the land, does not make any provisions on the time limits at the commands of power in that land. 

 

In addition, nothing seems to pressure him to even consider the prospect of living power.

Hence this enormous speculation on a man who has been governing for the past 20 years to change things economically.  Cameroon is really on a tightrope.

 

The political opposition is marginal and dominated by divisions with a crop of leaders who are all longing to govern. 

 

Notwithstanding, there is only one real representative opposition party in Cameroon; it is the Social Democratic Front led by John Fru Ndi. 

 

Nevertheless, the other ceremonial opposition political party leaders seem to be contesting the leadership of John Fru Ndi and his party. 

 

The reason behind this is simple; John Fru Ndi is from English-speaking Cameroon.  Hence, the elite within the majority sterile French-speaking opposition party leaders are ganging up against him and his party at the expense of the populace who are longing for change. 

 

Besides the lame duck behaviour of the political opposition, in normal countries, the civil society or the Press would have being playing a leading role clamouring for change. 

 

However, in Cameroon, the Civil Society is absent and what are called civil society are mere subsidiaries of the ruling Cameroon Democratic Movement party. 

 

The worse of all is that even leading intellectuals and University lecturers are not seeing anything bad with the present regime that has ruin the lives of the majority. 

 

In normal circumstances they would have stood up to fill out the vacuum left by the absence of a vibrant political opposition and a solid independent objective Press.

 

Theatrically some months before the 2004 mock presidential elections took place in Cameroon the cream de la cream fumbled. 

 

A group of University lecturers had the courage to write a petition in support of the regime that has brought untold hardship to the majority. 

 

It shows the ludicrous state in which Cameroon a country with one of the highest literacy rate in French-speaking Africa is currently. 

 

This only proves that education alone will not do the miracles, hence the call for economic changes. 

 

Perhaps when Cameroonians become richer through economic reforms, they might start thinking to right the wrongs and take their rightful place in Africa.

 

Presently the University system in Cameroon is in chaos; students are rioting regularly because of the poor conditions in campuses around the country. 

 

At the University of Buea, security forces recently killed the only English-speaking University of Cameroon 2 students. 

 

Yet none of the top lecturers were courageous enough to question the killing of innocent students whose democratic right to demonstrate are being violated.

 

Where are the University Lecturers who wrote the infamous petition in support of the ruling party and its leaders, Paul BIYA? 

 

What have they said following the killing and maiming of innocent students in Buea?  It is strange that, they have all shamefully taken to the woods with their belly well taken care of.

 

A calamitous Press

 

As for the Press in Cameroon, the situation is painful. 

 

The state owned media looks more like a Soviet era press full with propaganda articles and reports in praise of the regime, while in the independent Press, it is not better, it is disorganised and under funded.

 

The journalists who work with the Independent Press are generally poor, maltreated by their publishers who use their media houses more as bargaining chip and milking cow. 

 

Besides that, these same journalists are persecuted by the state.  Poor Press boys and girls of Cameroon, they are caught between the hammer and tong of the blacksmith.

 

Because of poverty, some independent media outfits in Cameroon are employed to fan tribalism and stage smear campaign against people their financiers do not like.  The Cameroonian Press is a kingdom of its own.

 

Nevertheless, some journalists in Cameroon are desirous of change, this in order to improve their image and profession in a bid to grow the necessary teeth to bite. 

 

In pursuit of that goal, they recently created the first working journalist association in the country; it is called the Syndicate Des Journalist Camerounaise, (SNJ). 

 

One will expect that the publishers of the independent Press in Cameroon will be happy with such developments.  That is not the case in Cameroon. 

 

For the pioneer chair of this Journalist association by name Jean Marc Soboth who is also editor of La Nouvelle Expression and Gilbert Tcomba a reporter with the same house, have just been axed. 

 

One would have expected that the axe wielder would be the state but the irony is that, it came from an unexpected quarter, the Publisher of La Nouvelle Expression a man who ran running battles with the state repressive police in 1990 and 1992. 

 

The oppressed has now become the arch oppressor of his colleagues and biting the hands that fed his glory and current wealth.

 

This oppressor/dictator publisher of La Nouvelle Expression Newspaper is called Mr Severin Tchounkeu. 

In the old days when he was considered a freedom fighter, he did gain the support of Journalist organisations such as Reporters without borders and the International Federation of Journalists respectively based in Paris and Brussels. 

 

He got all the support one can imagine when he was in difficulties with the regime of Paul Biya. 

 

Now they will be disappointed that a man through whom they thought the Press would grow in Cameroon has now become the cog to the wheel of progress of the profession.

 

Today he is against the progress of the Press in Cameroon; he wants it to remain the jungle where in he and his friends in the publishers/editor club would reign like lion kings, devouring the weak and meek reporters.

 

Jean Marc Soboth and Gilbert Tchomba’s only crime is that, they dare wanted to organise the profession in Cameroon.  Creating the enabling environment for Cameroonian journalist to be affiliated to the National Insurance scheme and be paid with pay slips regularly. 

 

In addition to improve the livelihood of the custodians of the fourth estate of power in Cameroon.  It is just what Mr Tchounkeu and co does not want to see.  They do not want trade Unions within their blocks.

 

In Cameroon, the publishers are too powerful and could throw away any reporter willy-nilly, for there exist no contract binding them, sadly this cow boy attitude has spread to the Independent electronic media of that country. 

 

Publishers do carry out their heartless actions because of two things protecting them, the immense poverty in the country, which oblige them to make journalists sing like canaries. 

 

Secondly, the publishers are untouchable caste of their own. 

 

Any abused journalist can not take the abuser to court, for wise as they all are, and in addition to their International connections, they will quickly circumvent their bad faith into Press oppression or victimisation. 

 

Through such stratagems they get off the hook easily and continue to employ, journalist and failing to pay not mention treat them with dignity.

 

The government can not defend victims because itself does have a clean record as far as Human rights violations, obstruction of freedom of the Press are concern. 

 

The credibility is absent; no International organisation will take the words of the government of Cameroon seriously.  Even if the government claims that a publisher is facing court charges for refusing to pay a journalist it will not be considered. 

 

So, the abuse of weak, poor vulnerable journalists in Cameroon by rapacious and gluttonous publishers will continue unabated.

 

It is important to point out that, Cameroonian journalists especially those working with the Independent press are regarded with scorn and they are even called all sorts of demeaning names. 

 

One such shameful name attached to the Cameroonian journalist and by extension, the whole Press Corp is (arata chop die). 

 

Most journalists hardly have a contract with the media houses for which they work for or are they even registered in any insurance schemes. 

 

In this regard journalists do have very lethargic positions vis-à-vis their employers who are publishers and they are always operating like mendicants, hence the quality of the Press in the country is doubtful and low.

 

This is where a real democratic government would have come in to help because, a good press is not only good for the people, and it is best for the government. 

 

Furthermore, if the economy were open enough businesspersons would have seen the press as lucrative businesses venture and thus invest in. 

 

By so doing creating jobs for the people and stimulate the growth of the economy. 

 

That explains why economic changes are rapidly needed in Cameroon and Paul BIYA must do it or faces the consequences very soon.

 

Cameroon is not Nigeria, South African, Senegal, or Kenya where the Press played a grand role to usher in a peaceful Democratic revolutionary change.

 

Hope

 

Well, this coming one might sound weird but there are signs nonetheless indicating that BIYA wants to change or improve things. 

 

He has done so by appointing Inoni Ephraim as Prime Minister, although he has no elective post. 

 

At such, there is already a serious flaw on the semi-Presidential democratic system governance of the country which requires that, the head of government should be an elected representative of the majority party in Parliament. 

 

This simply means that, Inoni who is not an MP; will be another marionette of BIYA. 

 

Notwithstanding and in keeping with the spirit of this article, the author will not want to run amok into premature conclusions; therefore, Inoni should be given his benefits of the doubts. 

 

Eventhough the author doubts strongly whether he will be able to reform Cameroon and put it back on the track of progress and prosperity.

 

However, it is claimed that, Inoni Ephraim who is a top civil servant is rigorous and unblemished. 

 

It is a rarity, especially when one takes into account the fact that, corruption and all sorts of vices are the hallmarks of top Cameroonian civil servants. 

 

This is a positive point about the Prime Minister, that the French language pan African magazine Jeune Afrique L’interlligent (3) was quick to bring up in an article in titled “Jour tranquilles à Yaounde” written by the magazine’s editor in chief Francois Soudan.

 

Immediately Inoni was confirmed into his job, he started to live up to his reputation, by showing what could in the main time be described as mere zeal, a character also seen in the early days of his predecessor, Peter Mafany Musonge. 

 

When Peter Mafany took over from Simon Achidi Achu MP as Prime minister in 1996, he used to make theatrical appearances in ministries and claimed he will fight corruption head on. 

 

Every body knows the final note of that hymnal of his. 

 

This author hopes that Inoni will want to do well and not to fall into the same pitfalls of his predecessor and his large unfulfilled promises.

 

What will be important though about all what Inoni is now doing is that, his actions must bear some fruits, this in order to give some hope to the majority poor and destitute Cameroonians.

 

It should not be another mere grandstanding to impress his boss and give unnecessary hopes to ordinary Cameroonians and International community. 

 

This is so because the ordinary citizen has had enough of all the empty promises of this regime for the past two decades now.

 

Broken Promises

 

The greatness illusion made by the BIYA regime was to kick start his reign with a sugar coated propaganda called Rigour and Moralisation.

 

Strangely, all programmes implemented by this regime for the two or more decades that it has held it stranglehold onto power in Cameroon has been the anti thesis of its propaganda. 

 

The disappointment has been immense to the extent that, the public is jubilant when things go wrong for the President of the Republic. 

 

In all this, one has to remember how Cameroonians supported Paul BIYA when he became the designated leader of country in 1982.  However, what is the cause of this change of heart? 

 

It is another topic entirely that will not be debated here.

 

Still concerning what has to be done in order to change and improve things; Inoni will not be the one to do the miracles, because he is only the lead musician with others drawing the strings behind.

 

Every one knows that the real pilot of the Cameroonian plane is Paul BIYA and not Inoni Ephraim.

 

Hence, if BIYA really want that his name should be rewritten in Gold in the minds of Cameroonians, he should read his own book: Communal Liberalism.

 

In it, he will find the very vices that he wanted to fight against when he newly took power in 1982 and which is today still crippling the country under his rule.

 

Revaluation

 

Apart from aquatinting himself with the problems of Cameroon, he needs to monster the necessary courage to carryout a complete overhaul of the system he has built. 

 

This simply means that, apart from fighting rampant corruption in the country, BIYA has to reduce state spending. 

 

That explains why, his appointment of a plethoric ministerial cabinet is a step toward the wrong direction.

 

Nevertheless, solutions could always be sorted out in order to contain large government spending in poorly managed state companies as well.  Because most inefficient state own companies veritable source of wastefulness.

 

There is also the strong need to control and scale down the presence of government in the lives of the ordinary citizens.

 

To this end, there is a need for the government of Cameroon to carry out a new evaluation within its large civil service in order to ascertain the real number of the civil service work force and know their individual potentials.

 

The evaluation of the proper number of civil servants and their potentials will help the government in two directions; redirect staffs to places where their potentials are needed, bring down the surplus staffs in the headquarters and lay off the excesses.

 

Another thing that BIYA needs to do during his 7-year term is to encourage massive education of Cameroonian in all aspects of the educational strata. 

 

These entails the training of Cameroonians not only at University levels, but also in areas of intermediate needs; in order to have a strong middle class and also a caste iron elite populace. 

 

The absence of this intermediate class or classes might be one reason why multiparty Democracy has failed to get a grip in Cameroon and elsewhere in Africa. 

 

A strong educated intermediate class or classes in any serious society are the vehicles and bulwark needed for the advancement of the rule of law and the foundations on which stands any democratic value systems.

 

Besides education, the government needs to invest in the health sector and fight hard to develop basic infrastructure such as roads, which will create jobs and make people less reliant on the state.

 

Infrastructure Development

 

While the construction of roads has multiple positive effects in the development of a country, some roads are more vitals than others are, because they could yield more economic dividends than others could. 

 

These roads are border/frontier roads that link the country to neighbouring countries.  This is so because border/frontier road will be the outlet for various locally produced goods.

 

One country that Cameroonian authorities have failed to help its industries to exploit the potentials is Nigeria, arguably the riches, and with a much more dynamic economy than any other country in the sub-region. 

 

Currently Nigeria is the second world importer of cement and in spite all the efforts of the government of Nigeria to construct new cement plants including the private initiative of the Dangote Group, the Nigerian market will still need more cement to sustain its growth and construction spree.

 

An opening and opportunity that the Cameroon cement producing company, “Cementcam” would normally have exploited. 

 

By exporting directly from it plant in Douala, Cameroon to Nigeria or constructs a new plant in the border towns of Manfe or Ekok in the Southwest province. 

 

However, because of the absence of roads coupled with the awkward economic and political policies, of the authorities in Yaounde, the Nigerian Golden opportunity is being denied to the budding Cameroonian industry a once in a life time chance to grow.

 

What the administrators in Yaounde fail to measure through their myopic approach toward enhanced economic ties with Nigeria is that, beside the economic benefits political windfall will be generated from such ties. 

 

It would appease the restive English-speaking regions more than any political gifts and solve the recurrent territorial disputes between both countries. 

 

This is because; people with greater economic interest seldom get involved in sterile politics that might ruin their investments.

 

Apart from Nigeria, other border countries such as Congo, Central Africa, Gabon, and Equatorial Guinea are places that, because of poor roads Cameroonian industries and populaces are barred from exploiting.

 

But how can the government of BIYA realise the grand projects of creating jobs besides constructing roads and fighting the corruption scourge in the country? 

 

 

Solutions / Privatisation

 

To realise these goals, the government of Paul BIYA needs to really be serious in its fight against mismanagement and fully implement multiparty democratic norms. 

 

By being serious with the fight against corruption and full implementation of democracy, Paul Biya will garner enough international support beyond the clubs and hideouts for dictators such as the Francophonie and France.

 

Furthermore, Cameroon has to become economic and growth friendly, this means that, the multiplication of hurdles and taxies levied on the creators of wealth must be stopped and be scrapped. 

 

The government of BIYA also has to create investment friendly climate in order to attract foreign investments. 

 

His government should not to be regarded as a cog to the wheel of economic progress. 

 

Above all, what will show that BIYA is serious will be the measures that will be created to show that his government is ready to give incentives to encourage business and how it is fighting against unemployment of its teeming youthful population. 

 

The other area in which this regime will be judged is in its drive toward privatisation. 

 

However privatisation might seem in the eyes of most, it is the only remedy to lift the economy and the lives of Cameroonians from its current comatose state.

 

By privatising, the government will be showing its resolve that, it really want to be less present in the lives of the citizens and also wants to leave economic actors operate with free hands and wills. 

 

Therefore the following companies: Cameroon Airlines, the Water Corporation, the Post Office, the Airports, the Seaports, roads and all the existing national companies that the government has been unable to managed deserve to be must be privatised. 

 

Sentiments should not be put in this affair nor tolerated, for it is a matter of life and dead for the country and its population.

 

Any properly carried out privatisation scheme could become the harbinger through which funds would be raised to fight against illiteracy for a start. 

 

It could also help improve the basic health care scheme, create a strong intermediate educated and economic class that are the vehicle and bulwark for any aspiring multiparty democracy to rest and rely on to survive. 

 

Besides privatisation, Cameroon could source out money for the state through many other ways. 

 

One way is by improving the tax collecting system in the country which has been erratic for quite a while, thus heaping a lot of taxes on those working and companies operating in the country. 

 

The result of over taxation has been the uncompetitive nature of Cameroonian goods in the International Markets. 

 

Tax collections in Cameroon might be very difficult especially that, the major part of the economy is in the informal sector and the fact that, there are no viable data to establish those who are eligible to pay taxes and where they really live in the country. 

 

More so, the absence of basic amenities or the fast deterioration of the existing ones does not encourage people to pay taxes that will be diverted into other purposes by the collectors or their bosses.

 

To increase the efficiency of tax collections in Cameroon there is need for the government of Cameroon to devolve some of its powers to the governors of provinces and local traditional chiefs who have long been used to rig elections to a much nobler job, applied tax collection. 

 

Utilising traditional chiefs will be two folds beneficial, it will help to know the real population figures within the neighbourhoods and help ascertain statistics with precision and restore the credibility of traditional chiefs.

 

These chiefs should not only be tribal chiefs but also all those who are heads of the neighbourhoods in all the provinces of the country. 

 

They will work in collaboration with the sub-district officers who will give them a card calibrated into 12 months of the calendar and within a month, it should be calibrated into weekdays. 

 

In doing so the government will show its concern for the poor masses through the introduction of instalment payment of taxes, owing to the fact that, most people will not be able to pay their taxes at ones. 

 

Such a collection scheme could also be a means to raise monies to fund retirement and health schemes for Cameroonian that are working in the informal sector of the economy. 

 

It will therefore require the government to work in collaboration with banks, Insurance companies, and the ministry health in collaboration with other private health outfits for this scheme to succeed.

 

By developing autonomous fund raising, the government will be making important strides toward self-sufficiency and the much talk about economic independence.

 

One other method of developing the economy of Cameroon that BIYA could think of will be the creation of Free trade zone along the entire coastline of the country.

 

Hence while the author does not pretend to hold the tenets of the economic advancement of the country. 

 

He however thinks that, any other suggestions that is not market free and business friendly will just be superfluous and not meant for freedom, democracy, and economic growth of Cameroon.

 

Elie Smith is a Paris based journalist and can be reached by e-mail through the following: eliesmith@yahoo.com/ elie73smith@hotmail.com.

 

Legend: -

-1) Paul Biya is president of Cameroon since November 6th 1982

-2) read the book: Comment La France a Perdu L’afrique by Antoine Glasser and Stephen Smith.

-3) read Jeune Afrique L’interlligent N°2310 of August 17th-23rd 2005