Tiko Council elected officials undergo training on roles and responsibilities

Elected officials of the Tiko Council went through a training session organised by the council to implant in them the skills needed to enable them carry out their roles and responsibilities. This took place on Tuesday August 25, 2015 in the confines of the old Tiko council premises. 

Instrumental in the realization of this initiative was the participation of facilitators from the Kumba City Council and from Buea. These facilitators according to the Lord Mayor of the Tiko Council Chief Mokondo Daniel were brought in to permit the councilors to benefit from their expertise and know how.

According to Mayor Mokondo Daniel, the raison d’être was obvious. According to him “there is no school where you train councilors or Mayors. So trainings like these are very necessary to impact in them some capacities which will make them to be capable of carrying out their assigned tasks as municipal councilors.” The mayor explained that such an initiative was even belated as it was supposed to have taken place earlier. “It is taking place only now because when we came in we met other things like the cinquentenaire and struggling to stabilize the council. I am happy that it has been successful as it has permitted them to see things that they didn’t know existed and I think it’s a worthwhile challenge.“

On specific problems that the workshop was coming to touch the mayor said no problems attracted the workshop but he hoped that it will make the councilors know better how to come up with things like the drawing an Administrative Account, managing or resolving conflicts and generally strengthening them and giving them much needed and appreciated training.   

Mayor Mokondo further said one of the most important uses of the workshop was that it would help check excesses on the part of Supervisory Authorities. “Sometimes when some issues come up, the supervisory authority draws your attention to the point of law and at times you are also pushed to see that it is not good to delve into issues which will contradict the council vis-à-vis state institutions because all of us have to work as one person to see that the development of our country moves forward.”

One of the facilitators Ekine Samuel Ossa, the Director of Administration of Finance at the Kumba City Council summarised it in the following manner: “our mission here is to help the councilors of the Tiko Municipality to understand their roles and responsibilities. The kind of councilor that I met in Tiko today is a mixed breed. There was the intelligent breed and the averagely intelligent breed but generally I think that Tiko has a good cream of councilors. Judging from councilors that we’ve met from other areas I think Tiko is up to date. The councilors are that the councilors are excited in knowing their roles and responsibilities.”

This facilitator also noted that there was too much interference from the supervisory authority. “Our role of supervision in this country is very high. Our definition of a council is that they have administrative and financial autonomy but the autonomy is not effective. I hope that after this training, the councilors will know how to manage the excesses of their Divisional Officer.”

On problems that have been identified to stand in the way this facilitator said “the supervisory authority has been noted for delays in approving decisions of the municipal councilors of Tiko. In fact there is even one where the councilors signed something from an extra ordinary session but it looks like the SDO turned it down so I think that is the main thing. The issue is sensitive because it is going to affect the population.”   

edevnews.blogspot.com/ Email: francoeko@gmail.com/ nzantefr@yahoo.com/ Tel: +237696896001/ +237678401408/ +237 661864369