As we enter the second half of 2017, our country is beleaguered with
a plethora of crises big and small. This situation is, of course,
not new. Every Cameroonian finds the
situation of our country increasingly preoccupying. However, several serious crises facing our
nation demand that we call on you to act immediately and with expediency.
 |
| Kah Walla |
While the whole of Cameroon is in a dire situation, three key crises
are impacting the lives of millions of Cameroonians and pose imminent danger
for our country.
First crisis: The Fight
Against Boko Haram
Mr. President, while the Cameroonian armed forces in conjunction
with our neighboring countries have done an extraordinary job through the
Multi-National Joint Task Force in diminishing the ability of Boko Haram to
commit atrocities against our citizens, it is important for us to recognize
today, that we are faced with new challenges in this war, notably:
·
Renewed
and increasing attacks by Boko Haram suicide bombers that have once again put
our citizens in the Extreme North in extreme danger. These attacks are an
indicator that we still have extensive work to do to eradicate Boko Haram and
bring back peace and security to our citizens in this part of the country.
·
The
risk that the Multi-National Joint Task Force will diminish in effectiveness,
given that it has not received the funding required and that a key partner,
Chad, is decreasing the resources it dedicates to the MNJTF due to its own
internal difficulties.
·
The
fact that the services to over 223,000
Internally Displaced Cameroonians remain wholly inadequate, making them
victims of both Boko Haram and of the State of Cameroon.
·
The
fact that we have fought this war almost exclusively on the military front,
neglecting the social and economic solutions that would attack the root causes
of Boko Haram’s ability to recruit and kidnap within our frontiers.
·
The
Amnesty International report that highlights serious cases of human rights
abuses including torture on Cameroonian citizens. It is important to note that
many of the abuses in this report had already been reported by Cameroonian NGOs
such as REDHAC, two years ago. Mr.
President, this report is not our enemy, it is a clanging alarm bell, enabling
us to focus on certain key elements in our defense system that are
dysfunctional, devastating for our citizens and counterproductive to the fight
against Boko Haram.
Mr. President, in order to act for the security of our citizens in
this new phase of the fight against Boko Haram, and to bring solutions that
will sustainably eradicate Boko Haram and other extremist groups from our
country, the Cameroonian People’s Party
demands the following.
That a multidisciplinary
independent task force be put into place. This task force will have the
responsibility to lead the non-military strategies in the fight against Boko
Haram. Its major responsibilities will
include:
·
Increasing
the quantity and quality of services to internally displaced Cameroonians who
in number are the greatest victims of Boko Haram and who, if they do not
receive assistance are the group most vulnerable to Boko Haram kidnapping and recruiting.
·
Ensuring
the definition and implementation of social and economic strategies that will
attack the root causes of extremism in this region. These strategies must extend to the North and
Adamawa regions in order to ensure their sustainability.
·
Putting
in place a whistleblower mechanism that will enable citizens to denounce human
rights abuses and acts of corruption by any state or non-state actors that are
involved in the fight against Boko Haram. This will include working with local
and international NGOs to establish the veracity of accusations and liaising
with the appropriate armed forces offices to ensure that measures are taken to
prevent human rights abuses and sanctions are applied when such abuses occur.
·
Working
with the traditional and religious authorities in the region to develop and
implement strategies to fight against religious and ideological extremism.
·
Ensuring
that all solutions implemented, without exception, take into account the
specific needs of women, young people and children who are the greatest victims
of Boko Haram.
The members of this multidisciplinary task force should include:
·
Internally
displaced persons who are victims of Boko Haram
·
Members
of community watchdog groups who have been involved in the fight against Boko
Haram
·
Multi-denominational
religious authorities who have been involved in the fight against Boko Haram.
·
Traditional
authorities who have been involved in the fight against Boko Haram
·
Local
and international NGOs who have been involved in the fight against Boko Haram
·
Representatives
of grassroots groups in the three regions concerned
The task force should have
an equal number of men and women and at least 30% of its members should be
between 20 – 30 years old.
The task force must be endowed with the power to ensure that
government agencies act in a timely and efficient manner. It will be obliged to develop short-term
objectives (6-9 months) as well as medium-term objectives (2-3 years). The Task Force should hold monthly public
meetings to render account of it work and give citizens and the media the
opportunity to evaluate and contribute to its work.
Second crisis: 2017-2018 School Year in the North
West and South West Regions
Mr. President,
for the past 10 months, the Anglophone crisis has made our nation quaver,
bringing to the forefront problems that are decades old and foundational to our
country. The disastrous handling of this
crisis by your government has endangered our national unity and fostered the
emergence of radical groups who today, propose solutions that could mean the
end of Cameroon as we know it. Though
this crisis as a whole urgently needs to be addressed, there is one aspect of
it that requires your immediate attention.
·
It
is estimated that over 3 million children in our country were unable to
complete the 2017-2018 school year in the Northwest and Southwest regions.
·
Despite
threats and force used by your government to get children back to the
classroom, few of them did so.
·
The
current calls for children to register for school by your government fail to
provide key operational elements.
o
What
class should children register into?
o
What
measures have been taken for children to acquire the lessons and knowledge they
missed last school year?
o
How
should schools organize this in terms of supplementary teaching days and hours?
·
Parents
kept their children away from school for a multitude of reasons. Most
importantly, they felt the atmosphere of insecurity was such that their
children were not safe. The hyper-militarization of these regions as well as
arbitrary arrests and detention, both of which continue to this day, were the
key factors in creating this atmosphere of insecurity.
Mr. President, our
country cannot afford for millions of children to miss another school
year. You hold within your power the
ability to give these children back their right to education, in a matter of
hours. Please take the following measures immediately so innocent children do
not continue to pay for the poor governance enacted your successive
governments.
1.
Free all those who have been
arrested in connection with the Anglophone crisis. All
these arrests were carried out illegally without respect of Cameroonian
law. Freeing these people will create an
atmosphere of détente which will enable dialogue to resume for the resolution
of the crisis and most importantly, children to go back to school in a few
weeks.
2.
Demand that the court dismisses the
cases against the Anglophone clergy. These
cases were fallacious to begin with and today, it would seem there are no
plaintiffs. These cases serve no one and
are an absurd barrier to begin the resolution of the Anglophone problem.
3.
Sit down with the teachers’ trade
unions and determine sustainable strategies to resolve:
a.
The
immediate crisis of the 2017-2018 school year
b.
The
fundamental problems that were outlined by the Anglophone teachers in November
2016 and which instead of being solved, led to their arrest and exile.
Mr. President,
members of your government have reminded Cameroonians repeatedly in the last
few months that education is a right. We
now remind you that you, as Head of State, are the guarantor of that right. We are weeks away from the beginning of the
school year. Take the above three
measures and guarantee the right to education to millions of Cameroonian
children.
Third crisis: The Financial Situation of Cameroon
Mr. President,
the recent actions on your part leave us with perplexity and uncertainty as regards
the finances of Cameroon. As you should
know, the perception of financial uncertainty is catastrophic for the
achievement of our common objective of growing the economy of Cameroon and
creating jobs. Investors, be they local
or international do not put their money into economies where the financial
future is uncertain. In this regard, we demand that you take the following key
actions and respond to the following questions.
Should it be necessary, we remind here that the money in question
belongs to Cameroonians.
We need and deserve a public meeting on finances. Your government creates expenses and contracts debts outside of
the budgetary process. As such it has
become virtually impossible for us as Cameroonians to know the exact state of
our finances. This is unacceptable. Kindly
convene, or ask your Ministers of Finance and the Economy to convene a public
meeting on our national finances that will provide clarity as to the exact
financial situation of Cameroon.
During this public meeting, the following questions should be answered:
1.
What
is, to date, the state of Cameroon’s finances in term of revenue, expenses and
debt?
2.
What
justifies our sharp increase in indebtedness over the last 5 years? Though we
clearly understand falling oil prices and increased budgets for military
expenditure, we need precise information regarding:
a)
The
use of reserves established when oil prices were high
b)
The
exact budget for military expenditures
c)
The
justification for incurring debt for non-productive assets such as computers
d)
The
justification for creating emergency plans in the middle of the fiscal year,
without reference to the national assembly and for problems which were known
before the assembly budgetary session
e)
The justification for non-reduction of government
expenses despite revenues and growth that have been declining for the past 3
years.
3.
Government
seems to have continuous cash flow issues resulting in delayed payments for
government suppliers and late disbursements for investment projects. What is the cause of this? Government being
one of Cameroon’s most important economic actors, delays in disbursement slow
down the entire economy. We need an
explanation for why this cannot be remedied, year after year.
4.
Your
government has put itself in a position to contract debt from the IMF. The
objectives of this debt are cited as “enhancing Cameroon’s competitiveness and
medium-term growth potential”. Mr. President, these are laudable
objectives. However, your government
contracted its first IMF loan in 1997, in 2000 you subjected us to the Highly
indebted Poor Country program, in 2017 you have once again contracted an IMF
loan. All these loans have the same
objectives cited above. From 1997 to date, poverty has stagnated at about 40%
in Cameroon, health and education services have decreased in quality and you
have been incapable of translating GNP growth into jobs and income for
Cameroonians. Mr. President, what do you
and your government intend to do differently this time around? What measures will be taken so that this debt
which Cameroonians will be paying long after you, is beneficial to us as
citizens.
5.
In
June 2017, you provided budget directives to your government for the 2018
national budget. In these directives,
you made no mention of the organization of elections. There are four elections
on Cameroon’s electoral calendar for 2018.
Mr. President, are you once again playing games with the lives and the
future of the 23 million Cameroonians you say we are? Do you intend to hold surprise elections? Not
to hold them at all?
Mr. President,
the Cameroon People’s Party believes that your government is completely
overwhelmed and today, causes more problems than it can resolve. For the Cameroon People’s Party, these crises are the demonstration that the
solution for Cameroon today is that of a Political Transition. Our country
needs to carry out objective, in depth analysis of our situation as a nation,
then rebuild and redefine the very foundation of what binds us together as a
people. We need institutions and systems that will enable us to build the
future of a Cameroon that is Leading the Way, in Africa and throughout the
world
The urgent actions we have demanded above require your
attention within the next 2-3 weeks. Great would be our surprise and relief if you could actually take
action in within that time frame.
This immediate,
expedient and efficient action is what Cameroon needs to avoid further
catastrophes for its citizens. Should you be unable to carry it out, it
would be time Mr. President to take the single most important action, that of
resigning to enable Cameroon to enter into its Political Transition and build
its future.
In the utmost
interest of our beloved nation,
Kah Walla
National
President,
Cameroon
People’s Party
EDEV Web News/ Email: edevnewspaper@gmail.com/ francoeko@gmail.com/ Tel:+237678401408/+237696896001
No comments:
Post a Comment