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Catherine Bakang Mbock
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Bakang Mbock: An example of what a minister
should not be!
She took delight in committing blunders – a
fact which irritated her master, President Paul Biya, ad nauseam. And so he
dumped her like putrid excrement
By Douglas A. Achingale in Yaounde
Before she was booted out of her post of
minister of Social Affairs, Catherine BakangMbock was one of the
longest-serving ministers. She was first brought into government as minister of
Women’s Affairs and was later moved to the Social Affairs ministry. In her
former position she seemed to have done well, which is why the President
decided to keep her longer. However, when she took the reign of power in the
latter ministry she thought she was untouchable and went into committing the
gaffes that finally caused her to plummet from amazing grace to grass.
Some
of the glaring shortcomings of Catherine BakangMbock were lack of transparency
in the management of finances; tribalism, favouritism and outright
discrimination of Anglophones; lack of foresight in the deployment of staff;
and her downplay of the importance of social workers – the technicians of the
ministry.
Sources
say that throughout BakangMbock’s stay in that ministry the staff never
received in full the allowances allocated to them every year. The amounts meant
for them were always less than what were on paper as they were told that the
leftover sums of money were directed to the minister’s cabinet. For reasons no
one could tell! The same sources hold that she may answer charges of financial
impropriety in the weeks or months ahead on this and other accounts.
The
Median also learned that most Anglophones in the ministry of Social Affairs
spent the years of BakangMbock’s reign licking their wounds. Despite the
existence of qualified, experienced and talented social workers of English
expression in the ministry, none of them holds the position of full director.
Two or so Anglophones are sub-directors in the central administration and about
the same number are service heads.
Her
proposal to the Head of State to have an Anglophone appointed as Inspector
General, we were informed, was to give the false impression that she was in
good terms with the Anglophones of her ministry. It is nothing short of a
window dressing.
The
lady of Bassa extraction, we were further told, preferred to appoint her
acquaintances, many of whom are teachers, contract workers and even some of the
newly-recruited 25 thousand certificate holders to important positions, without
looking at anybody in the face. It is because of her disregard for social
workers that BakangMbock left the Yaounde school of social welfare assistants
(ENAAS) lying fallow for years on end.
It
is the duty of the minister of Social Affairs to propose to the government to
train senior staffers (Inspectors of Social Affairs) in the National School of
Administration and Magistracy, ENAM, for use by the ministry at a high level.
That was what YaouAïssatou and some of her immediate successors did while they
were at the helm of that ministry. However, since BakangMbock looked low on
these high-quality professionals, she refused to make such a proposal despite
the fact that many Inspectors who had earlier been trained have now gone on
retirement.
It
was thus clear that Catherine BakangMbock had overstayed her welcome. Like the
finger that comes out with shit when it stays for long in the anus, her
blunders irritated President Biya to an annoying degree. And so he dumped her
like stinking faeces. And she crashed like a pile of cards!
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