Yang and the crisis of authority

Philemon yang is said to have failed to stamp his authority as head of government business throughout his five years at the star building. Cases abound where the PM has tried without success to get his decisions respected by ministers and even General Managers. The Median was hinted on several occasions how Yang has had to bump out of meetings in anger because some minister(s) would not heed his orders. We have also heard of cases where Beti ministers, communicating in their dialect, would team up and reject the PM’s position on an issue during a meeting at the star building.
    Many reported cases abound of how the PM’s decisions have either been challenged or ignored by some minister(s) and/or General Manager of a state-owned company. Sometime last year it was reported that the PM who at the time, doubled as the board chairman of the national air-carrier Camair-co, was unable to get the authorities of the company to respect his instructions asking them to permit the ministry of Tourism and Leisure to use part of the building that serves as Camair-co’s Yaounde agency, as offices for some of the ministry’s staff. Because of the small availabe space and the over-crowding at that ministry, the minister, Bello Bouba, wrote to his colleague of Domain and Housing, Jacqueline Koung à Bessiké and the PM, asking for permission to use parts of the building. Though both Koung à Bessike and the PM accorded Bello’s request, the authorities of Camair-co still refused to release any parts of the building.

    Also, during the build up to the reunification Golden Jubilee, an instruction of the PM for the minister of economy, planning and regional development to accord the ministry of Tourism additional 200 million fcfa to enable Bello to complete rehabilitation works on the two reunification hotels in Buea, was rejected outright by the minister Nganou Djoumessi, who evoked the lack of funds at the treasury.
    Not long ago the press went awash with reports that the PM was helpless in the face of an encumbering presence of his secretary general, Louis Paul Motaze, who was reported to be taking actions and reporting directly to the president without the express consent of the PM. It is increasingly believed in many quarters in Yaounde that Louis Paul Motaze was not sent to the PM’s office to serve as a loyal collaborator of Philemon Yang but rather as a spy.
    If Motaze is posing as a source of head-ache for PM yang at the star building, his counterpart at the presidency is not making things any better for the PM. We are told of how the PM sends files to the presidency for the president’s visa and the secretary –general at the presidency would arrogate the files and treat them at his pace. And this is possible because the president has delegated the signature for the presidential visa to his secretary-general. Administrative law experts say that this only makes the SG of the presidency the real PM while Philemon Yang is only a figure head or better still, a functional representative.