Limbe

Andrew Motanga

The OPEC City that never is
-Can Andrew Motanga rise up to the challenge of transforming this potentially beautiful city?
It was Dr. Boniface Forbin, publisher of the now defunct The Herald, who in one of his famous editorials said: “If government delegates were like governors who are appointed to serve in towns other than their own places of origin then it would be easy to pin the failure of the development of Limbe to the ill will of non-natives of the town. That is if successive mayors and government delegates of Limbe had been non-natives.”
    Dr. Forbin continued that “happily, all successive mayors and gov’t delegates of Limbe have been sons and daughters of the soil, viz: Daniel Matute, Catherine Meboka, Henry Njalla Quan (he served for only one year), Samuel LIfanda and now Andrew Motanga Monjimba.”
    Forbin wondered why these natives of Limbe would not be committed to the development of their own town – a town gifted with such endowments and potentials for beauty.

    “All these so-called Limbe boys and girls failed in succession to lift Limbe from the struggling rural town it has always been to the beautiful and metropolitan paradise it should be,” lamented Forbin.
    Given its seaside location, and being the home of a prosperous oil refinery and the headquarters of CDC- the biggest agricultural corporation in the Central African sub-region, it is intriguing to many that Limbe has simply not become the OPEC city it should be; it has not  drawn from its wonderful potentials and advantageous location. In fact Limbe has even fallen backwards from the old colonial days with a teeming population of prosperous businessmen and traders some of whom came from Nigeria and Sierra Leone.
    The reason for the failure of Limbe’s development is quite clear to any keen observer - the systematic abuse and plunder of the council’s finances by successive mayors and government delegates.
    Limbe used to be the council with the third largest budget, after Douala and Yaounde.  A yearly budget of over fcfa 4 billion could go a long way if judiciously used. And the cumulative effect of yearly investments in development could have a terrific effect indeed.
    But it is a well known fact that this money has almost always been abused and wasted, with impunity. It is doubtful if a full quarter of the council’s budget is actually used for the development of the sea-side town. After over 150 years since Alfred Saker set foot on and started developing Limbe (then Victoria), the town still looks dilapidated, with basic facilities and structures in an advanced state of neglect and disrepair.   
    It is believed that successive mayors and government delegates either siphoned the town’s budget into their private pockets or distributed some to their political protectors in almighty Yaounde, all at the high expense of the town’s development. It was reported that successive mayors and government delegates spent time travelling to Yaounde only to oil the lips of their political overlords. One delegate once offered a brand new Mercedes car to the First Lady, Madam Chantal Biya, but she politely rejected the gift. The car was coldly driven from M’vomeka back to Limbe.
    Then some mayors and government delegates were also accused of over-billing and of creating multiple private companies that act as fronts to which all contracts are awarded and paid, often in excess. A former government delegate was recently indicted for misappropriation and other financial crimes. Surprisingly and intriguingly he is still going about freely and enjoying his stolen wealth, to the discernible dismay and awe of the population.
    Every new delegate comes in pledging to do better than the previous one. But the result has always been the same.
    While installing the sitting delegate, Andrew Motanga Monjimba, into his functions in 2008, former minister of Territorial Administration, Marafa Hamidou Yaya (now jailed for corruption) urged him to break away from the old order and make a difference. Marafa exhorted Motanga to use the council’s money judiciously and be committed to transforming LImbe, which was once compared to Nigeria’s garden city of Port Harcourt and Brazil’s Victoria.
But six years since he took over the management of the City, observers contend that Andrew Motanga has not lived up to expectation; his achievements are very mitigated, despite the ever increasing annual budget of the council. Even though the streets of the town are now spared of filth, thanks to the garbage-clearing company, HISACAM, many reckon that much still needs be done in this domain.
    Then there is the problem of floods and lack of pipe-borne water in sprouting new-layouts. It is understood that the difficult topography of some of these residential areas could pose a problem to water distribution. But this obstacle could be surmounted given the council’s colossal budget. Recently, commentators wondered why the government delegate had to spend an important, but yet undisclosed chunk of the council’s budget to organize the Limbe Arts and Culture Festival FESTAC. Many reckoned it was wasteful spending par excellence. Observers said the money could be used to fight the perennial floods and the urban disorder that have easily become the trade mark of Limbe.