What Manner of Lawmakers?
Cameroonian MPs have consistently
demonstrated that they are a breed of gutless politicians, loud in empty talk
and weak in making decisions that advance the public interest. But never before
have elected officials held up our country to ridicule in this manner. Our MPs
have caused considerable embarrassment to the country. They are a disgrace to
this nation! It’s a shame.
By EkinnehAgbaw-Ebai*
 |
| EkinnehAgbaw-Ebai |
The failure of the National Assembly to
immediately accede to the demand by the SDF for a parliamentary probe of the
recent Eseka train crash that killed hundreds of Cameroonians is disappointing
and unacceptable. It is an annoying dereliction of duty by anybody’s standards
and indeed an insult to the Cameroonian people. It is completely silly; a
scandal of grand magnitude and a distressing irony of the way things work in
this country.
But
it is pertinent to ask: what is really important to our MPs? Something must be
responsible for this kind of logic-defying indecision; if there isn’t, let
someone tell us.
Our lawmakers need to be reminded that they
have been elected, some insist selected, to defend the interests of the
Cameroonian people.
All
180 parliamentarians individually earn a net salary of FCFA 871,000, in a
country where the official basic minimum wage is FCFA 37,000. MPs are also
allocated FCFA 8 million each to purchase cars; ironically called
“non-refundable car loans.”
And
that is not all; these useless bunch of money-eating hand-clappers are also
entitled to FCFA 1.2 million sitting allowance for each ordinary session.
Multiplied by the statutory three ordinary sessions per year, it amounts to a
total FCFA 3.6 million. Besides other fringe benefits like all-expenses-paid
trips at home and abroad; free hotel accommodation and subsidized medical care.
It
is even more annoying considering the fact that Bureau members and
Parliamentary Group leaders earn far higher stipends and have more juicy financial
entitlements. Adding to the advantages
reserved floor members, the House Speaker gets a non-refundable car loan of
FCFA 60 million; the deputy speaker is entitled to FCFA 50 million; the five
vice presidents each get FCFA 45 million, Questors FCFA 40 million each;
Secretaries FCFA 35 million while the Secretary General of the National
Assembly gets FCFA 40 million; all these only to buy their cars.
To
these should be added the annual FCFA 8 million micro-projects grants which
multiplied by the five-year mandate amounts to a wooping FCFA 40 million which
most MPs simply pocket or engage in inconsequential projects like donating
chalk, pencils, benches and didactic materials to schools.
All
this is a lot of money. And yet what do Cameroonians get in return for this
huge investment (waste actually)? What they get is a navel-gazing Assembly that
is more interested in the alimentary needs of its members rather than the
Cameroonian people. The shame is on the ruling CPDM party which has over 140 of
the 180 Parliamentarians. The majority of the MPs who have already rejected the
demand for a parliamentary inquiry into the Eseka train accident are members of
the ruling CPDM party who have refused in this instance, to put the public
interest above parochial partisan considerations.
The
reason advanced for the rejection of the probe by Hon. OmgbaOngola is lame and
unjustified: That the President of the Republic has already put in place a
commission of inquiry. But the CPDM MP fails to know that the Commission decreed
by the President cannot be truly independent, aside the fact that it is only
administrative.
The
Constitution has given parliament three broad duties which include law making,
representation and oversight. Quite often, such probes allow MPs and law
enforcement agencies to conduct and conclude investigations and all those
indicted will be duly investigated and prosecuted if a prima facie case is
established against them.
Against
this background and given the seriousness of the Eseka tragedy, the mischievous
claim by Hon. Omgba that Hon. MbahNdam’s request for a parliamentary enquiry is
useless is preposterous and vexing. The Eseka tragedy is more fundamental as it
involves inertia and lack of political will to tackle problems. It is a clear
case of how criminal negligence combined with government inaction took the
lives of hundreds of Cameroonians.
It
is disappointing that the National Assembly is failing to lead by example.
Indeed, the lukewarm attitude of the MPs reflects their laziness and general
lack of desire to work. What abound in our parliament is the conspicuous
consumption, primitive accumulation and self-aggrandizement exemplified by the
“My-Prado-is-bigger-than-yours-mentality” that prevails at the Glass Palace.
Beside
the moral impropriety of this act of omission by the National Assembly, the
relevant officials at the Presidency cannot be ignorant of the implications of
such willful failure by a public institution to respond to a legitimate request
to investigate reckless inaction at a time when the President himself has made
the fight against inertia and corruption the conerstone of his transformational
agenda.
Obviously,
the failure of any citizen to speak up against acts of impropriety in public
and private conduct is inimical to democracy. In turn, this damaging deficiency
fuels the lack of transparency in governance and the moral and financial
corruption that thrive in public institutions. Indeed, by falling foul of its
oversight responsibilities, Parliament has once again demonstrated its strong
anti-disclosure credentials.
Good
governance, development and social progress are predicated on transparency,
accountability and an open government. The MPs who do not see the need for a
parliamentary probe must be reminded that it is a civic right for Cameroonians
to know how public affairs are managed by elected and appointed officials. In
the absence of a Freedom of Information law, the instrumentality of the
exercise of ‘the right to know’, can only be vested with the people’s elected
representatives, who possess the constitutional power, the stature and the
influence to uphold the responsibility and accountability of government to the
people.
The
ostrich inaction of Parliament’s refusal to act in a case of brazen and
avoidable massacre of Cameroonians is another reminder (if at all one was
needed) that Cameroonian MPs have an infinite capacity to shock and scandalize.
Although we live in an impoverished society, the ravenous appetite of our MPs
has so inured them to the realities of our circumstance that they have lost all
sense of equity in their conduct. Even when questions arise about corruption,
embezzlement and the reckless expenditure of public funds, we are confronted
with a group of dishonorable men and women who choose to play the three monkeys
who prefer to see nothing, hear nothing, and perceive nothing.
The
rejection of a Parliamentary enquiry reminds me of the puritan American poet
and novelist, Josiah Gilbert Holland who wrote in his 1872 poem, “Wanted” that:
“God, give us Men! A time like this
demands strong minds, great hearts, true faith and ready hands; Men whom the
lust of office does not kill; Men whom the spoils of office cannot buy; Men who
possess opinions and a will; Men who have honor; Men who will not lie…Tall men,
sun crowned, who live above the fog in public duty and in private thinking…” If
there is any Cameroonian MP who fits this profile, please stand up and be
counted!
*EkinnehAgbaw-Ebai is a public intellectual
and graduate of Harvard University John F. Kennedy School of Government where
he was Managing Editor of the Harvard Journal of African-American Public
Policy. A former Research Analyst for Central Africa with Freedom House, he is
a consultant and lives in Boston, Massachusetts, USA. Talk back at ekinneh@yahoo.com.
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