L’be City Council Adopts Ambitious Plan Amid Challenges

  

By Ticha Melanis in Limbe

Gov’t delegate of Limbe, Andrew Motanga Monjimba

The Government Delegate to the Limbe city council, Andrew Motanga Monjimba, has expressed fears that because of the ongoing crisis in the North West and South West regions, 2018 might not be a smooth sailing year for the council. Yet Motanga is confident that the council will still have positive results at the end of the current year.

            He was speaking at the first ordinary session of the Limbe city council dedicated to the examination of the administrative, management and stores accounts of the council for the 2017 financial year. The session took place Monday, 2 July 2018, at the city hall in Bota.

            The GD noted that despite the trying times they are not resting on their laurels, and the 2018 action plan for the transformation of the city, is still very ambitious like in previous years.

            Presenting the 2017 financial situation of the council, the GD stated that since 2015, LCC has been haing very positive results and 2017 was no exception. He said achievement s over the years were the result of the collective and collaborative efforts of the senior councillors, as well as that of the supervisory authority, the SDO of Fako. He did not forget the efforts of business partners and the entire population of Limbe.

            Motanga said the initial budget for 2017 stood at roughly fcfa 7 Billion, and a total of FCFA 6.9 billion was recovered, giving a percentage of 99.88%, up from 88.26% realized in 2016.

            A breakdown of the recurrent revenue as recovered indicated that FCFA 76,942,438 was brought forward from 2016 into 2017 as reserves earmarked for operations. Also FCFA 3,597,034,902 was gotten from tax revenues, while additional council taxes brought in FCFA 2,992,336,312.

            "Council taxes brought in FCFA 282,388,446, local development tax yielded FCFA 3,650,000, management of land and services brought in FCFA 27,772,000 while other proceeds and miscellaneous gains amounted to FCFA 11,126,000. There was no finance revenue and nothing was budgeted under investment revenue and nothing was collected," the GD stated.

            As concerns expenditure, the GD said a total of FCFA 6,891,779,653 was spent giving a percentage of 98.48% up from 87.16% in the previous year. The total recurrent expenditure amounted to FCFA 3,595,332,659. This was spent on materials and supplies, staff costs, taxes amongst others.

            Furthermore, investment expenditure in 2017 stood at FCFA 3,296,446,659, a percentage of 47,83% of total expenditure. Investment projects included land acquisition, tangible assets, maintenance of roads, financing the partnership with HYSACAM among others.

            "From the statistics of total revenue and total expenditure, an excess in revenue over expenditure of FCFA 99,470,445 as carried forward to 2018 as reserves for overheads," Motanga explained.

            Though noting that LCC had no public investment budget for 2017, Motanga boasted that the city council could still achieve its 2017 Action Plan, especially in the areas of maintenance of water and electricity supply networks, subsidies to schools, organization of Limbe FESTAC amongst other achievements.

            The GD pledged that the City Council will remain as ambitious and deeply committed to satisfying the aspirations of the people. But he at once noted that the challenges that lie ahead are herculean, including notably the hosting of the AFCON 2019.

            Touching on hygiene and sanitation, the GD called on the population of Limbe to respect "keep Limbe clean" days to clean their environments and keep the city clean and maintain its status as the cleanest city in Cameroon.

            He implored the judiciary and law enforcement officers to punish violators of the routine "keep Limbe clean".

            Andrew Motanga saluted the efforts of all stakeholders of the city for their wonderful support and for snubbing the calls by secessionists for them to respect ghost towns and/or orchestrate violence.

            After about 2 hours of deliberations, the accounts for the 2017 were adopted as presented. The senior councillors praised the administrative and recovery department for a job well done and urged them to remain focused in their tax recovery drive.

            Senior councillors recommended the modernization of the council library, creation of a water projects commission, acquisition of more vehicles by HYSACAM, creation of a mixt commission with sub-divisional councils to oversee and control issuance of building permits among others.

            The session was presided at by the DOs for Limbe 1 Seraphim Epalle who sat for the SDO of Fako. He congratulated the senior councillors for the peaceful manner in which the session was held despite the insecurity problems. He equally encouraged them to continue to work as a team so that they can help in the development of the city.

            The councillors addressed a motion of support and gratitude to the Head of State for his exemplary stewardship of the nation. They thanked him especially for the many projects given the city and urged him to accelerate the decentralization process so that peace can b restored.