300 dialysis patients staged a strike action in front of the Yaounde General Hospital this week. It was the second strike action in the country after that of Bamenda some months ago. The patients revealed that only 7 out of the 15 available haemodialysis machines were operational in the hospital. The two weekly sessions per dialysis patient can no longer be assured by the management of the hospital. To be sure, the machines are outdated, dysfunctional, dusty and dirty. Biya is indeed running a country where no one takes responsibility, no one apologizes, and no one resigns.

In reality, if we examine the budget of Cameroon particularly for the 2015 fiscal year, needless to mention how much President Biya spends a day in the Intercontinental Hotel in Geneva, we will discover that the CPDM regime has been a complete mess and Biya-a successful failure. We now know that there are ongoing subsidies granted to the haemodialysis centres in public hospitals in the country. To be accurate more than five billion FCFA is given to all these centres annually.

Our chief intelligence officer in Yaounde revealed that for the 2016 financial year, the haemodialysis centre at the University Teaching Hospital in Yaounde received 400 million FCFA; those of Bafoussam, Bertoua, Ebolowa, N’gaoundéré, were paid 200 million FCFA each and those of Buea, Bamenda, Garoua and Maroua respectively had 300 million FCFA.  The haemodialysis centre in the Douala General Hospital received 1.4 billion FCFA and the Chantal Biya International Centre was paid 1.96 billion FCFA. These amounts have been allocated annually for the operation of haemodialysis centres in the country.

This begs the question: Who are those managing credits sent to these centres by government? We are also tempted to ask if the Ministry of Public Health actually makes these grants available to these hospital units. A recent report published by the Cameroon Concord News Group noted that the haemodialysis centres are understaffed and the work force demoralized working in bizarre conditions with very low wages.

The only thing you can find exciting at the Ministry of Public Health in Yaounde are the photos of all former ministers appointed to head the ministry right from the Ahidjo era till date. The delay in sacking Minister Andre Mama Fouda has been blamed on the lack of space on the entrance to the building on which to place his own photo. Time is running out for  dialysis patients and the morally bankrupt CPDM regime is simply watching.

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai

Cameroonians have demonstrated some questionable judgments before, but many around the world now think the recent publication of photos of Rigobert Song, former skipper of the Indomitable Lions of Cameroon by Cameroonians on social media as he was being resuscitated in a Yaounde hospital outdid the integrity of our hospitals, its staff and our nation.

In an apparent attempt to connect with his fans all over the world, some Cameroonians released intimate photos of the African football legend as he laid in a coma on his sick bed in Yaounde. Some of Rigobert Song’s fans requested prayers via those photos, but some also screamed, concerned that our hospital authorities should not have allowed anyone including family members to take photos of a patient in such pathetic condition.

The incident has been roundly condemned all over the world but no apologies or statement has so far been issued by the Emergency Centre in Yaounde. Cameroonians publish regularly photos of even dead relatives taken inside mortuaries on Face Book. The AGBAW-EBAI DEBATE thinks, this on Rigobert Song was alarmingly irresponsible behaviour and pretty careless to say the least. Journalism has rules!! So too is the social media.

In this edition of the AGBAW-EBAI DEBATE, we are asking our readers if Yaounde prosecutors should investigate the incident.

This is September 2016, peacefully grinding away. By now all hot drinks in plastic sachets should have disappeared from kiosks and shops across the country. Our health should have started improving with no cheap and readily available whiskies at street corners or in our shirt pockets and handbags. The government banned the product two years ago. The warning was clearly and loudly echoed by the ministers of mines, health and the economy. But the producers teamed up and persuaded the government to give them a two year period of grace which has now expired. But as we say in local parlance “nothing di happen”.

Just like the brand names of the whiskies suggest, the fight to get rid of the spirits from our markets was never going to be easy. Here are a few of them: Fighter, Lion d’Or or Golden Lion, Kitoko, King Arthur etc. Come to think of it, the drinks are really hot. See how bold and reckless our commercial bike riders or “bend skins” are. They suck from the sachets while riding or just swallow a good quantity before hitting the road. Then they become the kings of the road, over loading, over speeding, over taking and overwhelming everyone else on the road. Whilst they overdo these, it’s difficult to overlook the way the traffic police overlook their road rage, the risks they take on the road and their arrogance towards other road users.

Yes, we were so cheerful when the ban on sachet whiskies was announced, but not everyone was fooled. Who could really have expected the government to enforce the ban? After all, was this the first time the authorities had prohibited a dangerous practice but later looked the other way while the public carried on doing things the old way?  So who could not predict that the disrespect of previous government bans would be repeated with impunity? It happened with the ban on indecent dressing to which six cabinet ministers gathered to launch a campaign against the phenomenon. Today our streets are still full of ladies parading with their pawpaw which are begging to fit into undersized bras. We still see their catapults or string panties in different colours dipping into their backside cleavages – distracting men.

The government announced maximum rents for student hostels. But all of that came to naught and students have been left at the mercy of Shylock landlords. Plastic bags were prohibited within the same period by the minister of environment and nature protection. But what obtains today? Plastics are still pouring into our markets. They come in different sizes, shapes and colours. And, because these plastics take more than ten years to decay, the harm they cause to the environment, on farms, animals and marine life is still very visible and worsening. The bags are everywhere. Visit the stores in your neighbourhood and buy a few things from sweets to soaps or onions and you will conveniently walk away with several small plastic bags.

Even the whisky plastics litter just every corner of our towns and villages. The consumers still get their steady supply of the hot stuff. School children have it in their trouser pockets and are causing problems of discipline in their schools. And they freely shout at and threaten their teachers after slurping Fighter whisky. Bullying at school has become a habit for many students who regularly drink Kitoko. A few of them have been dismissed from school for crimes they probably would not have committed had there been no Lion d’Or whisky flowing through their veins and shaking their brains.

In producing sachet whiskies the companies knew exactly what they were doing. They know the product is highly addictive and the consumers would soon become dependent of it. And that already is the case. The streets are still bustling with drinkers and street vendors are happy. They make the most rapid turnover from selling condoms and whiskies in sachets compared to any other articles they sell. So the best they can wish for is long life for whiskies in sachet. See what we consume at our weddings, funerals and other public events. The sellers of sachet whiskies are always around. Once we have cleared the drinks our hosts provide for us we start buying from whisky vendors.

Government’s failure to implement the law against sachet whiskies is good riding for the producers. But life is getting short for those who abuse alcohol. Visit some hospitals and doctors will tell you of patients whose livers, eyes and lips etc. have taken devastating blows from whiskies. Unfortunately, many of the victims are young people who are unaware that what is killing them is the same liquid that cost them just 100 Frs to get high. You can find chronic drinkers at Swine Quarter in Bamenda and Wum. Their lips are reddish, their hands shaky, their skin dehydrated and their speech sometimes uncoordinated. Small wonder, death comes knocking rather too swiftly.

The worst of it is that babies are being fed with whisky. I find it shocking each time I come face to face with mothers who find nothing wrong suckling their babies with this harsh liquid. Don’t be alarmed. This is a common sight in the East Region amongst the Baka pygmy communities. First, the parents have become addicts and in their frequent drunken stupor they let their kids pull from the sachets. Now, if babies can feed on whisky, just imagine how ruined the generation they will grow into will be.

Whisky was introduced to the Pygmies by the Bantu population. They would recruit Pygmies to cut the bushes, till the soil, plant and later harvest the crops. But for their intensive labour to cultivate the fields, they would be paid with Kitoko and cigarettes. So the Pygmies, remained perpetually poor and hooked to alcohol and dependent on the Bantu farm owners. The Bantus treat them like sub humans good only for odd labour and no real pay. Some pygmy labourers have told me and I quote “The Bantus treat us like wild animals. We work long hours just to be paid with whisky. They beat us when we ask for our money”.

And whilst this goes on, the producers of whiskies in sachets are once again at their game. Instead of announcing the end of the production of the banned product, they rather held a closed door meeting with the minister of the economic and planning last week. Nothing filtered from the meeting but state radio said their resolutions will be forwarded to the prime minister.

Of course the regime in power is clearly aware of the sedative effect alcohol has on a big youthful and unemployed population that could easily revolt. So don’t be surprised if the government keeps playing pranks with us, as long as no one is threatening to unseat he regime in power, thanks to the power of beer and sachet whisky. So as we await the Prime Minister’s next move, we can already predict another administrative tolerance. And while we wait for this to become official, the producers are continuing to distil more killer whiskies for more profits. And the damage on our health and environment goes on, unchecked. You ask, who is fooling who? Well, aren’t they fooling the rest of us? What happened to the ban on illegal churches; ban on importation of old refrigerators, ban on smoking in public places; ban on certain pesticides and fertilizers; ban on bars near school premises, ban on security company uniforms? Bla Bla Bla.

By Randy Joe Sa’ah

There have been some muscular exchanges between cabinet ministers of the ruling CPDM crime syndicate recently. Prime Minister Yang Philemon won’t talk!! But this is undermining the cohesion required for good governance. Christian Penda Ekoka, a senior technical adviser to President Biya shared a conversation with a private TV station in which he severely criticized the country’s debt pace and management of parastatals and the implementation of developmental projects in the heart of the political program announced by the head of state.

There is conflict everywhere in government circles. A special adviser of the Prime Minister criticized point by point, the open forum of Louis Paul Motaze, Minister of the Economy, on the 3rd generation projects. A war of words has erupted in the Ministry of Transport between the head, Minister Edgar Alain Mebo Ngoo and his deputy who also moonlights as the Chairman of the Board of Camair-Co. Both men are now in a situation best described by our chief political commentator as “kill or get killed”. Mefiro Ousmanou has made no secret of his disagreement with his boss and has granted two interviews in which he castigated Minister Mebo Ngoo.

Parastatals have also been hit hard by these Biya Francophone Beti-Ewondo battles. Just some few days ago, the general manager of CAMWATER was suspended by the Board of Directors. Camair-Co was given a new CEO who some reports have suggested does not have a mastery of the airline business. SONARA has a general manager in Kondengui. There are clashes at the Ministries of Mines, Defense, Secondary Education, Higher Education, CRTV and above all, Ministers and Secretaries of State are all at war. A frustrated Philemon Yang has remained helpless. We think Biya and Philemon Yang need help

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai

A Boeing 737 of the national airline, Camair-Co was seized on September the 16^th in Johannesburg, South Africa, following an action brought by the lessor (owner) of the unit. The plane is still in South Africa because of consecutive default in payments by Camair-Co. The head office in Douala with a new general manager, Ernest Dikoum is maintaining a kind of silence of the lamb. The Minister of Transport, Edgar Alain Mebe Ngo’o is in Montreal, Canada for a three day aviation meeting.

Cameroon Concord News Group is aware the Prime Minister has been informed of the situation. The plane was taken to the Republic of South Africa for maintenance when the seizure occurred. Minister Edgar Alain Mebe Ngo’o and his assistant, Mefiro Ousmarou are at daggers-drawn positions and not reading from the same script.  Both CPDM big men have disagreed on every item on the Camair-Co recovery plan. As we write, the newly appointed GM, Ernest Dikoum has still not been able to make the trip to Canada due to lack of finance. Our chief executive left the United Nations and travelled directly to his private hotel room in Swiss.

Salaries have not been paid for months. The sister plane to the Boeing 737 currently stationed in Douala is badly in need of new seats.  All correspondence from Camair-Co to the CPDM government and other interested parties are now being signed by the Secretary running the head office in Douala. Ernest Dikoum is yet to put pen to paper ever since he was appointed.

It is now evident that Minister Edgar Alain Mebe Ngo’o is either committing the same errors or falling into spectacular new ones.  This begs the question: Who is really in charge of Camair-Co and the so-called recovery plan?

Our chief intelligence officer in the Littoral region gave us a CPDM answer that as regards to Camair-Co, Cameroonians should remain focused on two current priorities: developing an action plan “very short term” and related operations at the end of the pilgrimage (Hajj) to Mecca – more specifically return flights, which have already begun. Long Live the Biya Francophone Beti-Ewondo government.

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai

The Cameroonian Senate has indeed reached its point of high comedy. We of the Cameroon Concord News Group are not really exaggerating when we say these. Our senators regularly appear completely unprepared for questions concerning the day-to-day running of the country. With age telling on them, they are very sluggish, tongue-tied and practically weak. For lack of a better word, the Cameroonian so called senators are an embarrassment for all concerned.

Several elected officials in Cameroon have died, but they have not been replaced as provided by law. Recently, Senator Delphine Medjo passed away raising once again the issue that calls into question the functioning of the Senate. Our senators have treated Cameroonians to a risible array of hyperbolic, ill-informed and to be sure, gotcha questions and answer sessions of narrow parochial concerns that have almost nothing to do with what the great Barrister Bernard Muna noted as the “Challenges of the 21^st Century” facing the nation.

Ever since its creation no too long ago, the senate members have been dying like flies.  Youssoufa Dawa in October 2015, Steven Jikong Yérima in November 2014, Francis Nkwain in October 2014, Fon Fontem Njifua Lucas in April 2014 and Illiassou Ntieche Mouchili, who even travelled to the land of his ancestors before the maiden session of the Senate. None has been replaced. So, it is evidently clear that the Senate is operating illegally.

Veteran Cameroonian journalist, Chief Bisong Etahoben had opined that there was no need writing these laws if we do not want to respect them. The provisions of Article 219 of the Electoral Code, which provides in Article 1 that in case of death of an elected senator and in accordance with provisions of Article 155, the procedure for by-elections in the constituency will prevail has hardly been respected.

Paragraph 3 of the same section also specifies that in case of death of an appointed senator, a new senator is appointed to complete the term, at the behest of the President of the Republic. Yet for now, none of these provisions has been respected. The nation is governed from a hotel room in Swiss.

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai

Cameroon Radio and Television, CRTV announced today Friday, September 23, 2016 a Prime Ministerial Order stating that: “You must be a Cameroonian to head any organization in the country.”  The Philemon Yang order modifies the 2015 law on the management of companies such as the one on authors’ rights. The current Prime Minister, Philemon Yang has bar the way to holders of a nationality other than that of Cameroon to occupy leadership positions in the country-among them, the artist Prince Ndedi Eyango.

Eyango had also seen his election as head of SOCAM (Cameroon Society of Musical Art) in November 2013 cancelled by the former Minister of Arts and Culture on the grounds that he was a US citizen. Ndedi Eyango during that time brandished a Cameroon national identity card and fought in vain to be reinstated as president.

The AGBAW-EBAI DEBATE understands that the daughter of the former head of state, Aminatou Ahidjo who is the current CEO of the Congress Hall in Yaounde has a Senegalese passport that was issued to her by President Abdou Diouf when the Biya regime cancelled their family travelling documents.  Some of the directors of CAMWATER, SNH, SONARA, CDC, SODECOTTON have European passports.

The man who blatantly refused our nation’s flag from the hands of Prime Minister Philemon Yang en route to the FIFA World Cup in Brazil has a Spanish passport.

In this edition of the AGBAW-EBAI DEBATE we are asking our readers to make known their case as it concerns the issue of dual nationality in Cameroon.  

Statement by H.E. Paul Biya at the Leaders’ Summit on Refugees held on September 20, 2016 under the initiative of President Barack Obama on the side-lines of the 71st Session of the UN General Assembly.

The President of the United States of America,

Distinguished Heads of State and Government,

The Secretary-General of the United Nations,
Ladies and Gentlemen,

Permit me, first and foremost, to add my voice to those of previous speakers to thank President Barack Obama and Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, for their welcome initiative to convene this summit. The refugee issue, as we all know, is one of the major challenges of our century. I will spare you the statistics which have already been mentioned here, and which show that the problem is serious. Given the magnitude of this human tragedy which pricks our collective conscience, we have a historic responsibility, namely to take action. My   country will not shirk that responsibility.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

True to its tradition of hospitality and solidarity, and by virtue of its stability, Cameroon is a haven for people seeking peace and safe refuge.

To date, my country hosts more than 350 000 refugees of different nationalities. To cope with this influx, my Government has taken measures to provide decent living conditions for them. In recent years, refugee camps have been set up in collaboration with the UNHCR to settle Nigerian refugees fleeing the atrocities of the Boko Haram sect, and those from the Central African Republic faced with political instability. Minawao Camp alone, for instance, hosts over 80 000 Nigerian refugees.

At these reception sites, the refugees enjoy basic social services provided by the Cameroon Government, friendly countries, the UNHCR and humanitarian organizations. Facilities are offered, particularly in education, at all levels.

Healthwise, the Cameroon Government recently signed a framework agreement with the UNHCR to jointly provide care to refugees in our local hospitals.

Regarding protection, measures have been taken to issue secured identity cards to persons eligible for refugee status.

Despite the huge financial impact of implementing these measures, we will continue with and increase our assistance to refugees and hundreds of thousands of displaced persons in Cameroon’s Far-North Region, who are also fleeing the atrocities of the Boko Haram terrorist organization.

At this juncture, I would like to appeal for increased international community support to countries, which like Cameroon, are hosting hundreds of thousands of refugees on their territories.

Also, let me draw the attention of the distinguished personalities here present to the situation of some areas of my country which are ravaged by terrorism, and where reconstruction will require substantial resources. Such is the price to pay for the resettlement of the affected people.

I would like to conclude with acknowledgements. My very sincere thanks go to all friendly countries for their constant support to our fight against terrorism.
We thank them as well as International organizations and civil society. We particularly appreciate their support for our determination to provide to persons in distress, dignified reception and living conditions, and to their children, access to education.
Thank you.

The Jean Ping camp under the strong influence and advice from the regime in the Côte d’Ivoire has started brandishing images of fake mass graves in Gabon. Cameroon Intelligence Report has been reliably informed that French surrogate, President Ouattara and the Hollande administration are behind this diabolic harsh ploy.

After Jean Ping’s self-proclamation from his party’s headquarters, his camp followed it up by circulating rumours of the resignation of the Chief of Army Staff and now the French media with strong ratings in the Sub Saharan region has been releasing images of massacres from other African countries to the international community depicting the situation in Gabon. The Jean Ping camp has reportedly show case the mass graves seeking the intervention of the international criminal court (Cpi).

In 2000, massacres allegedly committed by Gbagbo’s forces had been illustrated with a mass grave which was located at Yopougon. The Ouattara Bollore backed camp then used it to accuse President Gbagbo. Without any verification or confirmation, all the media, mainly Western and French, followed the line of the Ouattara camp. Gbagbo was accused of all the evils of the earth and this led to his arrest and his transfer to the CPI.

The Ivorian context is however different from that of Gabon. Ivory Coast was divided since 2000 after the coup and other petty rivalries that erupted in 1993 following the death of Houphouet. There was a rebellion, a UN presence and external military intervention under a UN mandate in 2011 to impose a head of state by chasing another and without any vote recount.

In Libreville, the population is still waiting for the final verdict of the presidential election by the Constitutional Court. Correspondingly, our chief intelligence officers have verified and reported that, there were attacks on the 1st and 2^nd of September by pro Jean Ping militants on the forces of law and order.  There is however, no indication at this time from any independent source about the existence of a mass grave.

President Ali Bongo has ordered the police to recruit people from the civil society to search for dead bodies in private mortuaries, hospitals and health centres. Jean Ping may have to import some dead bodies from neighbouring Cameroon. We of this publication believe and fervently too, that Jean Ping should be placed under house arrest.

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai