Fireworks at Nkambe Council Budgetary Session

By FC Ndi with inputs from Haruna Mohammadou

Hands up? its hot i here

A budget of over FCFA 800 million has been adopted by 34 councilors out of the 41 who finally attended the budgetary session that took place under the watchful eyes of the Senior Divisional Officer for Donga Mantung Division, Ngone Ndodemesape Bernard on December 20, 2013 at the Nkambe Community Hall. As to whether some of those councilors who could not show up early enough at the session were stuck in the dust somewhere along the ring road still remains another mystery given that during the roll-call, 17 councilors were not yet at hand. Those who surfaced after the roll-call sneaked in to the hall at silence admiration.  Even though some of them arrived the council very late, the quorum was not the problem since deliberations could not wait for them and no way could they go back to what had been discussed. Political pundits are of the opinion that if at the beginning of a council session 17 councilors are absent, there much to it. A school of thought holds that this is just the beginning of many other surprises.

The problem that ignited fireworks was that the councilors wanted to set aside the five years development plan earlier initiated by the former and his team who were voted out obnoxiously. This attempt met serious resistance from PNDP representative who threatened to withdraw their support and working relationship with the Nkambe council. The councilors finally understood that loosing PNDP for greedy purposes wasn’t the solution to the political divide in Nkambe. And they all finally agreed to maintain the five years program. This was purely an intellectual exercise that the lost ones couldn’t make it out.

Confusion again set in when councilors couldn’t reach a consensus and tempers almost flared on the amount allocated for payment of electricity bills at the mayor’s residence. Paul Ngabir got a bitter experience when the same councilors raised motions on the amount budgeted for the payment of the mayor’s electricity bills at his residence. Just for a sum of FCFA 600.000, many held the robe tied with the intention as if that it would make the mayor richer. Yet theirs was just to endorse a budget that was already formulated by others in the five years development plan.

However, the most interesting thing is that the councilors showed a little bit of maturity during deliberations,

Council excecutive

which many an observer suddenly gave them a positive note. It was their first participation and seemingly a recorded improvement looms large. As priorities, the Nkambe council would need to purchase vehicles and not just one, construct the Nkambe market and the most interesting one is to install street lights. Perhaps without casting doubts on the street lights using solar energy, a meager sum of FCFA 2 million was budgeted. Insignificant observers say but yet only mayor Paul Ngabir knows how feasible it is going to be. Besides, councilors also resolved that Nkambe town needs a modern TV channel, construction of more farms to market roads and it could only be achieved if revenue collected locally is improved. Therefore, studies would be carried out to improve council revenue collection. Speaking to this reporter after the session the mayor of Nkambe Paul Ngabir sounded optimistic on the realistic budget.

He also used the opportunity to throw light on the reasons why he boycotted the civic reception of the MPs for Donga Mantung Centre. Mayor Ngabir Paul pointed out that the invitation handed to him was not an official one. He disclosed that he saw copies of the invitation that were handed to other authorities but his was just like a piece of paper.

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