Incisive Journalism in Cameroon: The Best of ��Cameroon Report�� (1978 � 1986)

17. Cameroon Report 9/7/1983: Our Ailing Parastatal Corporations

61 17 Cameroon Report 9/7/1983: Our Ailing Parastatal Corporations Introduction: The President of the National Assembly Honourable S.T. MUNA closed the annual budgetary session with a strong warning to public corporations that government subsidies to them would henceforth become the exception rather than the rule. News commentator SAM-NUVALA FONKEM sees the warning as the highest public denunciation of unprofitable corporations and examines the mismanagement and financial malpractice plaguing these establishments: The recent call by the President of the National Assembly for more productivity in statutory corporations implies that these bodies have not been productive enough and when he goes further to stress the need for these corporations to become more viable and profitable, warning that future government subsidies to them would be the exception rather than the rule, one is bound to understand that many of these corporations have generally depended on government to keep their heads above water and that apart from being unprofitable, they have become more of a liability than an asset to the state. The attention drawn to the problems of statutory corporations by the Speaker of the House is so far the most emphatic reference by any top ranking authority to this longstanding problem which calls for an urgent examination and probe into the activities of these establishments. The situation also warrants a revision of the management and managerial 62 methods of corporations, an approach which falls within a range of possible measures that might include the dissolution of some corporations with an irredeemably bad record. Good management of parastatal organisations requires a judicious and rational deployment of financial and human resources aimed at productivity and profitability of the public good, not the private good of the individuals who administer such bodies. It is public knowledge that the bulk of the funds allocated to run statutory corporations is visibly squandered in providing for the petty indulgences of executive staff. By petty indulgences, this reporter is not referring to fringe benefits and justifiable miscellaneous expenditures, but is talking here of the lavish cocktail parties, frequent pleasure trips abroad under the pretext of official business, graft practices in the ordering of supplies (a widely accepted practice involving the inflation of invoices), direct misappropriation of funds and the diversion of corporate property and equipment for private businesses. All of the above do not constitute a legal charge against any given corporation, but both the layman and the multitude of adventurous contractors would tell you how such and such a big shot got his latest Mercedes car from such a such a contract, maintains children in universities abroad and has just completed a 40 million francs luxury villa, probably his fourth since becoming financial director or manager of such and such a parastatal. Gross mismanagement is not confined to just the petty indulgences of executive staff, but like in agro-industrial bodies, it has consisted in a thin pay-packet and a pinched expression for the labourers, all of which do not enhance the spirit of productivity. 63 Poor management can also be seen in the wide disparity in salaries between national and expatriates, the latter enjoying unjustifiable facilities such as compensation for the cost and convenience of buying European food in Africa – a ridiculous notion indeed which does not even equal the ludicrous idea of providing allowances for pet food and veterinary care for the pets of expatriate cadres. If one cannot see the need to check the swell in expatriate salaries at least we must see the need, if only in keeping with our policy of social justice, to close the wide gap in salaries in all the various economic sectors of the country. Urgent measures to salvage corporations would be to redefine objectives – an exercise which some observers think would entail the eradication of some public and parastatal organisations which are not only unproductive, but which have outlived their usefulness or are a cunning duplication of other parastatals. The significant role parastatals play in development and their immense control of the vital structures of economic development, calls for austere measures that would have to move away from the previous paternalistic notion of management to a management based on rational economic principles and social responsibility. Sam-Nuvala Fonkem 64 ...