CI-NEWS

News: New SDF parliamentary group leader speaks out!

2019-06-18

No: 432

News: New SDF parliamentary group leader speaks out!

Explains SDF proposal on transition gov’t and dissects ordinance modifying 2019 finance law

Hon. Chief Paul Nji Tumasang, SDF MP for Santa, has been designated to replace the deceased Hon. Banadzem Joseph as SDF parliamentary group leader at the National Assembly. The 70-year-old electronics and telecommunications engineer who served as director of the Yaounde Advanced School of Posts and Telecommunications, took up the vacant seat last Tuesday during a plenary session of the House. In this interview with The Horizon last Thursday, the former civil servant assesses the task ahead of him; throws more light on SDF’s proposal on transition government and dissects the ordinance modifying the 2019 finance law. He begins by giving his plan of action. Excerpts:

This is effectively my second day in office. I am happy to be here but I regret this reversal of roles. I used to come here and sit opposite my former group leader, Hon Banadzem who unfortunately has been called unto the Lord at a rather tender age. I will continue to do the work he has been doing to keep the group together; make people working within the group feel at ease; take part vigorously in debates in parliament both at the plenary and committee stages.

For the dossiers we are to handle, we are ready to extend a fraternal hand to the government and ruling party – support what is supportable and vehemently oppose what we think is going against the interest of the Cameroonian people. In this connection, we continue to condemn government’s lackadaisical management of the civil war in the North West and South West regions and the misery that is being meted on the people of these regions. We are also concerned about what is happening in the Far North and East regions (incursions from a neigbouring country). As you can see, our country is facing a very serious socio-political problem which needs a cool head to tackle. It is not a matter of eliminating the opposition as the president seems to have said during his last speech when he was being enthroned here at the National Assembly. You don’t liquidate people. You might subdue them for sometime, and they go into abeyance but regroup and come back with vengeance. You see that the people at the forefront of this fight were not born in 1961. They are mostly people in their 20s and 30s. So what will happen in the next 20 years when the people who are being born now will take up the battle that was left uncompleted by their parents just because they were pushed into abeyance by the clumsy tactics of the regime? I think the Cameroon government has demonstrated a lot of childish arrogance in the resolution of the crisis plaguing the country, allowing it to degenerate into a shooting war.

What was your reaction to the Speaker’s condemnation of foreign powers and a political party of a plot to destabilize the country in his opening speech last Monday?

I don’t know if he was speaking as the Speaker of the National Assembly or as a CPDM militant. What foreign countries are trying to destabilize the country? The countries only want the country to be well managed and the people to live in peace. What does he mean by yes to support and no to interference? Where is the fine line between support and interference? When they gave help to fight Boko Haram, it was not interference but support to the regime, but now that the international community is condemning Cameroon for erring in its poor handling of the humanitarian crisis, it becomes interference.

As I speak, I am told two people died in my constituency of Santa yesterday and another today. If foreign powers call for dialogue to arrest the killings, is that interference? I speaking to you have buried more than four people killed and dumped along the road. When Cameroonians are being dehumanized with children of four months killed in their cradle and others beheaded leading to a call by our foreign friends for the killings to stop, is that interference? So I think the Speaker was speaking as a strong CPDM militant and not as President of the National Assembly.

Can you elaborate on the issue of Transition government referred to by the SDF in one of its resolutions at the last NEC meeting ahead of the start of the June session of Parliament?

It is a government that will be composed of people of the various strata of society – the CPDM and other parties certainly like the SDF, the civil society. The CPDM government has proved that it is part of the problem by not being able to resolve the Anglophone crisis in the last 3 years. They have done a bungled job. It was demonstrated recently with the conflicting rhetoric from members of government – the PM says one thing about dialogue, the Minister of Territorial Administration says another. The cacophony within government shows that they are incapable of solving the crises in Cameroon. So we think a transitional government of 2 or 3 years will bring back sanity to our country and permit it move forward towards emergence.

The Transitional Government needs to sit down and discuss the form of the state. We need to debate and come up with an acceptable form of state. I think a federation or confederation will be the best form of state. It will begin to heal the wounds that have existed for almost 60 years. The Transition government will not exclude the CPDM. They may even form the majority of that government. It will certainly include other political parties like the SDF and the civil society.

Cameroonians want a complete break with a failed system. Won’t they be disappointed with the transition government formula the SDF are proposing?

You want a revolution which might never come. Transitional government implies it will be for a limited time to resolve issues like the form of the state. It will also come up with a new constitution and an acceptable electoral code because elections in this country are a source of conflict. You can bear me witness that people are in jail because they did not believe in the sincerity of the last presidential polls. How would they believe in the sincerity of the polls when majority of members of the Constitutional Council and ELECAM are frontline members of the CPDM? Why won’t they be considered a farce when a constituency like mine with 100 polling stations was reduced to one polling station in Santa? Some voters living 70 km from Santa had to do it on foot and go back home within the context of a dusk-to-dawn curfew in the North West. Campaigning under insecurity was virtually impossible. I can say not up to 5 percent of the electorate in the North West and South West voted. I put it at less than 1 percent. Only members of the administration and CPDM bigwigs driven in armoured cars could vote. Government cannot put security forces to police some 30000 registered voters in Santa.

The modification of the finance law to include up to 80 billion for elections is an indication that government is bent on holding elections at all costs. What can the SDF do to prevent their holding until normalcy returns?

It is not a government that listens to the people. How do they imagine that they can go ahead and organize elections in areas where turnout could be as low as 1 percent? This may be legal in their eyes, but certainly not legitimate.

You raised the question of the ordinance which will be discussed one of these days. I think governing is anticipating. It is just six months that the 2018 Finance Law was promulgated, and if six months later there are profound adjustments made on it, then it makes no sense. But then the constitution gives a lot of powers to the president. He can sign ordinances to amend the finance bill and once an ordinance is signed it goes into execution. An ordinance is a decree that needs to be debated and made law by Parliament. We consider it also a joke because it cannot be modified. So you either approve the ordinance for ratification or you reject it. The second option is an impossibility.

I regret to say that the laws justifying the ordinance are jumbled up. It is evidence that it was hastily prepared.

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News: New SDF parliamentary group leader speaks out!