Cameroon: FOUR HUGE QUESTIONS about the June 30 fuel price hike

Prior to the beginning of the 2014 World Cup, I in earnest told some of my friends that I didn’t want my beloved country Cameroon to have a successful stint at the World Cup, not because of any unpatriotic propensity or desire  to stoke friendly conflict and enliven our football banter. I made this statement because I thought we didn’t deserve it but most importantly because I deep down feared any indomitable performance from the Cameroonian squad would undoubtedly result in price hikes. I just couldn’t shake off the feeling that most price hikes always came about in the midst or vicinity of sporting events in which the Indomitable Lions are involved. While Cameroonians would be huddled together in the seasonal unity often triggered when the Indomitable Lions’ partake in tournaments, I thought, government would stealthily step out and formalise a price hike. This was my fear before the Brazil- hosted World Cup kicked-off. On June 30, 2014, days after Cameroon had left the World Cup jamboree, the Secretary General in the Prime Minister’s Office, Louis-Paul Motaze, turned my fears into reality by signing a communiqué “readjusting the price of fuel and cooking gas”.

How I saw it

At the time of fearing this price hike, I was thinking of a direct increase in the price of basic commodities. I was thinking of a scenario where after a fulfilling evening, spent watching maybe Cameroon outmuscle maybe host country Brazil, Cameroonians would pick a quarrel with their respective neighbourhood shopkeeper after they accuse him of greedy mercantilism and he has tried unsuccessfully to explain to them that he isn’t trying to cheat anybody and that prices simply went up unexpectedly. I never envisaged that it would be an increase in the price of fuel. 

The price readjustment or hike proper

According to the communiqué, as from July 1, 2014, a litre of super previously sold at CFA Francs 569 will now cost CFA Francs 650, a litre of gasoil (diesel), formerly CFA Francs 520 will now be sold at  CFA Francs 600, while a 12.5KG bottle of cooking gas hitherto sold at   CFA 6000 will henceforth cost CFA 6500 Frs. Only the price of kerosene has survived the onslaught, remaining at CFA Francs 350 per litre. Despite popular outcry, it is worth saying that ending the subsidies is a necessary  and even indispensable evil given that between 2008 to 2013, these subsidies are said to have cost Cameroon about   1,200 billion CFA Francs.  For the first six months of the current financial year, it has already sucked up 157 billion CFA Francs, according to the communiqué. Furthermore the fuel subsidies stand partly blamed for the country’s overall fiscal deficit for 2014 that was projected to stand at 5.5% of GDP. According to the IMF, this deficit is expected to hit 5.7% in 2015.

However despite all the apparent economic credibility of arguments in favour of ending the subsidies, countless questions persist, demanding equally convincing answers. 

Will the fuel price hike not have a ripple effect on the price of basic commodities?

Although government strove to reassure Cameroonians that the fuel price hike would not affect the price of basic commodities, it is difficult to take the government’s word for it, not because of any narrow-mindedness or opposition but because of the dynamics of common sense and market practices. In Cameroon, fuel price hikes have often, if not always, been synonymous with an increase in the price of basic commodities. Upon leaving the port or factories, basic commodities are often transported by road. Transporters and business persons have inflexible profit margins which they would not sacrifice on any grounds whatsoever. So whenever a fuel price hike bites into these profit margins, they immediately compensate by increasing the price of basic commodities. The brunt of this increase ends up always being borne entirely by ordinary Cameroonians who have no one else to transfer the price increase burden to. The buck always stops with them. Sure government has promised a salary increase to enable Cameroonians comfortably sustain the fuel price hike effects, it has also promised some tax breaks, but this promise doesn’t answer the essential question of whether or not this latest fuel price hike won’t send basic commodity prices up. It leaves it unanswered and even engenders other questions: when will this salary increase come about? If ever it materialises, how much will it be? Will it be enough to enable Cameroonians not feel the pinch of the fuel price hike? Will this promised salary increase not provide business persons with a good reason to increase the prices of basic commodities? Conscious of the ripple effect the price of fuel has on the prices of other products in Cameroon, especially basic commodities, this question remains the most important in the wake of this fuel price hike. 

On the side-lines of the ripple effect questions lie others of a somewhat marginal yet pertinent nature.  

Why call a spade a long stick for digging?

It was interesting to see how the Government parcelled, and through its media, delivered this unwelcome news. The communiqué announcing the fuel price labelled it the “readjustment” of the prices of fuel and cooking gas. The national daily, Cameroon Tribune, in its headline talked of “prices adjusted” (my translation from French) while the word “modification” was used on national television. This consistent use of soft and easily-digestible synonyms like “adjustment and modification” begs the question of why the decision not to call a spade a spade? Why the refusal to give this decision the name it deserves? Why the decision to call a price hike a “price readjustment”? Should this not be seen as a way of manipulating Cameroonians so that they can easily swallow this bitter bill? 

What’s next?

It is no secret this latest fuel price hike is the culmination of pressure from the International Monetary Fund and the ever- heard- but- never- seen donors. Since Cameroon has been a long and loyal destination for IMF dogma, officialising the end of fuel subsidies should not come as a surprise, from an economic perspective at least, “Ajustment structurel oblige”. But from a nationalist perspective, this is worrying and should get every Cameroonian uncomfortable and thinking whether they are okay with the constant national implementation of foreign conceptualisations, irrespective of their publicised selfless ends. It should equally make Government ask itself whether Cameroonians are happy with the sovereignty –depleting and socially-hazardous effects of these IMF intellectual concoctions when we know that some Asian countries spited similar suggestions of IMF origin and yet blossomed into Asian tigers.  A case in point is Malaysia. These questions are even more pertinent when we compare the promised and actual outcome of some IMF proposals. National electricity company SONEL was ceded to American ownership with the promise that service delivery would be better but that has not been the case. Power cuts are still pretty common and the rudeness of the ladies at the cash desk seems to have gone from bitter to venomous. So shouldn’t Cameroonians be weary of the endorsement of another IMF proposal especially when it makes a supposed sovereign government and country dance to the whims and caprices of its wisdom? Most especially, it should get Cameroonians asking what is the next IMF suggestion Government will implement?

Where will the money saved go to?

If the argument in favour of ending the fuel subsidies is anything to go by then for the remaining six months of the current financial year, State coffers should save at least extra 157 billion CFA Francs that would have been used for fuel subsidies had it not been scrapped? Consequently this reality begs the question of where will the money go to? To what ends will it be put? Given the rampant corruption, Government should spare a little space in its mind for our sceptism.

                                                                                   

When having breasts would no longer be enough

The 2014 edition of the International Day of the Woman was celebrated seven days ago. Although women were already being celebrated unilaterally in some countries - like America where the first National Women’s Day was held on February 28 in honour of the 1908 garment worker’s strike- and by some parties – like The Socialist International in 1910, worldwide multilateral celebration of women folk only become an international reflex as from 1975 when the UN declared the year the International Year of the Woman and started celebrating March 8 as the international day of the woman.

As offspring of Western intercourse with the rest of humanity, most African countries including my beloved Cameroon, perpetuate the tradition come every March 8. But conversely this is done with an extra splash of colour, popular fanfare and unfortunately excess. (I would have loved to say in all African countries but what do I know so I’ll keep to Cameroon.)

Unfortunately, as I said earlier, in Cameroon, women’s day is always shackled by excesses and debauchery from the women folk. And   this year wasn’t any exception as I witnessed scenes of uninhibited public hip gyrating, dirty dancing and viral drinking from hitherto soft spoken and reserved fish roasting ladies, mothers, wives and buyam sellams*. For a second there I thought I was at a gathering of a thousand chocolate -coloured Miley Cyrus twerking but then again I saw no Robin Thickes propping their behinds. Don’t get me wrong or get it twisted. I am not saying or in any way suggesting that women, of a certain social setting, are unentitled to occasional fits of partying excessively. No and not at all. I am merely providing a premise for the following opinions:

1-      Contemporary celebration of the International Day of the Woman in Cameroon is a parody of the original intention. It is never a reflection of  each year’s theme which is always a footnote in the day’s plan. To prove my point, which women can readily state the 2014 theme?

2-      Contemporary celebration of the day is built on the fallacy that women even in Africa were always and constantly subjected and never venerated, which is a lie. In some traditional African communities - like the Kom in the North West Region of Cameroon - succession is matrilineal, meaning that women through their motherhood status were held in high esteem. Sure with our current blind replication of Western models of existence, realities like these are now under considered if they are at all.

3-      Women have wrongly interpreted what this day should mean. Rather than being a day for unrestrained indulgence, it should be one for a retrospective look at the road travelled so far and a preparatory assessment of the distance that remains for women to reach humandom bereft of any undermining considerations for their sex and gender.

In a strange sort of way, the greatest tragedy about current celebration and perceptions amongst women about the day is the narrow-minded sense of entitlement that has sprouted and taken root in the minds of some women. It manifests itself more evidently on the International Day of the Woman as hitherto submissive wives, girlfriends and women think this is that one day when they have an inalienable right to go out unchaperoned and take a deep plunge into the pool of life. It is their coming of age ceremony or Bar Mitzvah of sorts. It is another day when they think they are again entitled to something – temporal – called the ‘Womens’ day uniform. This begs the questions: do women think they are entitled to freedom only on the International Day of the Women; shouldn’t they use this day to show the world, by buying without financial aid, their women’s day uniform. Do they mean despite all the freedoms that have accrued to them that all year round they are free only one day?

I don’t know about you but for me current celebration and perception amongst women about the International Day of the Woman is an indication of the extensive mind surgery that has to be carried out on some women so that they can know that the International Day of Woman is a call to responsibility, autonomy and excellence addressed to women. It is font-size 100 reminder that in today’s world women must no longer be women, they can become humans should they choose to. It is most importantly a reminder to those women who don’t know it yet that in this world and that of tomorrow having breasts would no longer be enough as an excuse or a pass. And as such they should man up 24/7 and not just on the International Day of the Women.

P/S: By the way, this year’s theme is “Equality for women is progress for all.”

Buyam-sellam* is a Cameroon expression that refers to women who buy and retail foodstuff generally.

The language of President Paul Biya’s Reunification speech

It was easy to imagine the expectation and excitement awaiting President Paul Biya’s Reunification speech in Buea. If you are a social media presence like I am, you would have fallen on posts anticipatorily gauging Cameroonians’ take on the issue. Even a cursory look at Cameroonian TV stations would have proven this as they quizzed many intellectuals about the language which the President should use to address the nation on this momentous national rendezvous. So it is no surprise that hours after the speech was uttered it is trending on social media.

Be you a Cameroon or a foreign national dare not take lightly the pre- speech anticipation, the concurrent excitement and the significant post-speech residue, worse still if you are a policy maker or should I say a patriot. Better take the effervescence around the language of President Paul Biya’s speech as a renewed reminder that one of the greatest hindrances to our attainment of the utopia of unity is uncannily crystallised by language. Indulge this explanation.

What is a language?

I am not a linguist or grammarian or one of those nerds interested in and capable of gutting language to expose and explain its entrails. So I will rather start from this premise; language is the warehouse of a people’s hopes, aspirations, beliefs, phobias and much more. From this angle then speakers of different languages should have disagreeing aspirations, right?

Language in Cameroon

With Reunification in 1961, Cameroon became a bilingual country with two official languages, international for that matter, English and French. This choice has consistently been perpetuated by the various constitutions. Section 1 sub 3 of the current constitution unequivocally states “The official languages of the Republic of Cameroon shall be English and French, both languages having the same status. The State shall guarantee the promotion of bilingualism throughout the country. It shall endeavour to protect and promote national languages.”  Despite this provision, practice has made this constitutional edict resoundingly hollow as English-speaking Cameroons opine that English practically does not have the same status as French. They point most especially to the absence of English translations for information from government offices as some legislative texts often appear first in French and then later, very much later in some instances, in English. This absence has created room for the preponderance and predominance of French which has in turn bred feelings of the marginalisation of English and so them amongst the English – speaking Cameroons.

Simply put, language, its use, the preponderance of its use in Cameroon is a reliable tool for measuring the road travelled so far in the unity quest.

 The language of President Biya’s Speech

Before yesterday’s bilingual speech, the President of the Republic’s English vocabulary was thought to be limited to the phrase “I do so swear”, generally heard only when he is being sworn in after getting another presidential seat. As a living embodiment of a bilingual State, delivering the speech in both English and French was a welcome move although the accompanying sounds of applause from many English – speaking Cameroonian should not be seen as victory for the president or a 100% approval rating from English-speaking Cameroonians. If for anything, the President should personally see this insultingly and as his belated righting of a wrong since as the expected most bilingual Cameroon he should have much much much earlier than February 20, 2014 incarnated the ideal Cameroonian when language is concerned. His delivering a speech should be a given, usual and not unprecented, groundbreaking, famous and grounds for ululations from an educated crowd. As early as 1983 when he came to power he should have been giving his speeches alternately in English and French during occasions like the Youth and National Days. He should not have waited for the 50^th anniversary of our Reunification to do this given that in the midst of the unity fanfare and secessionist grumbling, this act considered more introspectively seems to be a rabbit he has pulled out of his political hat. In fact it can rightly be considered a flash in the pan if on National Day 2014 he does not repeat this performance.

This is the unfortunacy of President Biya delivering the Reunification speech bilingually: it is belated, too belated to put it lightly. What if common Cameroonians had like him chosen not to express themselves oftenly and publicly in English and French. We would be in an existential stalemate as a people.

The real language of President Biya’s speech

Since  national unity is the background to all the celebration, one question that Cameroonians must ask themselves is which language best represents them today as one people; a people that have been through German  and Anglo/French colonisation, a people with the diverse realities of their past, the complexity of their present and the prospects of their future. When they get the answer, they should ask themselves whether the President also delivered his speech in that language. Let’s face it, from a language perspective English and French do not unit us. From a historical perspective, these languages and our insistence on them as the prisms through which we define ourselves are an indication of the long road we still have to travel to consolidate our independence and unity.

I am Cameroonian but I don't like the Reunification.

Side view of one of the tribunes built for celebrations

As we speak Buea, the host city of celebrations for the 50^th anniversary of Cameroons Reunification, is wriggling to the erratic rhythm of preparations for the said anniversary. As a Cameroonian and resident of the host city, I should logically be excited about the celebrations if for anything the developments this event will bring to the city. Permit me surprise you, I am not the least excited. As a matter of fact, I hate the entire event and all what it represents. I prefer the Mount Cameroon Race of Hope. 

I hate the Reunification celebration but not for the reasons some might suspect. 

I hate the Reunification

So based on the foregoing I should be a supporter of all things, especially celebrations of the journey we have travelled so far as a political unit. I should be a ready-made cheerleader for all the moments of national merrymaking for the "high" notes we have hit as a people. I should but I am not. In blunt terms, I practically hate the long-awaited celebration of the 50 anniversary celebration of the reunification of the English and French-speaking components of Cameroon. I am not a neither a secessionist nor their sympathiser.

Why

To be sincere with you guys, I must admit that there is generally just one reason why I hate the celebration of the Reunification. I hate it because  rather than  being a platform for Cameroonians to meet and articulate courses of action for casting our unity in steel, it appears to me as the umpteenth crystallisation of all the ailments affecting our country and the most credible  explanation of why we are still marking time when our peers of yesteryears are   soaring. Let me explain:

1: Time consciousness and unfulfilled promises

Despite giving the impression with the setting of the 2035 time limit for emergence that it had now realised that time is of the essence, the current government of Cameroon has through its handling of the preparations so far indicated otherwise. The celebration of the 50^th anniversary of the Reunification was first announced in December 2010 by  President Paul Biya. But three years later the host city is still to see the anticipation transform into actual celebration. Sure, construction works to accommodate the celebration are taking place but the actual promised celebration is still to take place. Do this disregard of time and its symbolism augur well for a country that is trying to play catch up in the development race? Is this silence with regards to the actual date for the celebrations not a setting the stage for low secessionist voices to become audible? The answer in my opinion to all these answers is yes. Celebrating such a major milestone in Cameroon’s political evolution belatedly suggests, if not is, a blatant absence of consideration for time as well as its symbolic significance. It also reminds onlookers of the regimes reputation of not fulfilling promises.

2: Development is the President and the President is development

Prior to the announcement that it would host the Reunification celebrations, the host city Buea was just like other Cameroonian towns in need of infrastructural developments. March pasts and other state organised public celebrations were held at Bongo’s Square with participants marching uphill tediously. But when the Reunification celebrations – to be presided over by President Paul Biya- were announced, two new tribunes will pop out of the ground. Some roads have at last received a coat of tar and some old ones are finally being marked adequately. Other construction works are taking place. This was the same scenario in Bamenda last year 2013 with the celebration of the 50^th anniversary of the Armed Forces where some constructions works took place. This approach to things begs one question: so if the Reunification celebrations weren’t set for Buea and the President wasn’t to preside, the town would never have gotten two new tribunes? Would its long wait for more tarred roads have continued? The situations suggest that only the announced presence of the President of the Republic can kick-start the construction of highly needed infrastructure in some towns. This possibility is pretty scaring because the development of the nations about 360 towns – if we go by the number of councils- cannot be tethered to the arrival or not of one man. This is a myth that must be crushed pitilessly because it justifies the mediocrity noticed amongst the President’s subordinates. Each government official needs to know that he/she can autonomously spearhead development at his/her own level. Development and President Paul Biya should not be even perceivably synonyms else regions which our  history or politicians haven't made natural host of some historically- significant event will have to continue their long wait for development. 

3: Another instance of sustainable underdevelopment

As I said, infrastructural developments are taking place in anticipation of the celebrations but these are nothing but temporal fixes to embellish regional circumstances since the world will be ogling Buea during this period. Roads are finally being tarred and the inhabitants are grateful but provision isn’t made for cables or pipes before the tar is poured even though we all know sooner and not later it will be necessary to embed some cable or some pipe for some reasons. When this need arises, the roads being tarred will be tampered with and its slow destruction will begin. Sometime in the future money will have to be allocated again to re-tar a road that had already been tarred. This is unfortunately the vicious cycle being witnessed. It is a disheartening instance of unsustainable development: developments that will soon demand repairs or replacement instead of addition and extension. This vicious cycle entails repetition and wastage.

4: Politics at the expense of the future of the youth

Under normal circumstances, the graduation ceremony of the University of Buea would have taken place sometime in early December 2013. But due to the not-yet-slated and but announced coming of the President of the Republic to Buea for the Reunification celebration, no date has so far been announced  for the graduation ceremony and in the meantime the students are  stranded. Those who wished to get even their attestations and move on to further academic pursuits or start the job-search odyssey are grounded because the date for the graduation has not been slated because (in the Vice-Chancellor’s words) of circumstances “beyond their control”. This makes you wonder what the graduation of a school has to do with an event whose actual date of celebration is not known. It also makes you wonder why the already bleak future of the youths has to be held hostage by politicians and their machinations. Wasn’t it known since December that it was impossible for the celebrations to be held in December since most of the major construction works were hardly halfway done? The Vice –Chancellor has sure issued a notice saying students should go get their certificates but the poor drafting of the notice and its confusing interpretations have only worsened the situation. 

5: The smell of corruption in the air

Unjustified rumours and prejudices aside, I won’t pretend to master the ebb and flow of financial management. I will only state that I recently heard a taximan say in his taxi that he had heard over the revered national radio’s flagship English talk show Cameroon Calling that the money underwriting these construction works weren’t planned for in the national budget. If the funds for these works aren’t provided for in the national, where do they come from? Are they from the rumoured unaudited “black box” at the Presidency from where money is freely taken to carter to sudden needs? These are mere allegations but they fuel perception and perception is said to be everything. There is the smell of corruption in the air.

Preferring the Race of Hope

As most patriotic and not jingoistic Cameroonians, I would like to like the Reunification Celebrations but then again it is hard given the circumstances. As such, I prefer the 2014 edition of the Mount Cameroon Race of Hope. This is because I hear the prize money has been increased to 10 million CFAF for the first placed runner and this means this year’s race will be more exciting. Also its organisation has returned to the world-renowned brewery brand that made it famous. The race date has been  set for February 15, 2014 and the presence or absence of the President of the Represent won’t affect its holding. Most importantly, I prefer the Race of Hope because it will bring all Cameroonians- French and English speaking- together for a cause that unites us yearly and not only once every 50 years.