They Too Have Started Absenting from Momo PIB Follow-up Meetings

They Too Have Started Absenting from Momo PIB Follow-up Meetings

Pavement bricks for rehabilitation of roads in Mbengwi central town abandoned at the council

Members of the Momo Divisional Participatory Follow-up Committee for the Evaluation of Public Investment Budget (PIB) projects held their first quarterly meeting for the new financial year,  Tuesday April 21st 2020 in the conference hall of the Labour and Social Security Delegation. 

Convened at the behest of  the Divisional Delegate of the Ministry of Economy, Planning and Regional Development (MINEPAT) the divisional and sub technical  participatory follow-up meeting brought together statutory and beneficial members to evaluate 2020 PIB and flash back at 2018 and 2019 PIB which are still far below 100% physical realisation.

Unfortunately, as has often been the case in the past, all the mayors but for that of Mbengwi were absent. The Widikum and Njikwa council had no representative for the meeting and these are new mayors that just took over office. Even the new president of the committee, Hon. Foo Ngang Prodencia also recorded her first absence. Being new in office and doubling as development agents, one would've expected these politicians not to miss such a meeting  but they prioritised their other engagements.

Following recommendations from the last follow up meeting for the year 2019, the supervisory authority had warned all out gone mayors to endeavour to execute all  council projects that ought to must have been extracted from the Council Development Plan worth below 5 million francs yet almost all kept exercising laissez-faire, a bad habit that is seemingly already being copied by the new ones.

They were also tasked to keep updating the list of destroyed public and private property in their respective municipalities accompanied with costing so as to facilitate the compensation process to victims when the reconstruction project of the region shall commence.

To curb such challenges this year, an order by the regional governor has been signed creating project maturation committees in all divisions and tasked to ensure all earmarked projects for realisation must have maturity elements. This means they are  to be accompanied with public utility declaration, attestation of availability of site, compensation report, risk analysis report, environmental impact assessment report etc.

More still, in executing projects that have to do with wood, the councils were advised to use species like mahogany, "iroko" or "sapele". The Mbengwi Council has already identified 9 projects for this year 2020 out of which five contracts have been awarded among which is the rural electrification of G.R.A - Bessi Fomukong and Barakwe - Wumnebit - Chenam villages.

Others include construction of dressing rooms on the Mbengwi municipal stadium, purchase of chairs and sound system for the council, construction of two classrooms in G.S Wumsom, digging of boreholes at the S.D.O's residence, gendarmerie and prison. 

Eyebrows were raised last year during the reign of former mayor Tebe Beatrice when news was broken that the stretch of road Checkpoint - Mbon Park Entrance - Africa Petroleum will be constructed using pavement bricks. As has often been the case, since then till date, apart from some pecking that was done, the rest has been stories upon stories with no hope of realisation any moment soon. 

This is a mouth watering project that would've transformed the Momo Divisional headquarters and give a positive impression about the municipality to visitors but unfortunately, main roads in Mbengwi town these days are a disgrace. The money for the road pavement project is missing.