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Councilor Dighambong Anthony
Mvo Lord Mayor Wum Council
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Wum Council Echoes: Lord Mayor, we
want to thank you for accepting to talk to Wum Council Echoes.
Dighambong Anthony Mvo: Thank you.
W.C.E Lord Mayor, the
year 2017 is the fourth of your 1st mandate at the helm of Wum
council. Briefly, what balance sheet can you make of your stay at this office?
D.A.M It’s a little bit
above since I was elected Mayor. When I came in, I had a vision of four main
aspects. I had a vision to improve on the health situation of my people, the
education of our children and the entire population, improve on the road
infrastructures within the municipality, agriculture and other social amenities.
In the domain of health, we have successfully renovated the health center at
Upkwa which was a major problem for the people who reside there. Upkwa is
situated eleven kilometers from the central town. The population there have
always had that problem, mostly the Mbororo community and given the fact that
it is part of the Lake Nyos camp, we had to renovate that health center in
collaboration with RDP North-West, and today, we are proud to say that the
health center is functioning under the Wum Urban Health Center. We have also
gone further to recruit three nurses and two auxiliary staff that are paid
under the council’s pay roll.
As far as road are the
roads are concerned, we have been grading them every year, we have worked on
some farm to market roads for example, the Zonghokwo junction-Wada road, we
have the GTHS junction-Kecha road, this year, in collaboration with the
Ministry of Public Works, we have worked from the court yard junction to Bu
village. So we have a good number of farms to market roads to which we add that
of Aguli. We have also graded most of our streets. We have been doing this for
the past two years. Today we have street lights which we last had in the
eighties. We have culverts that we have constructed in this town. We also felt
that getting to the outside world was very necessary, so we created two Wum
council websites, a blog and a Facebook page.
In the domain of
education, we have been able to supply benches to over 20 primary schools so
far. We have PTA teachers that we pay every year from the council’s pay roll,
last year we had 36, and each was taking home 25.000 frs. We have been doing
this for the past three years. We also have students who come for holidays’
job. Every year we have a good number of them who are recruited and paid 40.000
frs each. For the past two years we have been taking 100 of them.
We have really had a
lot of impact as far as agriculture is concerned because we were trying to
acquire some pieces of land for the council. We have already done that so we
are trying to embark in agriculture to make sure that we have a farm for the
council.
There are many other
things around the town that we have been able to see according to the demands
of the population. We are hoping that every time we will keep doing what we can
do so that we can make out the best out of life.
W.C.E What
are some of the activities you carry out on a daily basis to ensure proper and
smooth functioning of Wum Council?
D.A.M Thank
you.
After my first year, I decided to make a program. This program shows that I
have a maximum of three days in the office and at least two days out in the
field for every week. During these two days, I realized that we need a lot of
sensitization. Most often, the public doesn’t know what is happening and people
should be aware that the council is the property of everybody and not of some
particular individuals. With this awareness, the population is actively
participating in the affairs of the council and we can see the result; from the
administrative account, from any other documents, you can see the results of
this active participation of the population.
W.C.E The 2017 Budget
of Wum council stands at Nine Hundred and Twenty Eight Million Five
Hundred Thousand francs. What are some of your priority
projects this year?
D.A.M Priority
projects…a question was once asked; what develop do you want? And somebody
answered: roads, roads, roads, roads. Four times roads. So you see that we have
a major problem with our roads. As the adage goes, where a road passes,
development follows. We have six quarries in the municipalities. We are
proud to have that, it is God given and so we are thinking that if we have some
road equipments we will be able to disenclave the whole area. Can you imagine
that there are two parts of this municipality that are completely cut off, we
need to go through another council area to get there. We are thinking that we
need to disenclaved it by having road equipments. The councilors have budgeted
for some road equipments which we are in the process of acquiring. Once we have
the equipments, we will be able to disenclave the whole area and make it
habitable and lively for all the citizens of this municipality. We also want to
motivate people to know that we are driving towards emergence. We are currently
working on a parking lot at the hospital entrance, we have a greenery that we are going to put up, we are also
going to create a dump site, construction of bridges, culverts and classrooms
amongst others, are some of our projects.
W.C.E Can we say all
is well with your management of the council? If no what are some of the major
challenges you are confronted with while discharging your duties?
D.A.M We all know that
we are in a purely political arena and at times no matter what you do, some
people may not see it as worthy as it is not because it is not worthy, but
because of their political leaning. And so to them, what you are doing is not
proper. So we have those challenges. They are normal in life. These are the
spices of a good leadership. Leadership is all about having challenges. Even in
the Bible, the great leaders were challenged at one moment or the other. And so
to me it’s normal, the challenges are normal. People trying to think contrary
to what the council or the Mayor is trying to tell them because of one reason
or the other. Those challenges are enormous. We also have conflicts of
interest. People think whatever thing that should be brought, should pass
through them and many other challenges you can imagine. We live them every day.
My appeal is that when we disagree, let’s disagree to agree. Like the saying
goes, there is neither permanent friend nor enemy in politics. What is
permanent is the goal to achieve. So let’s develop the attitude of having
common goals for the interest of our population.
W.C.E What do you
think could be a solution to these difficulties?
D.A.M What people fail
to understand is that hatred can only be conquered with love. If you see some
of those people with whom I had a lot of challenges or confrontations, today we
are actually moving along together. We decided to show them love since love
conquers every other thing. We are thinking that we will reach out to the population;
we will reach out by any other means to the various stake holders, so that they
will be able to understand our policy, our plans because at times it is due to
ignorance. Ignorance is a disease. Once it attacks you it can easily be
transmitted. That is why once they don’t know anything; they are tempted to
think the other way. We are going to do everything come what may, to reach out
to the population, so that together, we can journey in the same train and make
life better for each other.
W.C.E What mechanism
has the Wum council put in place to ensure the participation of the population
in the management of the town?
D.A.M In 2014, I had
the meet the people’s tour. During this tour, I visited the 19 villages of Wum
municipality. One of the reasons as I earlier mentioned, was to create
awareness about the active participation of everybody in the municipality. When
I took over, I realized that people are not very versed with council’s
activities. They think that the council belongs to particular people. NO! The
council belongs to everybody. I give the example of street lights. It is not
the Mayor who has to come and switch off the street lights, nor to make sure
that the town is clean. It is the collective endeavor of everybody who lives in
this municipality. Roads that have been graded, constructed, should not wait
for the Mayor to take care. As part of collective responsibility therefore, we
are envisaging to distribute to various communities, wheel barrows, spades and
pic axes, so that they can be able to handle their problems, without
necessarily waiting for the council to do it.
W.C.E What is your
relationship with sister councils of the Division?
D.A.M First and
foremost, I want to say that I am a member of the National bureau of the United
Councils and Cities of Cameroon UCCC. Am
also the Divisional Treasurer of the UCCC Menchum branch and so, as such, I am
bound to have good relationship with these councils. But I must say that,
partnership is a very important aspect that can take humanity further than what
we expect. And if we want to attend emergence, we must be able to collaborate
with each other to have exchanges because no one person can master everything;
so the exchanges are going to help us and that’s what we have been doing. We
have just written to Benakuma, Foumban and Bandjoun councils for our staff to have
exchange visits and see what is being done here and there. We will learn many
things from them and they will learn from us, so that together we can move with
a common goal.
W.C.E What is your
relationship with partners such as PNDP, SEEPD and others?
D.A.M We have so many
other partners such as PNDP, SEEPD, ACEFA, FEICOM, GP-DERUDEP, RDP-NW and many
others that cannot be listed here. The most important partner is PNDP. They
have been doing a laudable job. If you go to the hospital junction, you will
see the 20 sheds which have just been constructed thanks to the partnership
with PNDP. No individual can prosper without having relationships, and so, I
laud the initiatives of these partners who are always coming up for us to work
as a team. At each time, we keep a very cordial relationship with these
partners so that we can be able to be productive for the interest of our
population.
W.C.E What is your
relationship with the supervisory authority?
D.A.M I think that the administration,
the S.D.O in particular, and the Delegates, have been doing a marvelous job of
cooperation. You see, cooperation is not sitting in your office making phone calls;
it is in meeting with individuals because matters can best be sought out when
people sit together and talk. And that’s the principle we have been practicing
here, to be able to reach out to people and see how we can dialogue. We are not
saying that we don’t have differences with the administration. NO. There is a
saying that when your master and you are always in agreement, then one of
you is not necessary. So we must always differ at one moment. But I think
in all, it is a cordial relationship and that’s why we are able to be
productive and the results speak for themselves.
W.C.E Lord Mayor, your
dream for a perfect municipality is often punctured by the anarchy that reigns
within the transport sector and in the domain of sheds allocation within the
Wum council market. What move is being made to see that bike riders are
properly identified as well as sheds well allocated?
D.A.M Thank you very
much. This is a very important aspect of every community today. This aspect of bike
riders. In fact, when I took over office, we organized the bike riders and a
perfect team was put in place. I want to say perfect because everybody in this
municipality could see the results of this team that was put in place. They had
a lot of enthusiasm. They paid visits to inmates of the Wum prison, churches
and other places, carrying gifts and bearers of comforting words, showing how
organized they were. I must confess here that the revenue of the council had to
increase during that period. But today, because of the political will of some
individuals, the benskin union is in shambles. It has been a problem. I recently
had a meeting with the exco and they all testified that where they are today,
it is because of some politicians. My highest appeal is that when it is time
for politics, let’s do politics. If it is time for development, let’s develop
our municipality. The benskin union will soon meet to put in place a new
executive.
We
have also resolved to register all the bikes within the municipality. All of
them will have numbers of their bikes that will reflect that on the jacket. The
council has just gotten new jackets so that we can have the colors we once had
in 2014.
As
for the sheds, in the market, the anarchy is not as such. There was
anarchy I must confess! And one of the
measures we took was to renumber the sheds. So all the sheds in Wum market have
been renumbered so that we can best manage it from those numbers. And we are
moving towards computerizing the Wum council market so that once you sit in the
office, you can be able to know the situation out there. That’s what we are
envisaging.
W.C.E What is the
hygienic condition of your municipality? Do you intent to maintain it at such?
D.A.M To say the
least, we are not really comfortable. Bu I think we have improved
greatly on the sanitary condition of our municipality. As I said from the
beginning, we have 19 villages that make up this municipality and we have one
person who takes care of that department. Just imagine! We don’t have the means;
we all know the struggles that all councils in this country go through. We are
not having it easy. We came up with a sanitation program; first, the sanitation
department went round all the schools to ensure that their environments are
clean. They have just ended their tours in all villages. This department will
be reinforced. Workers will be deployed there to make it three. Sanctions are
however previewed for those who are caught violating sanitary rules such as
poor toilets, lack of toilets, filled toilets, and dirty environment just to
name these few.
W.C.E Lord Mayor, we
want to thank you for accepting to talk to Wum Council Echoes.
D.A.M The pleasure is all mine.
Interviewed by Stephen Ojang,
Communication Officer
Communication Officer
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