Bamenda Trader's Strike: Ndumu Vincent Blames Unscrupulous Middlemen

“A senseless strike!” Vincent Ndumu Nji, Government Delegate. Bamenda City Council

Mr Government Delegate, during the traders’ strike of 12 July over increased market shed rents, you were in a conference in London. So, how did you feel when you got the information?

Well, I felt a little bit worried in the sense that, you can easily agree with me that it was a senseless strike! The first thing about it is that, as a business man operating within the premises of a municipality, when you go on strike, the strike should be about something beneficial to you, because closing your shop or activities for one day causes you to lose money. Secondly, we had had a lot of discussions with the representatives of the traders of all the four markets here. All of us agreed on the necessity, given the means that are required to run this market, to bring up some of the market rents to the minimum official rates provided by the 2009 law on council fiscal revenue. So, I say it was surprising in the sense that, even though a deliberation was presented on that basis,  and voted by the municipal councillors, and was awaiting approval at the SDO’s. This is something that happened around April. It therefore means that, if things moved normally, this increase in rents should have applied during the beginning of the third quarter of the year. So, it was an issue of these traders or their representatives meeting the municipal authorities for us to look at the way things will unfold. It is therefore very unfortunate that they decided to disturb the peace of the city and once more, make Bamenda a shame, by going on street demonstrations that had nothing to do with the objectives they were looking after. I have always said it that, within the Bamenda City Council, there are four markets. There used to be about seven of them, I have given some to the sub-divisional councils. In the main market, for instance, statistics indicate that more than 70%of the sheds are subcontracted, and these subcontracts pay nothing less than 50,000 frs to the main tenants having a direct contract with us. That is money that is going into individual pockets. Now, if you look at these trader’s demands, some are asking for increased security, every year, we have to provide fire safety. We drain the toilets, clean the markets, recruit personnel and provide not less than 12 security guards for this market alone. The traders themselves say they need more, we are may be even more aware that they need more. But where do we get the money to provide all this, if at this moment, traders in the Bamenda Main Market and the Food Market are still paying 10,000 frs monthly per stall? This was therefore just a measure we had taken that had not yet run its course, but was at the same time taken to align with the 2009 law on fiscal revenue.

Bamenda Government Delegate Ndumu in his office: Not an easy job to serve a town you love when it is poor.

Now, , what would you say to traders who declare, that at the time this market was constructed, a clause in the contract linking the council to the traders stipulated that the price increase cannot go beyond 500 frs for every 10-year period, and that because this market way constructed way back in 1966, the initial investment had fully been recovered, the 2009 law on fiscal revenue for councils should not apply?

Bamenda City Council was not Bamenda City Council in 1966! This country is unique and therefore, anybody who purports that has completely departed from the normal way of thinking. I have here, law No.2009/019 of 15 December 2009 on fiscal revenue to councils. In its Article 83, it stipulates that “sheds of up to 4m²= between 5,000 to 10,000 frs. From 4.01m² to 6m² = between 10,001 frs and 15,000frs”, etc. Sheds in the Bamenda Main Market are between 8m² and 10m²”. The law stipulates that they should cost from “20,001 frs to 25,000 frs monthly. How can anybody living in this century want to pay 1966 prices now? Are you telling me that the price of things now are the same price of things then? Let us take an example, the market in those days, was run on a budget of may be 2 million francs. When someone is in the market asking me to employ security guards, 12 of them, who are paid monthly at about 1,000,000 frs; and is still asking me to apply the rates of 1966, there is something wrong!

Now, the traders seem to be asking for improved services but at the same time they are refusing to pay the increased prices required for the improvements. So, who will you say did not do their job well, among those who represent the traders? Is it the municipal councillors or the trader’s representatives?

No! It is simply a question of bad faith on the part of the traders. I have told you and I have said it all over the place. You can interview some of the trade union leaders. How many meetings have we held here to discuss this issue? It is simply bad faith. If somebody is sitting in a shed, where a majority of their co-tenants are paying 50,000 francs, and tells you that they want to pay the rates implemented by the then Bamenda Rural Council or something in 1966, then there is no other explanation to it but bad faith. Now, the law is the law in any part of the country and we have contracts with these traders. Luckily, the new penal code is here to address such issues. And do not tell me about a 1966 law which is baseless, and were such a law to exist, the 2009 law abrogates it.

There are some traders, who make it as a plea, that for social reasons, the law should apply selectively. Traders in Ntarinkon, for example, who say that because of lower turn over than that of those in busy areas like the Bamenda Main Market, rents in markets like Ntarinkon should be lower. How will you address their concern?

I can tell you that within the meetings we held with these trade unions and traders’ representatives, we actually agreed that we were not going to apply the same rates for Nkwen and Ntarinkon Markets. This is a fact, it is known all over the place. But for the Main Market and Food Market, I have given you the statistics. I even raised the issue somewhere and someone was laughing, declaring that there are some sections in the market where the minimum is 80,000 frs per month. One of the traders even admitted to me that he bought a shed for 8,000,000 frs. Let’s be frank and God-fearing when we do certain things. Even in the Ntarinkon and Nkwen markets, statistics from all these markets show. For instance, in Nkwen Market, more than 60% of those operating there are co-tenants, suggesting that after paying 8,000 frs to us, the main tenants turn around and collect 20,000 to 25,000 frs from others. So, we cannot provide all their needs if we do not have enough revenue. Just to collect garbage, from Nkwen Market, produced by the buyam sellams as is the case everywhere, we spend about between 4 and 5 million francs every month for garbage collection. That market only yields about 500,000 and 600,000 frs monthly.

Mr Government Delegate, it has come to our notice that the relationship between the government delegates and sub-divisional council mayors is often sour. What is your own working relationship with the mayors under your jurisdiction?

I try as much as possible to have a good working relationship with them. But unfortunately, and I must admit, some of them feel that they should kill the tree from which branches came off. As a matter of fact, as we are talking, yesterday, a mayor got over the radio and announced that he is pleading for government to scrap the whole concept of city councils, and I heard it said somewhere that the sub-divisional councils existed before the city councils and so they had to scrap the latter. And this morning, I retorted by showing the law, the decree creating the Bamenda City Council. Decree No.2008/021 of 21 January 2008, creating the Bamenda City Council; it is only during the creation of a city council that you can have a sub-divisional council. And this is Article 2 of that Decree, “Bamenda City Council is made up of Bamenda I, Bamenda II and Bamenda III Councils.” So, you cannot create something out of yourself, and then, that thing comes out and says you should disappear.N               aturally, it is impossible, isn’t it? However, I am doing everything that I can to ensure that we have a cordial relationship. I can tell you that I have done things that have never been done elsewhere among city councils. The Bamendankwe Market was handed to the Bamenda I Council by the Bamenda City Council. That is City Council property and I handed it over to the Bamenda I Council for management. The Muguacho Market and the Mile 8 Market were handed to Bamenda II, more than five years ago. And recently, we handed the Nitob Park and Market. Then the Mile 4 Nkwen Park and Market was handed over to the Bamenda III Council. Before even this happened, we had already handed over all the Parks to the councils. If you do this kind of gestures in order for us to work as one and people keep complaining, it looks like it cannot work. Unfortunately, that is our case here in Bamenda.

Recently, the city made headlines for garbage accumulation, which was not the case before and is not the case now. What happened and what measures have been taken to prevent similar incidents?

Access to Ntarinkon Market is rendered dangerous by this blocked gutter which gets flooded during rains

You know, Bamenda City Council is the only City Council where we opted to do garbage collection by ourselves instead of resorting to private companies which specialize in that domain, and we have done this for the past six years. Our balance sheet is that it has not worked very well, for several 

reasons. Among these reasons we have, firstly the attitude of our personnel. You could fill the tank of a vehicle with fuel that could be used for three days. If that guy needs to go to the dump site maybe three or four times a day, believe you me, if that guy goes once a day, then that is much! I say once a day because often, some will just feign a breakdown, then after two or three days, the fuel is all gone. That is the issue of personnel. Then our mechanics too are not prompt with vehicle repairs. The second issue is that of the behaviour of the population and that is the most important issue. You can never clean a city if the population is undisciplined. This is a city of more than one hundred thousand households. And if each household were to produce about two to three kilograms of garbage daily, which is an underestimation, because  a household of seven people should produce about seven kilograms of garbage per day. At this rate, these one hundred households will require two-hundred cubic meters of refuse to be removed and dumped. The principle is that households keep their garbage until the public authority makes a vehicle available, public here being the City Council. But, in the case we have here, anybody gathers half a kilogramme of garbage and puts it outside on the street, and that is the practice all over town. As such, there is no time at which the city can be clean because, A has brought his garbage at 8 am. Maybe by that time, B too has brought. The garbage van passes and collects them. Then, after it has been collected and dumped, that is when C is coming out, followed by D! Even if the council were to be so rich to collect C and D’s garbage by 10 am, what will happen to garbage from E and F? Then, the third and last problem is the fact that the population of Bamenda has grown. When we t

Bamenda II Sub-Divisional Council Office Building. Mayor Balick Fidelis hails from the opposition and is usually at daggers drawn with the Government Delegate, given the socialist approach of his party.

ook over this issue, we were dealing with a very small population. I can tell you that this town has grown tremendously, exponentially, from 2009 – especially after we removed containers on 15 January, 2010. This town just grew tremendously with houses, storey buildings, vehicles, etc . Unfortunately, the road infrastructure did not follow but the population growth resulted in increased garbage volume. Still under this third point, you know, the situation of garbage has quadrupled during the rainy season. That is the reason why we had those problems and we have managed to hire vehicles from left and right to salvage the situation. The way out, in fact the only way out is, we have decided to hand over the garbage collection to HYSACAM in 2017. Thus, we can concentrate on other development issues in the City Council.