Councilors of Tombel Council have petitioned their mayor, Ngassa Rose for accumulating three sessions, which they say is detrimental to the growth of the municipality.
The councilors were speaking on the 17th of January 2024 at the Tombel Council Chambers, on the occasion of the budgetary session for the 2024 financial year.
According to Councilor Eselle Rene Elage, President of Tombel councilors, on the 24th of May 2023, they had their administrative and management account session to examine and adopt the 2022 accounts. He said this session flopped after a stalemate with the mayor as 28 out of 34 councilors stormed out of the session over argument of accrued debts owed the councilors.
He regretted that they later demanded for an extra ordinary session from the mayor to adopt the accounts, but their demand fell on deaf ears.
Councilor Elage continued that in June 2023, they were supposed to have the mid-term review of 2023 to evaluate the implementation of projects for the first half of the year which never took place.
He pointed that in September 2023, they expected the mayor to convene the budgetary orientation debate session for councilors to propose projects for 2024, but it was a pipe dream.
Elage insisted that before they adopt the budget for 2024, they should first of all examine the accounts of the previous sessions that never took place.
Councilor Kome Manfred Ngalame supported that if the extra ordinary session was approved, they would have examined and adopted the accounts of the sessions earlier.
Speaking to the press, Councilor Nkwelle Jacob Esong lamented that since 2022, the mayor operated the council single-handedly. “This means that the Mayor had a blank cheque for the council from 2022 to 2023 without any evaluation from councilors.” He added.
But the Senior Divisional Officer of Kupe Muanenguba intervened and told them that the objective of the current session is to vote a budget for 2024. He said other sessions cannot be mixed with a budgetary session.
Also, the Chairperson of the Infrastructure Committee, while presenting his committee report noted that Tombel municipality has 75 villages but 95 percent of projects for 2024 were focused on Tombel town and only three villages, Peng, Kupe and Ngolo.
Responding to their worries, the Mayor disclosed that councilors were supposed to lobby for projects from the council for execution in 2024. She promised that councilors will receive allowance for the sessions that never took place.
Budgetary Drop
In her presentation, Mayor Ngassa disclosed that the 2024 budget is balanced in revenue and expenditure at FCFA I.480.766.480 (one billion, four hundred and eighty million, seven hundred and sixty six thousand, four hundred and eighty) as against FCFA 1.491.350.000 in 2023, indicating a budgetary drop of FCFA 10.583.520. She said this drop is as a result of compensation of expropriation expenses and treasury shortages.
Ngassa equally made it clear that this year’s budget shall lay emphasis on rural roads, rural electrification, hygiene and sanitation and the provision of water within the municipality.
The Mayor decried the late arrival of council grants from FEICOM and limited allocation from public investment budget. This she said retards project execution rates and hamper the development of the municipality.
The Senior Divisional Officer for Kupe Muanenguba, Mungambo Ekema William in his remarks, lauded the councilors for their great sense of responsibility. He said Tombel council is amongst the best councils in the region and urged the councilors to collaborate with the Mayor to foster the development of the municipality.
However, Mungambo condemned the unhygienic nature of the town and called on the Mayor to ensure proper hygienic conditions for the welfare of the community.
By Ernest Ngome Akwe
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