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Tschetter Unveils Bust of Former President John F. Kennedy at U.S. Embassy Event
Ed. note: The Friends of Cameroon made a donation towards the creation of the JFK bust. During his speech, Ambassador Marquardt acknowledged FOC and its contribution (the entire speech is further below):
“The Peace Corps initiative, and the hope it represented for mutual understanding and peace across cultures and nations, obviously captured my heart and my imagination — as well as that of many others. As a returned volunteer, I am in elite company – since 1961, almost 190,000 fellow Americans have also served as volunteers in some 140 countries around the world. Of these, over 2,900 have served in Cameroon during the past 45 years, forming the core of an interest group – the so-called “Friends of Cameroon” – who continue to work hard to advance the bilateral relationship. This group joined our corporate sponsors to help finance this bust.”
YAOUNDE, CAMEROON - June 21, 2007 - Peace Corps Director Ron Tschetter today unveiled a bust of former President John F. Kennedy at a U.S. Embassy ceremony held to commemorate the 45th Anniversary of the Peace Corps in Cameroon. Since 1962, over 3,100 Peace Corps Volunteers have served here promoting peace, friendship and a better understanding of America.
The outdoor ceremony, hosted by U.S. Ambassador Niels Marquardt, was attended by over 100 people ranging from currently serving Peace Corps Volunteers to high ranking Cameroonian government officials, many of whom were taught by Peace Corps Volunteers.
In his remarks, Tschetter quoted former President Kennedy’s famous speech, “My fellow citizens of the world: ask not what America will do for you, but what together we can do for the freedom of man.”
Tschetter continued, “As I have traveled around Cameroon, I have seen countless examples of our Volunteers and the people of Cameroon working together, and that’s what the Peace Corps is all about. Whether it is in education, agro-forestry, small enterprise development, or community health, our work can not be effective without a ‘working together’ relationship. And these bonds of trust, understanding and caring will absolutely contribute to the freedom of man President Kennedy talked about at his inauguration 46 years ago.”
U.S. Ambassador Marquardt, who served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Rwanda in the late 1970’s, said in his opening remarks, “With Director Tschetter’s visit and today’s ceremony, we also commemorate the 45th anniversary of the Peace Corps’ uninterrupted presence in Cameroon. This record of continuous, unbroken presence since the very first Volunteers arrived in Cameroon, in September 1962, is matched in only two other countries on earth.” He further stated that the Peace Corps, “has done more than any other American initiative to promote peace, mutual understanding, mutual respect, and social development around the world, and perhaps most especially in Africa.”
Today’s ceremony marks the end of Director Tschetter’s five day visit to Cameroon; he is the first Peace Corps Director to visit Cameroon in 26 years. While here he met with the 39 new Peace Corps Volunteer-trainees in Bangangte, where he also stayed one evening with a local Cameroonian family. Additionally, he visited many of the 99 currently serving Volunteers throughout the country, traveling as far as the West Province of Bafoussam and the North Province of Garoua. He also met with Peace Corps staff, various high ranking Cameroonian government officials and local leaders to thank them for their long standing support of the Peace Corps.
Since 1961, more than 187,000 Peace Corps Volunteers have helped promote a better understanding between Americans and the people of the 139 countries where Volunteers have served. During its 45 year history, over 3,150 Volunteers have served in Cameroon. Peace Corps Volunteers must be U.S. citizens and at least 18 years of age. Peace Corps service is a 27-month commitment.
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Remarks by Ambassador R. Niels Marquardt
John Fitzgerald Kennedy: Bronze Bust Unveiling
Visit of Peace Corps Director Ronald A. Tschetter
On the U.S. Embassy Grounds
Thursday, June 21, 2007, 9:00 – 10:00
Your Excellency Minister of State, Peace Corps Director Ron Tschetter and Mrs. Nancy Tschetter, Your Excellencies Ministers, the Government Delegate of Yaounde, Your Excellencies Ambassadors, Peace Corps staff and volunteers, colleagues, friends, ladies and gentlemen,
Thank you all for joining us here at the U.S. Embassy in Yaounde on this historic occasion, the unveiling of a bronze bust of late President John Fitzgerald Kennedy. I would like to express my deep appreciation for the presence of such a distinguished delegation from the Government of Cameroon, led by His Excellency Minister of State Bello Bouba. You honor us greatly with your presence here today.
This event started as a suggestion from former Cameroon Peace Corps Country Director Robert Strauss. In our first meeting, in 2004, he pointed out that Yaounde’s best-known street, Avenue Kennedy, would be a wonderful location for some sort of memorial to President John F. Kennedy, or JFK as he is affectionately known, in his role as founder of the Peace Corps.
Both Robert and I are returned Peace Corps volunteers from the late 1970s – he in Liberia and I in Rwanda — and the idea really resonated with us both. Although two years passed, the idea remained alive. The challenge was to find the right artist, to raise the necessary funds, and to see what the municipal government thought.
Early this year, everything came together. My friend the Ambassador of the Order of Malta, who is here today, introduced me to a fine Bamoun sculptor named Abdou Tapon, who is also here and who agreed to take on the project. We started a fundraising drive that eventually bore fruit, as major American companies in Cameroon, among others, contributed to the effort. We then went to Avenue Kennedy with the Mayor of Yaounde, Government Delegate Gilbert Tsimi Evouna, and his staff. They liked the idea and informed me that it fit into their ongoing rehabilitation plans for Avenue Kennedy, as part of the urban renewal of Yaounde, which are currently underway.
I would like to say thank you to Government Delegate Tsimi Evouna for his support, and I’m sure we will have the occasion in a few moments to applaud the artist for his work.
And I would also like to thank our many corporate donors for making this project possible. It is among several major projects to be completed over the coming weeks to mark the 50th anniversary of the official American presence in Cameroon, which began in 1957.
Of course, the other element driving this ceremony is the visit of Peace Corps Director Ronald A. Tschetter. Ron Tschetter is another returned volunteer, having served in India in the late 1960s. Of the 17 Directors Peace Corps has had since Sargeant Shriver, JFK’s borther-in-law, launched the agency in 1961, Ron Tschetter is only the third to have served previously as a volunteer, but he is the first and the only one to have done so with his wife, who was also a volunteer. Mrs. Nancy Tschetter is with us here today. I am delighted that Director and Mrs. Tschetter both accepted my invitation to visit Cameroon before we leave next month. Adding to the historic aspect of this ceremony is the fact that this is the first visit to Cameroon of a Director of the Peace Corps in over 20 years. Again, welcome to both of you, and to your staff, including Africa Regional Director Henry McKoy, who is back for a third visit.
It is the presence of Director and Mrs. Tschetter in Yaounde today that set the date for this ceremony. Another ceremony will follow by the end of the year, to take place on Avenue Kennedy itself, once the site is ready to receive its permanent new resident.
With Director Tschetter’s visit and today’s ceremony, we also commemorate the 45th anniversary of the Peace Corps’ uninterrupted presence in Cameroon. This record of continuous, unbroken presence since the very first volunteers arrived in Cameroon, in September 1962 is matched in only two other countries on earth. This fact makes the Cameroon Peace Corps program very special indeed.
These anecdotes explain the evolution of this project and of the ceremony today, but they do not adequately explain why such a monument is important or necessary. I speak now very much as a product of my age, as a member of the generation that first began to acquire its social and political consciousness during JFK’s presidency. My first political memories are all of events bearing JFK’s name and signature, some good and some bad: the election campaign of 1960, including the first televised presidential debates in American history; the Bay of Pigs and the Cuban Missile Crisis, which increased the frequency of the so-called “duck-and-cover” drills performed in schools across America at that time and which were highly emblematic of the grave dangers of the Cold War; the early beginnings of our fateful involvement in Vietnam; the solemn challenge of being the first country to reach the moon; and the President’s famous call to service in his inaugural address. Few words have had a more lasting impact than JFK exhorting an entire nation to “Ask not what your country can do for you; ask rather what you can do for your country.”
Just six weeks after his inauguration, in an effort to give concrete reality to his famous call to action, President Kennedy announced on March 1, 1961, a bold new initiative: the creation of what he chose to call the Peace Corps. He was not the first to propose such a service – others in the House and the Senate had introduced legislation doing just that – but it was his leadership and his commitment that saw this idea through to realization. That the Peace Corps has stood the test of time, that it has prospered in both Republican and Democratic administrations, that it is now well into its fifth decade despite enormous geopolitical changes along the way, all bear testimony to the broad and bipartisan support this institution enjoys among virtually all Americans.
Still, Americans and foreigners alike will always associate the Peace Corps with JFK, and vice versa … and for just cause: there would have been no Peace Corps without John Fitzgerald Kennedy.
The Peace Corps initiative, and the hope it represented for mutual understanding and peace across cultures and nations, obviously captured my heart and my imagination — as well as that of many others. As a returned volunteer, I am in elite company – since 1961, almost 190,000 fellow Americans have also served as volunteers in some 140 countries around the world. Of these, over 2,900 have served in Cameroon during the past 45 years, forming the core of an interest group – the so-called “Friends of Cameroon” – who continue to work hard to advance the bilateral relationship. This group joined our corporate sponsors to help finance this bust.
In my three years in Cameroon, I have often heard testimony and seen evidence of the profound impact of these 3,000 Peace Corps volunteers. It is as if these 3,000 people managed to touch the lives of every single Cameroonian! I say this because the Cameroonian who does not have a personal story to tell about the impact of the Peace Corps on his or her life is indeed the exception.
But the reverse is also true, and even more so: Cameroon and its people have had a profound impact on all volunteers who served here. Through the volunteers’ personal experience of service Cameroon has become a household name to their families, their friends, and to America. Here let me invoke the memory of the recently deceased economist John Kenneth Galbraith, who served as JFK’s very distinguished Ambassador to India. I recall reading in his memoirs the account of his meeting with Prime Minister Nehru at which Ambassador Galbraith first proposed a Peace Corps program in India. Nehru was receptive, obviously, as volunteers like Ron and Nancy Tschetter can attest. But, in response to Galbraith’s assertion that volunteers could contribute to changing India, Nehru said wryly that he hoped we would not be too disappointed if instead it was the volunteers themselves who would emerge changed from the experience. I think he was right on the mark on that one.
I want to say that this very much has been the case here in Cameroon, and that the benefits of the Peace Corps definitely flow back to the United States and to our people. For that I would like to say thank you, Mr. Minister of State. I also want to thank you and all Cameroonians for the warm welcome your wonderful country has always given our volunteers, and for all they have learned during their service here.
Before closing, I should also highlight the very special relationship that President Kennedy enjoyed with Africa. He served in the United States Senate as Africa came of age in the late 50s. In that role, he was one of the first American political leaders to recognize the significance of the emerging free nations of Africa. JFK had the courage to be the first American Senator to stand up for independence for Algeria. He welcomed the entire Continent’s march toward independence and the end of the colonial era as both inevitable and desirable. He insisted on the creation of an Africa Sub-Committee in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and served as its first Chairman. He welcomed countless African leaders to Washington, and he chided the State Department into vastly increasing its presence – our presence – in Africa. It was indeed under pressure from Senator Kennedy that we opened our first consulate in Yaounde on July 5, 1957, exactly fifty years ago in two weeks. And, in his famous public launch of the Peace Corps idea in an impromptu speech at 2 a.m. on October 14, 1960 before an enthusiastic throng of 10,000 University of Michigan students, Senator Kennedy challenged our nation to abandon the comforts of America …. to serve in Ghana. Less than one year later, Ghana became the first country on earth to welcome a Peace Corps program.
In my opinion, the idea he launched on that fateful day has done more than any other American initiative to promote peace, mutual understanding, mutual respect, and social and economic development around the world, and perhaps most especially in Africa. So we stand here today in Yaounde, Cameroon, just a few short weeks after President Kennedy’s 90th birthday, to honor this leader and his bold vision with a fitting monument that will serve as a lasting reminder of his lasting contributions. Thank you again for presence here today, and for your attention.
I would now like to invite to the podium Mr. Peter Briger, President of Hydromine Inc. Hydromine was one of several firms which contributed importantly to this project, along with AES-SONEL, COTCO, and others which will be duly recognized at our July 4 celebration. Again, we are most grateful to all contributors for their collective generosity. But the particular reason for inviting Mr. Briger to speak is that he began his long career as a member of the Kennedy administration. Please join me in welcoming Mr. Peter Briger….
Thank you, Mr. Briger. It is now my pleasure to invite the Director of the U.S. Peace Corps, The Honorable Ron Tschetter, to deliver his remarks.
Thank you, Director Tschetter. It is now my great honor and privilege to introduce and to welcome to the podium His Excellency Minister of State Bello Bouba Maigari. Your Excellency…..
A fortune teller said a bus would play an important part in my future. It did, but not in the way I’d imagined.
Next Stop, My Calling - Meeting My Destiny on the Bus
Newsweek
September 21, 2006
Author: Sarah Paige
During my last week of high school I was thinking less about my future than I was about spending time with my friends. Our mothers had a graduation party for us, an afternoon tea with sandwiches and a lot of questions like, “What will you major in?†and “What do you want to do after college?†My answer to both: “I don’t know.†Then our mothers revealed they had invited a psychic to tell our fortunes at this turning point in our lives.
Isabel, the psychic, had arms full of bangle bracelets that clacked together as she took a turn with each of us, holding our hands to tell our future. My friend Lisa was told that a tall man was in her future, which wound up being true of her 6-foot-2 husband. Angela, it was predicted, would spend time in the South, which came true when she attended law school at the University of Virginia. When my turn finally came, Isabel took my hand, paused for a moment and reported flatly, “I see you … on a bus.â€
As my new fate got a few giggles from the other girls, I was picturing the disgusting bus stations I had only seen in the movies, full of sad and lonely souls who would rather be anywhere else. A bus is supposed to be the conduit to bigger and better things, the unfortunate but necessary inconvenience you endure to get to your destination. But Isabel had made it sound like the bus was the destination. Is that all? My friends get to be Southern belles and marry tall Prince Charmings and all I get is a lousy bus?
My mind raced. What kind of bus would it be? Local? Cross-country? A public bus? A school bus? A tour bus? Where would I be going? Could it be some sort of figurative or metaphorical bus? Would it please just hurry up and come get me so that I could stop dreading spending time in a smelly, uncomfortable bus? Isabel couldn’t answer any questions about my bus, but told me to be aware of opportunities in my future, and for years I was constantly on the lookout for an attachment to anything that remotely resembled a bus. Eventually, I got caught up with more constructive activities. I finished school, got married and started a teaching career, none of which were apparently significant enough to warrant a mention in Isabel’s psychic reading.
Years later, I found myself thinking of Isabel and her prediction. It happened late one night toward the end of a two-year stint working as a Peace Corps volunteer in Cameroon. I was heading home to my host village, riding over a treacherous road, on a bus of course. The road was typical of West Africa—unpaved, unlit, narrow and full of holes from six months of torrential rains. The bus was also typical—a 1980s Toyota van with added benches to squeeze in 15 adult passengers, not counting chickens, goats and several children under the age of 2. This particular bus had GOD LOVE painted in large red letters on the side of it, and I was hoping that might provide some protection as we reeled blindly in the dark around a downhill curve with no guardrails. Since Isabel’s vision had just re-entered my mind, I was sure that meant my life was flashing before my eyes. Had Isabel been predicting my untimely death? Was the opportunity she told me to be aware of the opportunity to die in a fiery bus crash in a foreign country?
I survived, of course, but I began to think again about the significance of that bus, and how many loose ends I would have left if that bus ride had been my last. Most troubling to me was that I was still unsure of what to do with the rest of my life. For as long as I can remember, I have wanted to be an actor. I grew up taking acting classes and performing and dancing in front of any audience that happened to be sitting still. When I got to high school however, I went through a phase of thinking that acting was frivolous and I was embarrassed to do it.
On the bus that night, I thought about all the people I had met in Cameroon. For most of them, their lives had been decided for them by a class system and arranged marriages. Women only recently started working away from their homes and family farms. I am extremely lucky to have choices in my life, and I should not waste my opportunities. I noticed that in Cameroon people took much-needed relaxing breaks by forming groups where they gathered, drank fermented corn beer and acted out ancient stories. Even on terrifying bus rides, most of the passengers were telling jokes and entertaining each other. Whether it is for escape or introspection, entertainment and those who provide it are valuable.
After that bus ride, I finally understood that pursuing my dreams was not frivolous but rather a privilege. It cannot have been a coincidence that this thought came to me during a bus trip. I knew then I would become an actor. Since returning from Cameroon four years ago, I have spent the time studying acting, and I moved to New York City in order to make it a career. I have performed in theater, films and television. I have gotten a late start compared to my counterparts, and as the odds have it, I will probably never be a famous movie star. But that is OK because I love every minute of what I am doing. To me, that is the definition of success.
As far as my destiny with buses, my experience so far has been occasionally dangerous and, yes, sometimes sticky and smelly. But without it, I might never have had the courage to take such a big chance in changing my career. Now in Manhattan, I use public transportation daily, and I am always open to what I might see on a bus.
Paige lives in New York City.
Here is an interesting article from another news blog set up by a Cameroonian. There are many other articles of interest at the site http://www.entrepreneurnewsonline.com that you might find worth reading.
Importing Foreign Entrepreneurs to Set Cameroon on a Business Path
By Ernest L. Molua
http://www.entrepreneurnewsonline.com
Cameroon is in dire straits. The President of the Republic, Mr Paul Biya, in his most recent public pronouncement, challenged his countrymen to rise-up from inertia (inaction) and embrace patriotism, like the Asians. He implicitly implied that Cameroonians, perhaps lack the vision, determination and will to overcome obstacles, except in football. Cameroon needs a thriving business class to catalyse development. The business climate is riddled with obstacles that serve as impediment to indigenous entrepreneurialism, yet few foreigners as far as China seem to have the magic wand to braze the odds. If Cameroonians cannot do it, then lets import foreigners to do it, after all America, Canada, Australia, Germany currently have schemes and programmes to import skilled able-bodied labourers. There must be policy in place to import and properly manage foreign entrepreneurs who will take the lead for Cameroonians to follow.
The Chinese are doing it in frying puff-balls in Cameroon, as a lucrative enterprise and not for mere subsistence. They took the lead. All of a sudden, Cameroonians are now increasingly frying ‘puff-balls’ or ‘puff-puff’ in every street corner. While the Nigerians, Ghanaians and Beninese are exploiting the coastline reaping revenue of about 5 million FCFA per day in fish sales, Cameroonians are caressing beer bottles, harboring tons of concubines and harvesting poverty while sitting on the complaining bench.
Time to Bring in Foreign Job Creating Firms
However, we will need to import job-creating foreign entrepreneurs. The Cameroonian tragedy is that foreign derived investments are very low. The country receives less than 1% of global investments. That is too low to facilitate ’sustainable’ development and growth. We will need to clean our business environment to cajole the Sony Erickson, Ford, BMW, Ikea, Pfizer, Microsoft, etc. to set up factories and plants in Cameroon, to gainfully employ our people. There is shortage of job creating private domestic and foreign firms in the country. The result is that about 40% of households in the country cannot find formal gainful employment, and continue to live on hand-outs and external assistance from the lone breadwinner in the extended family. And they either pest the breadwinner to death or push him to loot state treasury.
This economic reality is particularly saddening since Cameroon is a treasure trove. Huge deposits of natural resources and agrarian produce, but the problem is that we export raw materials and we import the finished product. With the result that Cameroon gets poorer and the nations north of us get richer. We need to add value to our agriculture products, and if we cannot do it ourselves, let’s bring in foreign risk-bearing entrepreneurs to undertake the transformation.
There is need for strategies to speed up development and growth, by creating an environment that will attract more international investments, since Cameroonians themselves are cash-strapped to create businesses or inherently lack the entrepreneurial will and acumen. The sign for foreign investment is domestic investment. If domestic businessmen do not seem to believe in investing in their own country, it becomes difficult for foreign investment to flow in. We therefore need to promote domestic investments, regional trade within Africa, with growth and development strategies having specific focus on creating jobs and wealth in order to break the cycle of poverty.
Afro-pessimism
There are several obstacles that stand in the way of foreign investment coming into the Cameroon. The first is afro-pessimism - the belief that the entire continent is corrupt and riddled with inefficiencies. This is incorrect. There are countries like South Africa, Tunisia, Morocco and Tanzania that have maintained an admirable record of good government and good governance.
There are some positives in the outlook for the continent. The International Monetary Fund in its world economic outlook said while the global economic trend has not been consistent, 2005 recorded the highest economic growth in the history of trading. The African continent recorded growth that was, on average around 3%-5%. The continent’s GDP rose to 5.1% of the global GDP. Interestingly, Cameroon, Angola, Mozambique and Botswana have shown high growth rates.
On the other hand, states such as Zimbabwe and the Ivory Coast have recorded negative growth, largely due to political instability. It is important for the African continent to develop its own strategies for development and growth. We must be careful of importing eurocentric strategies for the continent. We also have to be careful of one size fits all strategies. What may work in Johannesburg may not work in Douala or Kinshasa. However, we must thoroughly examine and imbibe the best strategies that may do the greatest good to us.
There are many similarities between strategies for running successful businesses and successful countries. The strategies for attracting investment into a company through good governance and subsequent growth can be applied to the process of building a country set to attract investment. The country’s success levels will be enhanced by improved corporate governance. The corporate sector is a critical driver of growth in any country. With the best intentions in the world, Government is not a good creator of employment and wealth.
Sustainable Business Establishments
On a purely business level, there is a great need to produce business strategies that will result in organisations that are sustainable in the medium to long term. A lot of businesses are created in such a way that they are only sustainable in the short term, because they are based on short term goals and strategies. Some businesses are structured in such a way that they can only survive for twelve months or less. A lot of failures are due to limited understanding of the product/service, the markets and the competition.
On the other hand, talent and good leadership are increasingly becoming key to sustainable businesses. While in the past, there was much emphasis on assets, there is an increasing focus on people as the core of every successful organisation. Modern business calls for proprietors and managers who are willing to bring in new thinking and create new ways of doing things. Cameroonians can quickly learn and be pushed onto the right path if there are more opportunities to work shoulder-to- shoulder and eye-ball to eye-ball with foreign entrepreneurs. Let’s open the floodgates for Pakistani, Indian, Lebanese, Turk and South African Boers and Afrikaners entrepreneurs to come and nurture our timid businessmen and teach Cameroonians to take risk.
Cameroon corruption hinders Aids fight
By Jenny Cuffe
BBC World Service, Cameroon
In Cameroon alone, the Global Fund and World Bank have allocated more than $133m (£68m) to stem the tide of HIV/Aids. But with corruption endemic, are the millions being spent on combating the disease being used effectively?
Latest figures show that 5% of Cameroon’s population are infected with HIV/Aids, and there are plans to ensure they all have access to anti-retroviral drugs and cheaper treatment.
Both the Global Fund and a local NGO, the Scouts Association, have recently given money or testing kits to a hospital in Abomngbang in the rural east of the country so that it can provide free screening.
But when Serge Tchapdar went along, he was told he would have to pay - and he tells me his friends were also asked to do so.
And four members of staff - including the one in charge of the unit - say the hospital did not give any free tests.
The hospital’s director, Dr Jean-Paul Kengue, says the tests were done for free - but the records he shows me as proof do not show this.
Suffering
The tests are indicative of the problem in Cameroon. Tackling Aids cannot happen until a cure is found for Cameroon’s second deadly virus - corruption.
The policies and strategies are to help the poorest, and now we have to work on the effectiveness of our policies
Urbain Olanguena
Cameroon’s public health minister
The government says it has put more than $4.5m (£2.3m) into the fight against Aids; resulting in treatment at specialist centres for 25,500 patients, the cost of anti-retrovirals falling to $5 from $13, and pregnant women, children and the very poor getting them free.
Roffine tells a different story.
“I am really suffering, because for the past four years I have been sick from HIV,” she says.
“My parents discovered I was HIV-positive and they threw me out. I can’t pay rent. I can’t afford payment for my treatment.
“I don’t have any work. I can’t do anything for myself. I do everything to get drugs. At times I beg.”
Roffine attends one of Yaounde’s HIV clinics where she is entitled to free anti-retrovirals.
But after giving her the first month’s supply, the pharmacist told her she would have to pay for any more - because her clinic did not receive enough money to buy the drugs it needed from the national supplier Cename, and the only way to get more was to charge.
It is a familiar story throughout Cameroon - patients complaining they are not getting the free or subsidised drugs they are entitled to.
Urbain Olanguena, the Cameroon’s minister of public health, says Roffine’s case is an isolated incident due to structural problems.
“It doesn’t question the global system that today permits Cameroon to give drugs free of charge to people with no money,” he adds.
“But if they need treatment they must get it free of charge… the policies and strategies are to help the poorest, and now we have to work on the effectiveness of our policies and ensure the implementation of these policies.”
Abuse
The $133m coming into Cameroon from the World Bank and the Global Fund has dwarfed the government’s annual spending on HIV/Aids.
To distribute the funds, the minister has devised an elaborate system, co-ordinated by the National Aids Control Committee.
The committee passes money to Provincial Technical Groups, who then divide it between 48 private and several thousand non-governmental organisations (NGOs). At the bottom are the local committees, groups of volunteers who develop their own plans.
This system is wide open to abuse.
Halidou Demba of international NGO Action Aid says local committee presidents and treasurers sometimes misuse the money to buy food grains, stock them in their houses and sell them when food prices are very high in their local market.
Effectively, there is a hierarchy of individuals and organisations all giving money to the man above and taking from the man below.
The individual sums may be small, but multiply them across the country and you’re talking millions of dollars.
Challenge
The complete absence of written records makes proving corruption extremely difficult, and until recently the subject has been taboo in government circles. But in the New Bell Prison in Douala, three former civil servants are now awaiting trial, accused of embezzling $700,000 that should have been used for the fight against Aids.
Damaris Mounlom, who runs an NGO for women’s health and development, blew the whistle on the financial irregularities in the Provincial Technical Group, where the accused worked.
“When we went to the field we found that every local committee have spent the money in the corruption,” she says.
“The people responsible came to see them and said, ‘Give me 200,000 because I am here, I have spent the petrol. I must teach you how to protect yourself. Give me 200,000.’ - and so on.”
But when Mrs Mounlom blew the whistle, she found herself blacklisted by the health ministry, and has now been removed from the National Aids Strategy Committee.
And corruption means donors are now asking whether there is sufficient return for their investment.
Francois Mkounga, who oversees the World Bank’s HIV project - a loan of $50m (£25m) - says they are trying to improve the situation, but there is only so much they can do.
“If the civil society is not providing good information on what is being done on the field it will be very difficult to address those issues of corruption,” he explains.
“There will be always allegations, but no way to address specific issues.
“We need to have a clear view of the mechanism being put in place by people dealing with corruption… we discuss with the government and try to get the government to understand where things are not working well.
“It’s a challenge every day.”
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/world/africa/6198337.stm
Published: 2006/12/22 17:49:06 GMT
Five-year-old Anastasia Enongo lies curled like a fetus in a hospital bunk here, coughing weakly, intravenous medicine dripping into her arm. Born to a mother who died of AIDS, the girl has always been sick, her relatives said, her life a parade of doctors’ visits for fevers, coughs and diarrhea. Read complete article
NKOLONDOGO, Cameroon — When Innocent Zamba Manga was born this summer, doctors advised his mother, Marise, who is H.I.V. positive, not to breast-feed, because nursing can pass the virus that causes AIDS from mother to child. Mother and baby left the hospital with bottles and formula supplied by a Catholic charity. Read complete article