Police oversee driving license exams

The Lycee General Leclerc High School in Yaoundé witnessed an uncommon case where police forces were deployed at a driving license exam centre to deter striking driving schools on Saturday May 23, 2015.

The striking driving schools heading towards the General Leclerc High School located in the first district of Yaoundé, Mfoundi Division, thought was a restrain on the national review of the license for the May 2015 session, supervised by Philip Fernand Bella, departmental delegate of Transport for Mfoundi.

Facing the imposing security cordon deployed, they were content to express their distress on the imposing perimeter wall of General Leclerc High School. The 266 candidates from various driving schools remained calm while the sole consideration Mfoundi was retained by the Ministry of Transport (MINTRANS).

On the strikers placards outside, there were various messages including "No to the license to kill", "No to masquerade" and “We only want to train” among many others.

Who benefits?

The driving school promoters met outside with the candidates who believed that 266 was an insignificant figure for an analysis which usually hosts between 1500 and 2000 in the Mfoundi department.

They accused the officials of the Ministry of Transport (MINTRANS) and their corrupt accomplices to be the origin of the deep crisis which has been over a year now.

Thus they denounced the granting or refusal of approval visionary developers, fictitious applications for the review of the license, the late publication of the results delayed due to the review of the driving license for the October session in November 2014.

Yaoundé and Eséka for instance were presented with candidates from fictitious driving schools created by officials MINTRANS. The accusations also include the misuse of letterhead and stamps of some driving schools by such unscrupulous promoters .

The crux

In Philip Fernand Bella’s own words, “the Departmental Delegate of Transport for Mfoundi composed by the government’s daily Cameroon Tribune argue that 64% of the ordinary candidates across the country come from the department under the cover of fictitious driving schools or misuse of our labels”. The MINTRANS denied these accusations.

These charges are nevertheless real and an instance is that of the promoter of the famous driving school called "Djostin" who filed a complaint with Thomas Noubondie, the representative of the collective of unions driving schools in which he complained, for the 2015 session that "The departmental service of the High Plateau Baham has filed 93 cases using the header of my driving school on behalf of the 2015 session”.

Again, the MINTRANS denied everything; yet there is a very credible evidence which tends to give reason down the line on the striking driving schools who refused to nominate candidates for this May 2015 session and which will continue the rest of the year.

In 2014, because governments accused driving schools promoters of cheating leading to the delivery of the driving license qualified as “killing permit” by some candidates, a group of promoters were convinced that the Mintrans was looking for those responsible.

So a proposal was made to the Mintrans that no driving school should present a candidate for the 2015 session. To the surprise of everyone, MINTRANS refused and rejected the proposal.

With this "white dry season" in the national examination of the driving license, these promoters hoped those MINTRANS personnel they accused of keeping the financial aspect of issuing "killing permit" in Cameroon for over two years should end once and for all.

Including all fake driving license that computerization has failed to protect as well as corrupt officials of MINTRANS who are also judges and parties to the case.