Kumba Gov’t delegate utterances provoke senior councilors

The utterance of the Kumba Delegate to the Kumba City Council during the 3rd ordinary session aimed at deliberating and adopting the park fee tax rate didn’t go down well with the SDF 18 Senior councilors that make up the city council board.

The government delegate sent to the Kumba City Council Ngoh Nkele Victor in his address during the forum condemned grand councilors for not working in the interest of the entire Kumba City Municipality, but have tendencies to affiliate with their respective sub Divisional Councils to the detriment of the Kumba City Council to the extent that Senior Councilors aggregate themselves at the liberty of assuming that their recommendation have the force of deliberations and are therefore fit for executive execution.

Hear the delegate ‘the results is a plethora of seemingly baseless and biased instructions to stifle a free hand in carrying out projects for the Kumba City Council, even if Sub Divisional Councils Mayors are not subjected to the same constraints during similar sessions of the respective Council”.

This statement interalia provoke Grand Councilor Tanyi Raphael, the 2nd deputy Mayor of the Kumba I Council and chairman of the finance committee who made it clear that despite the sarcastic statement used by the delegate on them, they shall go ahead to adopt the deliberation of the session.

The delegate however announced that revenue collection especially from the market has enjoy a comfortable rise giving a total collection as at August 31, 2014 of FCFA 719 811 718, with the market contributing FCFA 121, 217, 505 of the entire sum.

Despite the called by the SDO for Meme Koulbout Aman David who sat through the meeting as Supervisory authority to calm down the tempers of the SDF Senior councilor of the Kumba City Council, It should be noted that the Grand councilors who happily receive their statutory sitting allowances at the end of the session boycotted the reception offered by the Government at the Kumba City Council Banquet hall to protest that the Delegate in his address at the session attacked them negatively.

John Kona Makia, Mayor of the Kumba III Council told THE SUN that they were taken aback by the utterance of the delegate which is coming at a time when the Mayors and Grand Councilors are struggling to work in synergy for the development of Kumba.

However, the park fee rates of the Kumba City metropolis are now known after fruitful deliberations.

The rates include, category A (Commercial motorcycles), now stands at FCFA 1,500, Category B (commercial taxis) which now stands at FCFA 5,000 and Category C(Urban buses) which now stands at FCFA 7,500. These tax rates were adopted during the 3rd extra ordinary session of the Kumba City Council that took place at the Kumba City Council Chambers on November 7th, 2014 presided by the government Delegate Ngoh Nkelle Victor under the watchful eyes of the Meme SDO Koulbout Aman David.

Addressing the Grand Councilors, the Meme SDO reminded the councilors that this session is in conformity with article 31 of Law No 2004/18 of 22/07/2004 to lay down rules applicable to councils and letter No 03389/L/MINATD/LG of 22/08/2014 from the Minister of Territorial Administration and Decentralisation, instructing all councils to organize extra ordinary sessions to deliberate and adopt the new tax rates, which follows the increase in the prices of petroleum products, which some unscrupulous transporters for selfish reasons took advantage of the increase to exploit the people, which was brought to the attention of the Head of State, who in his usual determination to ensure the well being of the people involved in the payment of taxes in particular issued ordinance No 2014/001, reducing taxes by 50% on some petroleum products transporting vehicles and goods.

The SDO observed that the Presidential Ordinance, in general Specified the rate for axel tax, parking fee and global tax. The SDO called on the Council Administration, Councilors and Taxation department and the various transporters syndicates and Association to sensitize and educate their members with regards to the new tax rate.

He equally used the session to congratulate the revenue collection department of the council for having collected FCFA 795386 641 out of the budget of FCFA 1.287billion giving a realization rate of 61% as of October 2014 just some few months to the end of the financial year, thus a remarkable improvement as compared to FCFA 551 769 608 realized for the whole of 2013.

However, the SDO disclosed that, the figures are deceptive and may make us believe that the council is working hard. He disclosed that the state made transfers of about FCFA 517 million and the local collection is only FCFA 277million.

He called on the council authorities to put in more efforts so as to increase revenue collection.