Mayor frowns at FEICOM’s late disbursement of funds

The Mayor of Limbe I has urged FEICOM to respect the yearly payment schedules of Councils in order for the Councils to meet their financial and service obligations to their populations.

Mayor Ro-Danny Mbua Mokako was speaking to the press on June 15, during the first ordinary session of the Council that was dedicated to the examination and adoption of the Council’s accounts for the 2014 fiscal year.

FEICOM, known in English as the National Council Support Fund is a funding agency, whose role is to provide financial assistance to Councils.

FEICOM thus collects and redistributes these funds to Councils in order to assist them in their tasks of carrying out development within their various municipalities.

But Mayor Ro-Danny was not happy with the fact that FEICOM has not been respecting the schedule as to when it has to pay in this money to the Councils so that they, in turn, can meet up with their budgeted development programmes on time.

Ro-Danny Mbua told reporters that what FEICOM had to pay into his Council for the first quarter of 2015 was only paid about a week ago.

“It is a problem that is affecting all the Councils. No one ever knows when FEICOM will pay. But these payments are supposed to be made quarterly,” Ro-Danny said. “... it is a first quota payment which should be done latest 15th of April. But that of my Council was paid in just last week,” he added.

The Mayor said they were not blaming FEICOM, but reminding them that there is a need for them to pay on time so that Councils can also meet up their commitments to their population on time.

On the yearly grading and filling of some earth roads within the town of Limbe, which will get bad a few months after, the Mayor said with a meagre budget of FCFA 400 million, they cannot, for now, tar such roads. He, however, said that his Council was talking with the City Council to see how some of the roads could be tarred so that the yearly wastage of money on grading and levelling can be reduced.

“If we could make more money, it would be better to tar a road than to keep grading it. And with a present budget of just FCFA 400 million; can you tar a road? Certainly not,” the Mayor said.

The Councillors ended up voting the accounts after examining them and making some recommendations for improvements.

Meantime, the SDO of Fako, Zang III, called on the Mayor and his executive team to strive towards improving on the Council’s revenue collection.

From the presentations, it was clear that much of the revenues came from the State and other external sources other than local revenue sources within the Limbe I municipality.

Mayor Ro-Danny in his response, said; “that is why we have built 12 new market stalls at the entrance to the Bota Hospital, which is a project that will soon be generating income for our Council.”