Suggest progressive ideas and stop petitioning - Fako SDO

Fako SDO, Zang III, has cautioned the people of the Tiko Municipality, especially the staff of the Tiko Council, to desist from the practice of petition writing and rather bring forth ideas that could help develop the Division and the surrounding Municipalities.

Zang was addressing the people of Tiko on Wednesday, July 16, during the First Ordinary Session of the SDF-run Tiko Council, which had been convened to examine the revenue that it generated for 2013, how it was used and other issues related to the business of the Municipality.

Zang, at one point remarked that his office is now flooded with petitions from staffers of the Tiko Council against the Mayor and others from other quarters within Fako Division.

“Fako people like writing petition a lot,” he said jokingly and added that “That is why I have eye problems now, because I have been reading a lot of petitions in my office,” Zang said.

The SDO advised that “those who have ideas which can help in the development of the Tiko Municipality, I would rather you meet the Mayor and discuss with him.”

Zang congratulated the Tiko Mayor, Daniel Mokoundo Ngande, on his achievements in a pretty short while in the Tiko Municipality.

This followed a series of projects that the Mayor disclosed he has already accomplished, following his election on September 30, last year. Zang urged the Mayor to endeavour to do more and not to lose sight of the fact that he, now, has to work as a Mayor for all the people and not “exclusively as a Mayor for the SDF adherents,” whose votes, on the above said September 30, gave Mokoundo the mandate to become Mayor of Tiko.

The SDO also cautioned the Council workers against what he termed a habit of indiscipline. He said the Mayor cannot succeed if the workers of the Council do not commit themselves wholeheartedly to work.

“I have instructed the Mayor to try to see into the problem of indisciplined personnel. I have been receiving a lot of query letters in relation to indiscipline within the staff and the Council cannot function smoothly in such situations,” the SDO added.

He advised the Mayor to try to work in close collaboration with his Deputy Mayors; “You all were elected as a team and, I think, to succeed better, you need to work as a team,” Zang said.

Mayor Mokoundo took over the leadership of the Tiko Council from Richard Tita Fombon who was of the CPDM party. From Mayor Mokoundo’s account, it would appear some of the staffers who happened to have been employed by the former Mayor are the ones giving him sleepless nights. He said that, “some of them have the feeling that since they were employed by the former Mayor, they cannot not submit to my instructions.”

“Big Mop Market” Houses To Be Demolished The SDO has ordered the demolition of all “illegally” built houses on a 1.5 hectare parcel of land allocated for the construction of the Mutengene “big mop” market, located at the entrance to the Mutengene town from Ombe.

The SDO, who visited the site on the same day, found that some people had encroached on the site, building permanent structures, which he ordered that they be demolished within one month.

From the SDO’s response to the press, it appears that one of the former Mayors of the Tiko Municipality sold off parcels of the said makeshift or roadside market land. It is worth noting that the SDO, in December, during the budgetary session of this same Council had, implicitly, indicted the former Mayor for having sold off portions of land at the Tiko Motor park site as well. “The problem here is that somebody illegally sold land belonging to the State,” the SDO stated.

Mayor Mokoundo said funding for the construction of the market worth FCFA 100 million has already been secured from FEICOM. “We shall have the first quota of FCFA 60 million this year and FCFA 40 million, next year,” Mokoundo said.

The SDO also gave a three-month deadline for the Tiko Motor Park to go operational. Meanwhile, the Mayor disclosed that from the 2013 fiscal records, the Council raised the sum of FCFA 749 million out of FCFA 769 million that was budgeted for.

Of the above sum, FCFA 707 million was used for recurrent and investment expenditures. The records indicated an increased revenue generation of 15.12 percent.But the SDO noted that much of the money came from recurrent sources such as additional Council taxes, subventions and so on.

He advised the Mayor, just as he has done in other Councils, to strive towards exploiting more local income raising sources. He noted that Tiko Municipality is host to the Mungo River adding that “the Tiko Council stands to make a lot of revenue from the excavation of sand at the Mungo to the Tiko wharf where it is exported to Equatorial Guinea.”