In a communiqué signed by the Minister of Higher Education, Jacques Fame Ndongo, No. 16.000/MINESUP/CAB/nn on July 26, 2016 explaining President Paul Biya’s regime’s “Plan Special Jeunes”. China’s Sichuan Telecom Construction Engineering Co. Ltd has been contracted to supply 500,000 pieces of mini computers to university students.
This announcement was highly celebrated by most university students around the country as they performed a march pass in the cities of state owned universities across the country, carrying placards thanking President Biya for his promise.
But this idea has not gone down well into the heads of most Cameroonians who have seen the move as a “gymnastic” to rob Cameroonian taxpayers.
According to one Cameroonian USA based Journalist and Solution-oriented critic, Tapang Ivo Tanku, the whooping sum of money would have been used to improve on the Universities’ infrastructures.
Posting a picture of a hall in the Bamenda University on Facebook, Tapang wrote, “This is a lecture hall in the University of Bamenda, Cameroon. It is a restaurant. No air condition. No space for the legs to literally breath. And yet, the gangster regime is providing Chinese laptops to students instead of furnishing lecture halls, computer labs and hiring computer teachers. Stupidly, a few students are praising the gangster regime”.
In very heartbreaking tone, Tapang compared Cameroon to neighboring Ivory Coast on the laptop issue. This is what he posted on facebook. “And while in Ivory Coast, the regime spends only FCFA 4 billion to set up a laptop factory that recruits its youths, creates more jobs, supplies home-made laptops to its institutions and citizens, increases innovation in the country, and encourages skilled labor and freethinkers.
Its neighbor, Cameroon, spends nearly 20 times the same amount of money obtained as loans from Exim bank of China, to freely give 500,000 laptops to university students currently enrolled for the 2016 academic year ONLY. It is a one-time gift — only for 2016. The move is an open political gerrymandering to garner votes for President Paul Biya, 84, who has been in power since 1982, and seeks to renew his seven-year mandate in 2017/2018.
Both countries are ruled by my grandfathers. Same humans, different brains and mindsets”.
He even went as far as posting a video on the cost-effective laptop project in Ivory coast.
He went further to question the brains behind this scheme. “Where will they sit in this lecture hall? Where will they place their laptops? Where will they connect their laptops? Where is the wifi on campus? What online library will they use for research? Copying and pasting called plagiarism? No books nor access to research papers. So what kind of research will laptops do?”
Of course the solution-oriented critic has not been the only one who is questioning and criticizing the scheme. Most opposition parties in Cameroon have taken offense on this issue. They all argue that it is a very wrong move that will go a long way to plunge the country into serious economic crisis.
According Bamenda online News, This move which is said, will gulp down 75 Billion Francs of borrowed money from China’s EXIM Bank, the People Action Party, PAP notes that, “the government failed to inform the Cameroonian people of the interest rates of this loan that the country shall incur within this ten year period. We ask that such figures be made known immediately; such venture is very bad investment and a complete waste of resources”.
Much as computers are vital for research and other academic course work, PAP believe that, this does not beat urgent priority projects on Cameroon’s development totem pole such as fighting the scourge of unemployment, provision of potable drinking water to every household, mechanize agricultural practices, putting meaning to the words, ‘free primary education’ etc. Let us randomly consider the issue of combating unemployment.
75 Billions can do a lot! Go also, to our state budget line by line and cut back on fuel, so-called out-station allowances and other reckless spending such as entertainment. Put all of these together and create factories across the country that would finish our raw materials … create a name for the country as a manufacturing hub in the region.
And by the way, in case this embarrassment of a regime didn’t know, 75 Billions could provide six thousand jobs to youths with a monthly salary of 100,000 Frs for the next ten years.
Some Cameroonians have been quick to point out that it is a bait the president is using to impress the youths to steal their conscience as the presidential election draws nearer.
Beside most people have considered the promise a mockery to Cameroonian youths who deserve more than this.
In the same vain, many are saying that it is only a promise that may never be realized as far as the present regime is concern.
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