SDF in Parliament

Paulinus Jua who in 1998 rejected his appointment as member of the Higher Judicial council but later accepted to sit on the council which shapes the career of magistrates and judges says his decision to come on board was motivated by his designation as substantive member. Jua who is noted for his very incisive questions to ministers during Question Time at the National Assembly promises to use his parliamentary grants to put up nine classrooms in four schools within his constituency before schools resume in September. He spoke to Gerald Ndikum in Yaounde and began by assessing the just -ended session.

I must confess that it has been thirty days of virtually no work during which one had to occupy himself with extra-parliamentary activities.

Government tabled six bills for your adoption. Don’t you consider that to have been enough work to occupy yourselves?

That was not enough because we expect the parliament to be more alive than that. Of the six bills tabled, three of them had to do with the ratification of international treaties. There was also the important bill on the fertilizer subsector and then two bills on the OHADA treaty (the harmonisation of business law in Africa).

We had expected that important bills, especially those meeting the present aspirations of the people should be tabled. We, for exampl,e expected the bill on decentralisation to come up so that parliament should debate on it but this did not come to pass.

Generally speaking, we are idle because parliament virtually doesn’t have the power to initiate bills. The constitution says we can, but in practice we don’t just see that happening. This is a very disturbing situation.

Even where parliament is called upon to control government action through Question Time, the opportunity is not given us, whereas the constitution says we should have one of such sessions at least every week, that is four every parliamentary session. But that is not the case. We had a miserable session in which not all the questions submitted to government figured. So my assessment of the session is negative and we hope things will improve in the near future.

You have been highly critical of government policy during Question Time. Do you think such outspokenness will move things forward?

Definitely, we are just performing our role as members of parliament. In this capacity, be you of the ruling party or of the opposition, your role is to criticise government. When you criticise, you oppose what is not good. You make proposals and at times you go ahead to expose that which is not good. We are happy when we carry out this role even if it doesn’t bear fruit.

The SDF and the other opposition parties put together are largely in the minority. Is it still worth the while playing the watchdog role with your minority status?

Yes it is possible even when we are in the minority. When we play the watchdog role, we put the executive on their toes. When we expose their bad acts and make proposals to them, they ought to be happy. If they are not happy, we should be happy because even having accepted our status of minority, we are not just sitting there to let bills pass as presented or let the executive have a field day. We consequently give them work. That is the job of the opposition member of parliament.

All was definitely not bad for the just-ended session. What do you consider to be some of the good points and highlights of the session?

The bill on the fertilizer subsector was definitely a good bill. But we would have wanted the bill to make fertilizer a lot more accessible through a reduction in its price to the ordinary farmer in the rural areas. We all know the importance of fertilizer as an input in the agricultural sector but we don’t see how this new bill handles that problem because the reduction in price is not guaranteed.

Why should we want to regulate the sector when we don’t want to drop the price? Government cannot subsidise fertilizer because of all the impositions from the bilateral and multilateral donors who have kind of banned all government subsidies to the agricultural sector.

So, there are lots and lots of challenges and frustrations when you look at the just-ended session.

Did the designation or is it election of a new secretary general which was one of your cries not one of the milestones of the session?

It was not really an election as such but a designation. I think it was a step in the right direction and we are all looking forward with a lot of hope for new life in the National Assembly. The parliamentarians just like the workers of the National Assembly are kind of boiling with enthusiasm. We are all looking forward to change in the management of the house.

There was also one deputy who resigned his job of parliamentarian to concentrate on his civil service job. What did you read in that gesture?

He had to choose between the two. Constitutionally you can’t occupy an office which has the prerogatives and rank of member of government and then at the same time you are member of parliament. He had to give up one of the posts and statutorily the alternate had to replace him. The alternate got validated and is currently taking his place in parliament.

Did you not consider that as a momentous event given that some of them are still clinging to their multiple jobs?

Well, those are some of the problems we have raised before and now it seems as it is all left to the whins and caprices of the individuals. So we only hope that many more of them who are occupying multiple functions which can even be likened to membership in government will use their good sense and give up such positions so that their alternates can come on board.

Some deputies were designated to be members of the higher judicial council. Do you still figure on that list?

Parliament came up with a list of 20 members on which I figured for onward transmission to the head of state for the final choice. Parliament is usually represented by three substantive members and three alternates. So we all look forward to the final list which the head of state will choose.

When you were last designated member of the council, you first turned down the appointment. What motivated your decision to take back the job on second thoughts?

We were not supposed to be appointed as such and it was when the law was later on cleared that we decided to take up the position. Also we did not see why we should go in as alternate when the SDF to which we belong represented about one quarter of the seats in the National Assembly. We later on accepted the offer when we were told to go on board as substantive which gives us the opportunity to make our contribution to the functioning of the Higher Judicial Council.

You are one of the two deputies for Boyo Division which is a very large constituency. What do you intend to do for your constituents?

I think I am doing everything to meet their aspirations. As a parliamentarian who keeps in constant touch with his people, I intend to this year put up nine classrooms using my micro project grants. Last year we did give some assistance in the domain of roads when we got 4 million FCFA. This year we have got 8 million and I want to use it entirely in the building of nine classrooms. Although this amount cannot build nine classrooms, I am going to try even if we are going to give them uncompleted classrooms. I will want four schools to benefit from the gesture.

So for this year this is what I am going to offer my people and of course many other things as a result of my intervention to convince government sponsor projects within the state investment budget. We look forward to a very hectic year.

Which are the schools earmarked to benefit from the nine classrooms you intend to build?

We have three classrooms for Government Primary School Esela in Njinikom; two classrooms for Government Primary School Acha in Belo and two classrooms for Government Technical College in Belo. The government technical colleges have just been created and most likely will start off in September. My idea is that all of them should be ready or almost ready by the time schools resume. At the moment the blocks are being moulded and by the time I get to the constituency, I hope that we should start thinking of the walls. By September when schools resume construction work should have gone a long way to make the classrooms usable.

Source: The Herald of July 13, 2003, published in Yaounde Cameroon

The end