BY TALLA AGHAA CHRISTOPHER.
The Mayor for Konye Council, Barrister Musima George Lobe is bent on dragging the Meme Divisional Delegate for the Economy, Planning and Regional Development, MINEPAT, Godlove Buinda and a Kumba city reporter of The Median Newspaper, Bertrand Doh to court for alleged defamation.
The Mayor has expressed outrage following a publication in The Median of November 6, 2017 with the headline “Poor PIB projects execution: lazy, corrupt mayors have killed dev’t in K’ba”.
The reporter, in his article quoted the Divisional Delegate as saying that the low project execution rate in the division, which stands at 41.68% is as a result of laxity and bad faith on the part of most mayors in the division.
According to the newspaper report, the divisional delegate had observed that Mayor Musima has done little or nothing to improve on the roads in his municipality despite the public investment budget allocation for that purpose.
Follwoing PIB statistics published by the newspaper, Buinda indicates that Konye is amongst the lowest with an execution rate of 6.11%, followed by Kumba II with 16.52%, Kumba III with 54.14%, Mbonge with 64.22% and the last being Kumba I with 3.83%.
The Mayor revealed his intention to drag the delegate and the journalist to court in a strongly worded letter addressed to the Senior Divisional Officer, SDO for Meme, Ntou’ou Ndong Chamberlin, captioned “Defamatory Publication by the Meme Divisional Delegate of the Economy, Planning and Regional Development, Mr Godlove Buinda and Mr Doh Bertrand Nua concerning the execution of Public Investment Projects in Konye Sub Division”, dated November 17th, 2017 a copy which THE SUN procured.
Mayor Musima, writes in the letter that “it is with regrets and utter disappointment that I learnt that in one of the follow-up committee meetings held in my absence on the 19th of October,2017, Mr. Godlove Buinda who is also Secretary for Meme Divisional Follow-up Committee for the execution of public investment projects made highly disparaging and unfounded statements concerning the Konye Council in which I am Mayor on the execution of Public Investment Projects generally and roads projects in particular within the Konye Municipality”.
Going by the Mayor, the MINEPAT Delegate for Meme is quoted as having made the following defamatory statements, remarks or reports, interalia that, “FCFA 27 million is allocated yearly for roads works. All this money has been squandered in the past four years. Roads works in Konye municipality has stagnated at barely 35% since 2015”, and that “an inspection team was in Konye two weeks ago and work was still in the same position”.
The Mayor disclosed that the above quotes are contained on page 3 of The Median Newspaper No.254 of the 06/11/2017.
According to the mayor, the unfounded and derogatory declaration by the Meme MINEPAT delegate, now a publication in the newspaper, casting aspersion on his person and position is unacceptable and if not redressed by the authors, he shall conclude that the statements were made in malice and he shall be left with no other option than to defend and restor his disparaged reputation by legal means.
It should be recalled that the follow-up meeting of PIB projects for Meme on October 19,2 017, chaired by the Makembe Paul,Vice Chairperson of the Divisional Participatory Follow-up Committee for PIB projects for Meme was stormy and participants even frowned at the Konye Council Development Officer, Tabong Arnaud who represented the Mayor when he couldn’t explain why, till that moment, the council had not executed a project of FCFA 250.000 for the supply of Chairs and table in a Primary school in that area.
In that meeting, the MINEPAT Boss for Meme, Buinda Godlove observed that all the statistics, be it physical and financial executions, of PIB projects in Meme were not his fabrication but a report of the technical follow–up team.
“I am just a secretary of the follow-up committee of PIB, I have no problem with the mayor, the Meme follow-up committee is only concerned with development of the division” Buinda Godlove told The SUN.
The journalist responsible for the article told reporters that what he reported is what he gathered in the meeting amongst many other issues.
The SUN contacted Mayor Musima who remained very bitter and called the publication biased. According to the mayor, the report must have been sponsored by his political enemies.
Quizzed on whether the money allocated for roads have been “squandered” as reported, the Mayor disclosed that a majority of the roads in his municipality are currently undergoing rehabilitation and that the FCFA 27million meant for roads for the current year is still hanging in the treasury and still to be made available.
The Mayor says he is stunned by the figures presented at the PIB follow-up meeting since his council was recently crowned the best in the South West Region in terms of PNDP statistics with a cash prize of FCFA 50million.