Yaounde (National Times)-Cameroon’s Prime Minister Chief Dr Joseph Dion Ngute has created a commission to investigate and establish the cause of the recent explosion at the country’s lone National Oil Refinery Cooperation (SONARA) within 30 days.
The decision is the substance of a decision the Prime Minister signed on Tuesday June 11. According to the decision, the Minister of Water and Energy Resources Gaston Eloundou Essomba is the head of the commission.
Dion Ngute’s decision indicates that, the commission is expected to investigate, ascertain the cause of the incident and advice government on the way out. The commission is expected to submit its report to the head of government after the prescribed deadline.
The commission created at the behest of president Paul Biya has 12 members among which are 2 secretaries.
Cameroonians are less excited about the creation of such commissions given their antecedents in decades past over issues of great national import. Most of such commissions created in the past are known to have achieved little or nothing in the discharge of their assignment.
The Prime Minister’s decision comes days after Minister Essomba headed an inter-ministerial committee delegation to the same corporation. The key announcement of that visit was the assurance of SONARA workers that, there will be no job cuts despite the incident.
During that visit, the population of the surrounding communities was also assured of government’s readiness to accompany the people in handling the challenges that the explosion may have caused .
The opposition Social Democratic Front SDF party during its National Executive Committee (NEC) conclave of June 9th blamed government over the SONARA inferno.
In one of its resolution, the SDF “ frowns at the incident at SONARA which illustrates clearly how poor maintenance and the use of obsolete equipment has destroyed many state-run companies like Camair, Camrail,WADA, CELLUCAM,NPMB among many others.
And stresses that, this incident was a clear indications of the problems of bad governance that the SDF has decried over the years. Therefore urges that, the report of the commission set to investigate the SONARA incident be made public in the shortest time possible, as this government is fun of setting commissions of inquiry without results” the SDF wrote.
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