Headline News

29, August 2019

Medical Tourism: Biya regime sending jailed CPDM politicians abroad,Inoni is next on the list ⁰

The Biya regime has evacuated a cream of jailed CPDM politicians including the former general manager of the Cameroon Airlines Yves Michele Fotso abroad for treatment reneging on a promise to end medical tourism Mr Biya made during the last presidential poll won by Prof Maurice Kamto.

The Yaounde regime is spending hundreds of millions of dollars on foreign medical trips to France, Switzerland, Morocco and the Republic of South Africa most of which are unnecessary. Highly placed government officials and army generals who travel abroad are mostly treated by Cameroonian doctors in France and in Switzerland.

Cameroon Intelligence Report gathered that President Biya has already made a decision for former Prime Minister Chief Inoni Ephraim to be ferried to Europe for treatment. It remains a national shame that Mr Biya has never consulted in a hospital in Cameroon.

President Biya has been leading the medical tourism industry in Cameroon by example wasting Cameroonian tax payer’s money in hospitals in Germany and in Switzerland and encouraging his acolytes, friends and family members to go abroad on frivolous medical trips.

There are a sea of Cameroonian doctors in Europe and the US and critics have accused the Yaounde crime syndicate of failing to address the brain drain by improving working conditions and health centres.

Mr Biya has always said his government’s hard-earned cash would not be spent on treating officials overseas but spends more than nine months in a year at the InterContinental Hotel in Geneva with his private medical staffs.

Cameroon has everything and is one of Africa’s oil producers but most of its citizens live in poverty. Mr Biya took office in November 1982 and promised to tackle corruption and waste. But what the leader claims to have achieved in his 37 years as head of state ranges from plain fiction to the most absurd.

By Chi Prudence Asong

28, August 2019

What We’re Watching: Israel and Iran, Clashes in Southern Cameroons and Brexit Battles ⁰

Iran-Israel Proxy Flare-Up – On Sunday, Israel confirmed it bombed an Iran-backed militia group in Syria that it says was preparing to launch “killer drones” against Israeli targets. Israel is also thought to be behind attacks on Iranian-allied groups in Lebanon and Iraq, and hits on Hamas targets in Gaza. The governments of Iraq and Lebanon condemned the strikes, while Hezbollah promised retaliation. With three weeks to go until snap elections that will determine Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s (Bibi) political fate, we’re watching to see whether this flare-up escalates, and whether it boosts Bibi’s election chances against former Israel Defense Forces chief Benny Gantz.

Clashes in Cameroon – English-speaking regions of majority Francophone Cameroon are on lockdown following a violent weekend in which clashes between the army and Anglophone separatists killed 40 people and sent tens of thousands of residents fleeing for safety. The conflict started in 2016, when the central government cracked down on English speakers protesting a move to impose French on local schools and courts. The flare-up in recent days came a week after 10 prominent Anglophone separatists were handed life sentences for rebellion. So far, more than 2,000 people have died and more than 500,000 have been displaced in the three-year-old conflict.

Brexit Battles – Will Europe give UK prime minister Boris Johnson a better Brexit deal than the one they offered his predecessor, Theresa May? Not bloody likely. Yes, Germany’s Angela Merkel and France’s Emmanuel Macron have pledged to consider any credible new ideas from Johnson on how to handle the Irish border. But that’s not a European concession; that promise of flexibility is already in the existing Withdrawal Agreement. Merkel and Macron want to appear flexible so that Boris takes the blame when the issue can’t be resolved. Inside the UK, meanwhile, opposition party leaders made a show on Tuesday of agreeing on the need to avoid a Hard Brexit. But while they agree they have a problem, the solution remains unclear. With the clock ticking down toward the October 31 Brexit deadline, we’re watching to see if some political Houdini can pick these locks before everyone sinks to the bottom of the river.

Culled from Gzeromedia

28, August 2019

A new surge of people fleeing Southern Cameroons ⁰

Separatist factions demanding the release of their leaders have begun locking down the north-west and south-west regions and urging a boycott of a ‘back to school’ campaign supported by the Francophone-led state and civil society groups.

Thousands of people have already fled their homes in cities like Bamenda, Buea and Kumba – at the epicenter of the conflict. Some have sought to hide out in the bush to escape the wrath of both the security forces and armed separatists.

The military court ruling in the case of Julius Sisiku Ayuk Tabe, the president of the self-proclaimed Ambazonia and several, sparked renewed fears of an escalation in the violence.

As many as half a million people have fled their homes in the Anglophone regions since a crackdown on anti-government protests by English-speaking lawyers and teachers deteriorated into an armed separatist struggle in 2016.

Separatist lockdowns have occurred frequently and schooling has been disrupted in the three years since the crisis started. A Swiss effort to bring the Anglophone separatists and Francophone-led government together for peace talks is still in the early stages.

Solomon Amabo@solomon_amabo

Who is fooling who? Governor NW Region Cameroon says those fleeing violence with pots, mattresses, tables etc are students who are returning from vacation. The reality is the fear of a lockdown imposed by pro-independence fighters. How many lies will the rogue regime tell?

Lockdowns spark fear

Travel agencies in the cities of Bamenda and Buea have been crowded and chaotic as residents try to make arrangements to leave, mainly by road. Fares have doubled or even tripled in some instances.

Celine Tanui bought bus tickets for a trip to the city of Bafoussam in West Region, where she plans to enroll her three children in school. “The sentencing of Julius Sisiku Ayuk Tabe has worsened things here in Bamenda.”

Tanui said she was shocked by the court ruling and the separtists’ vow that schools will not resume until they are released. “I have to carry my kids to the West so that they should go to school there,” she told DW.

The exiled chief of staff of the self-declared Ambazonian interim government, Elad Kizito told DW the lockdown was already in place in various villages. “The Republic of Cameroon is trying to use the school resumption to deceive the international community that everything is normal and that things have been normalized in the so-called Anglophone region.”

People who supported the Anglophone struggle are happy with the lockdown, while those who “live on the crumbs of the Republic of Cameroon” are disgruntled with it, Kizito said.

“Yes, it’s painful, it’s hard for the people. But we have made provision for those who are in dire need to be served in hospitals, childcare or emergencies.” Emergency services would be available in major centers such as Buea, Bamenda and Victoria,” he told DW.

What about those fleeing? “Those are not people who are not happy with the lockdown, those are people who have experienced the brutal terrorist republic militia in their houses. They now don’t want it anymore and they are leaving.”

Three years of no school

Eighteen-year-old Quiniva and her younger brother were among hundreds of people waiting for transport out of the region at Bamenda Motor Park.

“I paid for a ticket. They gave us assurance that a car is coming. For several hours, we have been in the park – no trace of any car coming,” she said. The need to continue her education – three years of missing out on school prompted her to pack up.

DW asked the North West Region Governor Lele Lafrique Tchoffo Deben Adolphe about the boycott of the “back to school” campaign. “Showing them on Facebook, those devilish messages that people abroad who are not facing the realities – sending their children to school, enjoying life, celebrating marriages, going to the graduation of their children, showing on Facebook, asking our children here not to go to school.,” he said.

The fear of violence, said Quiniva, is constant.

“We need to go to Yaounde because we are scared of the military because the military doesn’t only attack you outside of the house. They even come and break into your home and attack you. So, nowhere is safe,” she told DW.

The separatists too are feared in the region by the people they represent.

“We are also afraid of the “Amba Boys.” We don’t feel secure because the “Amba” themselves also kidnap people, they kidnap students, they kidnap teachers – and even cut off fingers,” Quiniva said.

Separatist violence grips anglophone western Cameroon

‘Most neglected crisis’

A coalition of human rights groups on 26 August made a submission to the United Nations Human Rights Council, calling on it to urge Cameroon to end the violence in the regions, attend to the people in need of humanitarian assistance, and investigate human rights violations.

The statement by Lawyers’ Rights Watch Canada, the Centre for Human Rights and Democracy in Africa, and the Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights (RWCHR) comes ahead of the 42nd regular session of the Human Rights Council, which takes place from 9 to 27 September.

“The crisis in the Anglophone regions of Cameroon is the most neglected in the world and increasingly neglected from within as journalists fear for their lives,” Yonah Diamond, legal council to the RWCHR, is quoted as saying in the statement.

Atrocities linked to Cameroon’s security forces came into focus on 27 August, when seven soldiers were due to go on trial for killing two women and two children in the Far North. The soldiers were identified in a video footage of the incident that went viral in mid-2018.

Amnesty International has documented human rights violations in Cameroon’s Far North and Anglophone regions

Amnesty International has documented cases of human rights violations committed by security forces in Cameroon for years. Such violations, according to the international human rights watchdog, are taking place in the Far North in particular and at a lower level in the Anglophone south-west and north-west regions.

“Not all of the security forces are massively violating human rights. They are playing a very important role in protecting the population. But there are several cases of torture, of extra-judicial killings, of arbitrary arrests that we have regularly denounced,” Samira Daoud, Amnesty’s Deputy West and Central Africa Deputy Regional Director, told DW.

“This trial of soldiers for the killing of women and children in the Far North, for us, is a very important step because it is an admission that these violations are indeed occurring.”

“Cameroonian authorities need to draw a line and show that no army personnel responsible for atrocities will now escape from prosecution.”

Source: Deutschwelle

28, August 2019

Ambazonia leaders will continue to battle from behind bars ⁰

The Ambazonian who is shaping French and Southern Cameroons political future was taken back to his small room where a huge wall separates him from the other jailed members of his cabinet and visitors. Sisiku Ayuk Tabe, the Interim president of the Federal Republic of Ambazonia was charged with rebellion, sedition and terrorism and sentenced to life in prison by the Yaoundé Military Tribunal.

President Sisiku Ayuk Tabe was the main figure in what is now known to be the most important political case ever brought before a Cameroonian court. The Ambazonia president is one of 10 Southern Cameroons civil leaders who appeared before the Yaounde Military Tribunal on charges related to secession and subsequent declaration of independence.

The Military judges that dealt with the case were all from President Biya’s Beti Bulu tribe. It was through their hands that La Republique du Cameroun handed over the controversial verdict on the gravest political crisis the country has faced in its 57 years of so-called reunification. The trial process and the judges were manifestly biased and acted following a President Biya- French Cameroun political criteria.

No one expected that the Sisiku Ayuk Tabe trial was going to be fair! But it has become a lever for democratic change in the face of a state which has greatly regressed in democratic terms. President Sisiku Ayuk Tabe may be behind bars, but the Ambazonia leader has serious political clout and remains in charge of the Southern Cameroons revolution.

The leaders in the diaspora have attempted to impose a lockdown in Southern Cameroons which some have argued is unfortunately winding down the struggle. Some political commentators including Dr Joachim Arrey of the Cameroons Concord News Group have opined that the changing dynamics in the crisis calls for a different approach and that using crude means to mount pressure on the Biya Francophone government could be counterproductive.

However, Ambazonians view the Yaoundé Military Tribunal and the French Cameroun political elites as those unfairly prosecuting their leaders for defending the basic democratic rights of Southern Cameroons citizens. The children of the jailed leaders have not been able to see their dads for more than two years only because their fathers are defending the right of Ambazonia to exist.

In his indictment of the Ambazonia leaders, the French Cameroun judge described the actions of President Sisiku Ayuk Tabe and his aides as an attack on La Republique du Cameroun’s constitutional order.

Of course the Southern Cameroons leader declaration of independence was to force La Republique du Cameroun to accept the separation of that territory now referred to as the one and indivisible Cameroon, a goal that he still maintains will be attained.

President Sisiku Ayuk Tabe told our Yaounde city reporter that he and his cabinet ministers were not guilty of any of the offenses they were charged with.

President Ayuk Tabe observed that he’s ready to spend as many years in prison as it takes until Southern Cameroons gains its independence. Many including some in French Cameroun believe the Ambazonia leaders should not have been given a life sentence.

Sisiku Ayuk Tabe had pointed out some few days before the Yaounde Military Tribunal verdict was made public that even if it sounds strange, unilaterally declaring the independence of a territory is not a criminal offense.

The French Cameroun judges acted on Biya regime orders! But the Southern Cameroons leader has said that establishing an independent state of Southern Cameroons with headquarters in Buea is the only way forward.

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai

28, August 2019

UK: Prime Minister Boris Johnson asks the Queen to suspend parliament ⁰

British PM Boris Johnson has caused a major surprise by asking the Queen to suspend the House of Commons just days after the end of the summer parliamentary recess in September.

Johnson’s move is set to deepen Britain’s political crisis in the closing stages of the tortuous Brexit process.

28, August 2019

Clashes erupt between African migrants, police on Mexican border ⁰

Violent clashes between African migrants and Mexican military police erupted in Tapachula on Tuesday, as migrants demanded the right to travel north to the US and Canada.

Hundreds of African migrants are currently trapped at the Mexican southern border, after the Latin American country decided to strengthen its border controls following US threats of imposing tariffs on Mexican goods.

(Source: Ruptly)

28, August 2019

China denies US warship entry to port for visit ⁰

China has reportedly denied a US navy warship entry to its port city of Qingdao, in the second such move this month, which comes amid mounting tensions between Beijing and Washington.

A US military official told Reuters on the condition of anonymity on Tuesday that a US destroyer was supposed to visit Qingdao on Sunday but China denied a request for the visit.

Asked why the US request was denied, the official said the question should be directed to Beijing.

China has yet to comment on the report.

In a similar move this month, China denied two US Navy ships entry to Hong Kong.

The US official said American warships had occasionally made visits to China, most recently in 2017.

The last US warship to have visited Qingdao was the destroyer Benfold, which docked at a Chinese port in 2016.

China has long been engaged in a dispute with Washington in the East and South China Seas, over which it claims sovereignty. The US usually dispatches its warships and warplanes to the waters as part of patrols it describes as “freedom of navigation” and without seeking an authorization from Beijing.

PressTV-US 'maliciously hyping up' South China Sea issue

The two sides are also locked in a trade war, which started when the administration of US President Donald Trump imposed unusually high tariffs on imported goods from China after he took office.

Trump claimed on Monday that there were hopes for a deal with Beijing to de-escalate the dispute.

He said that Chinese officials had requested to return back to the negotiation table in a telephone conversation with “our top people.” China, however, denied the claim.

Source: Presstv

27, August 2019

Biya regime hiring criminals to assassinate Ambazonia leaders in Kondengui ⁰

Cameroon Intelligence Report has gotten evidence that the Biya regime is planning to eliminate the Ambazonia leader Sisiku President Ayuk Tabe and his top aides currently being held at the Kondengui High Security prison in Yaounde. The French Cameroun regime noted for a widespread campaign of assassination plots across Africa and Europe reportedly recruited the services of some Francophone medical doctors assigned to Kondengui by the Ministry of Public Health to kill the Southern Cameroons leaders.

As part of the French Cameroun diabolic harsh ploy to stifle the Ambazonia revolution, our senior chief intelligence officer in Yaoundé also revealed for the first time that he believes Yaoundé has successfully silenced General Ivo Yenwo, General Elokobi Daniel Njock and General Ekongwesse who all hail from Southern Cameroons.

The Ambazonia leader “cheated” death when the late French Cameroun minister Martin Belinga Eboutou failed to handover the money paid by the Biya regime to the Nigerian Secret Service boss for the Abuja-Nera mission.

The late Minister Martin Belinga Eboutou and Minister Paul Motaze were allegedly responsible for masterminding two major operations that claimed the lives of Captain Guerandi in Burkina Faso and Bishop Balla of the Bafia Diocese.

The families of both men had long suspected that Biya was responsible for the murders. French Cameroun lately hired gangsters in the Kondengui prison to carry out the recent killing of Southern Cameroons detainees during the riots as a way of hiding the Cameroon government’s involvement in the crime.

Yaoundé has used its diplomatic missions and criminal networks to engage in terror and assassinations home and abroad so as to retain a degree of plausible deniability for its actions. Several Bassa military officials who were raised up in the Southern Zone of the Federal Republic of Ambazonia have been contracted to carry out the killings of Southern Cameroons leaders.

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai with files from Sama Ernest

27, August 2019

The Untold Truths about Ndian and it’s Crude oil contributions of $618 Billion to Cameroon since 1972 ⁰

The truth could be interpreted as any of the following :-

That, God did not put all these resources under our feet, waters soil and in our forests ,waters in Ndian for us to be extremely poor, under developed and hapless in spite of her contributions of $618 billion NOT FCFA but USD dollars.
That, crude oil exploration started in 1972 in the Ekondo oil fields, when crude oil was selling at $21.6 per barrel, and it changed the political complexion of the Federal Republic of Cameroon as West Cameroon was effectively swallowed because of crude oil.
That, since 1972, Ndian has been producing an average of 58.000 barrels per day to 161,000 barrels per day, but Ndian still have the snapshot of 5th century Africa, with Mundemba it’s headquarters having all the trappings of a makeshift refuge camp with no basic modern public infrastructure in spite of her contributions of $613billion from crude oil sales since 1972 till date
That, Palm Oil plantations developed and transformed Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Brazil, Vietnam into emerging economies and economic tigers, but Palm plantations has made Ndian even poorest amongst the poorest. Pamol occupies a land mass bigger than Monaco, Onitsha and Bayelsa state, Nigeria and our coastlines.
That, cocoa developed Western Nigeria, Ghana.,Ivory Coast, Brazil, Switzerland , but cocoa has not made any improvements in our lives and communities. The tallest buildings in Ibadan, Nigeria and Accra Ghana respectively are named cocoa House.
That, Crude oil has developed and is developing USA, Nigeria, Angola EQ Guinea, Middle East, Benelux, Latin America, but has left Ndian poorest of the poor with Idabato, Isangele, Bamusso, Kombo Abedimo and Etindi still looking like a region and people with no government in spite of our contributions of $613
Billion over the years.
The truth might also mean any of the following too:-
What the government does not want to hear. Or what you could be killed for saying in public. ( That, we are capable of managing our own affairs and our resources peacefully)
A guarded secret. ( About Ndian crude oil and her contribution of $613billion over the years.
A lie told repeatedly or a white lie ( that , there is any nation on earth that her unity or geo-political map cannot be negotiated, when “One” 1 itself and even fractions are divisible
What everybody knows but nobody want to say it. ( Ndian and the Oroko has everything but owns and control nothing) Until we are able to have firm political control over our factors of production, our land, our resources ,we shall continue to sit at the banks of Rivers Ndian, Mana ,Mundimba, Bulu gazing at the Rumpi singing songs of lamentations.

12 The truth might also mean telling your brother in the morning that, his mouth is smelling or your spouse that he is snoring.

That. Ndian seriously need to form a political party that, would defend and fight for their interests and resources.
We need to have a “Rumpi Freedom Party,” “Ndongore Peoples Party”, Basusu Freedom Party, or Ingeke Freedom Party, that would win all elections in Ndian and represent the people and not foreign interests. Ndian has been over raped, ripped, cowed , abused and our people living in constant fear and in eternal bondage.
There is a saying in Ngolo that,
Fear kills only the person who wears it. And that. “Any child afraid of witchcraft or scared of death can never inherit the throne of his parents .”
The Truth about Ndian Crude oil.
Source: US Energy Information Administration (EIA).

Summary and Breakdown of crude oil production from. 1972 -2018.

Years of Production :1972-1980
( 8 years)
1.2. Average Annual Production per day=58,000barrels
1.3. Average Annual Price in USD:$59/bbl
1.4.Amount of Crude Oil Produced: 58,000 bbl X 365 days X 8 years=162,400.000 barrels in 8 years
1.5. Amount from Crude Oil Sales =
162,400,000barrels X $59/bbl= $9.581,600,000 (Nine billion, Five Hundred and Eighty One Million, Six Hundred thousand Dollars.)

2.Years of Production :1981-1990
( 10 years)
2.1. Total Production for 10 years:
5,595,450,000 barrels
2.3. Average Price in USD=$147.5/bbl
2.4.Amount from Sales of Crude =
5,595,450,000 barrels X $147.5/bbl=
$825.328,875,000.(Eight Hundred and twenty five billion, Three Hundred and Twenty Eight Million, Eight Hundred and Seventy five thousand dollars)

Years of Production :1991-2000
( 10 years)
3.1. Total Production for 10years=
4,292,400, 000 barrels
3.2. Average Price in USD:$117.7/bbl
3.4.Amount from Sales of Crude Oil =
4,292,400, 000 barrels X $$117.7/bbl=
$505,215,480,000(Five Hundred and Five Billion, Two Hundred and Fifteen Million, Four Hundred and Eighty Thousand Dollars).

4.Years of Production :2001-2010
( 10years)
4.1. Total Production=: 2,755,750.000 barrels
4.2. Average Price in USD=$75.4/bbl
4.3.Amount from Sales of Crude Oil =
2,755,750,000 barrels X $75.4/bbl=
$20,778,355.000 (Twenty Billion, Seven Hundred and Seventy Eight Million, There Hundred and Fifty Five thousand dollars)

Years of Production :2011-2018
( 8 years)
5.1.Total Production=: 2,186,350,000 barrels
5.2. Average Price in USD=$71.8/bbl
5.3.Amount from Sales of Crude Oil =
2,186,350,000 barrels X $71.8/bbl=
$15,697,993.000(Fifteen Billion., Six Hundred and Ninety Seven Million, Nine Hundred and Ninety Three Thousand dollars). US Energy Information Administration (EIA).

Atabong Albert Motale

27, August 2019

DR Congo unveils new government after months-long delay ⁰

Nearly eight months after former opposition chief Felix Tshisekedi was elected president, the Democratic Republic of the Congo has unveiled a coalition government dominated by supporters of his predecessor, Joseph Kabila.

“The government is finally here. The president has signed the decree and we will begin work soon,” Prime Minister Sylvestre Ilunga told reporters.

In gestation for seven months, the new government will see most of the 66 portfolios handed to Kabila’s Common Front for Congo (FCC), with Tshisekedi’s Direction For Change alliance accounting for most of the rest.

Tshisekedi, 56, has vowed to enact sweeping reform and root out corruption but has been hampered by the need to share power with the legislature, which is dominated by FCC MPs.

Forging the coalition government took time as both sides had to “remove everything that could be an obstacle to the functioning of the government,” Ilunga said.

The new team will get down to work as soon as its members are approved by the National Assembly, he added. The parliament has been convened in special session until September 7 to approve the government.

“I believe this has been worth waiting for,” Ilunga said.

“Here we have a government that manifests the vision of the head of state, in the direction of change. So change starts now. Let’s get to work!”

Female foreign minister

Ilunga said 17 percent of government positions were now occupied by women.

“This percentage is still low but it is balanced by the importance of the portfolios attributed to women,” he argued.

The foreign ministry was handed to Marie Tumba Nzeza, a member of Tshisekedi’s Union for Democracy and Social Progress (UDPS).

She becomes only the second female foreign minister in the country’s history. The first was Ekila Liyonda, who briefly served in the 1980s under former dictator Mobutu Sese Seko, who had renamed the country Zaire.

Women have also been named in charge of the employment ministry and ministry for gender affairs.

The new government also includes a female vice prime minister from Kabila’s party, Elysee Munembe, who takes the planning portfolio, Ilunga said. There are five vice prime ministers in all.

Democratic Republic of the Congo’s newly inaugurated President Felix Tshisekedi (R) walks off the podium with outgoing President Joseph Kabila after he was officially handed over the instruments of power during his inauguration ceremony at the Presidency in Kinshasa on January 24, 2019. (Photo by AFP)

The defense ministry went to Aime Ngoy Mukena, a close Kabila supporter and the finance portfolio to another Kabila-era veteran, Jose Sele Yalaghuli.

The interior ministry was attributed to Gilbert Kankonde, a pro-Tshisekedi figure from UDPS ranks, who will face the thorny task of dealing with future protests.

Ilunga declared that three-quarters of members were serving in government for the first time, which he regarded as the “most important innovation.”

Tshisekedi emerged victorious in elections on December 30 that marked the DRC’s first peaceful transition of power since the mineral-rich nation gained independence from Belgium in 1960.

Poverty, instability

But the unstable country’s politics remain overshadowed by Kabila, who despite stepping down voluntarily wields extensive clout after 18 years in power.

He came to office in January 2001, less than two weeks after the assassination of his father, Laurent Kabila, while the armies of at least six regional nations waged war on Congolese soil.

Swathes of the eastern provinces are still unstable, a haven for rebel militias regularly accused of atrocities against civilians.

Moreover, an Ebola epidemic has claimed almost 2,000 lives in one year in the troubled provinces of North and South Kivu, presenting a grueling challenge for the incoming health minister, Eteni Longondo.

Despite cobalt, copper, diamonds and other natural treasure, the DRC ranks just 176th out of 189 countries on the UN’s Human Development Index. Poverty is widespread, and inequality is glaring.

Another hot potato has landed in the lap of the minister in charge of primary education, Willy Bakonga.

He has to implement a plan to make state schools free from September 2 — a scheme announced by the outgoing minister only on Saturday and at a cost of some $2.6 billion (2.3 billion euros), roughly half the government’s entire budget.

(Source: AFP)