Mbombo Abel Chenyi The Accountant, Banker and Community Developer

   

Mbombo Abel Chenyi

 

Mbombo Abel Chenyi, Lord Mayor of Ndop Council is an Accountant by profession. A Chattered Accountant trained in London. He worked as a Banker and went on retirement when he was the Assistant General Manager of Union Bank in Cameroon. He also worked with Cooperatives and worked with 40.000 farmers for a period of 27 years working with them on how to manage their savings with Cooperative Credit Unions. He eventually went into politics. Let’s however listen to Mbombo Abel Chenyi to get an insight of the Community Developer. This interview takes us through the educational training of Mbombo Abel Chenyi, His vision and development initiatives as a community developer as well as his present initiatives. He begins by telling us about his studies in England. He was interviewed by Francis Ekongang Nzante; Publisher of Cameroon People and Edev Newspaper.

“I studied at the South West London College and from there I went to Tutors College where Accountancy is done. I was later awarded a Chartered Accountant certificate in 1990. I was sponsored by the European Union scholarship in collaboration with North West Cooperative Association and I thank them for that. I served at the Northwest Cooperative Association as the Financial Manager. When I came back home I had to work with them for ten years which was obligatory. When the Union Bank was opened in 1990 I joined it as the auditor and rose up from there to become the Assistant General Manager and because of illness I came back home. I went to the US for treatment and I am finally strong enough to be at the post in which you find me today.

The Community Developer…..

You have worked a lot with communities assembling people at the grassroots and bringing them together which is one of the reasons we have included you in this publication. Tell us about your experience with the grassroots and how this pushed you into politics.

First, I am a product of a farmer and my fees were paid from the farm. When I was serving the Cooperative I realised that the farmers were at the low level of income in the society and knew the pains through which they passed to get money. Look at the cost of a bucket of corn today in Ndop, it is being sold at 1200FCFA but the actual cost of that corn is 3000 FCFA. I sympathized with them and looked for ways to nurse the idea. We started by developing the savings under the credit unions and we raised a lot of money. When we opened the branches of our Bank in Yaounde, Douala, Kumba and Limbe I went and planted the ideas there. My aim was to let the public know that the credit union was the base for the common man and if you save through the credit union you  become each other’s keeper. I encouraged them to do that and when I moved round, I raised over 4 Billion for the Bank. We struggled to get the Bank at this level because we realised after observing Cameroon Bank and other Banks, that the little credits of the credit unions were swept away in those banks going under. The banks collapsed and their savings were not protected so we tried to bring them together to see what could be done. Today the cost of fertilizer is always very high so we encouraged village savings and when you go to villages today you find what is locally referred to as tontins or njangis. It is a system in which they do their savings and help each other. The cooperative spirit we built was each for all and all for each. Dealing with 40.000 farmers was certainly difficult. We opened the Santa Pinyin Coffee factory and I was the first President there and worked with them up to 1980.

Ndop, the largest settled municipality in the upper Noun Valley is transforming from a rural area to an urban one thanks to the growing Economic Power of Agriculture. Can you explain how this is happening? 

Considering the low income from Coffee, maize, beans, banana, coco yams it was difficult but luckily in 1980 the government came up with what is known as UNVDA, the Upper Noun Valley Development Authority and I happened to have served there as a member of the Board.  We realised that our low level lands were very good for the production of rice. We went in and surrendered the land and it was installed. From then till today, most of our youth are not moving out of the place. The women have been stabilised since they work in these rice farms. UNVDA is pushing up with this by giving the rice to the farmers on credit. They have the Technical knowhow and that enables them to build the contours or rice rooms where rice is grown. This has stabilised the economy and reduced social tensions in these areas. The Vegetable growing activity has also greatly improved and has increased the income of the rural masses. They sell their vegetable in Douala, Yaounde, Bamenda, Kumba among many other urban areas in Cameroon. The people due to their growing incomes decided to open stores. The bikes you have in town here are savings from low income persons and it has all generated a lot of development. There is also the community development spirit which has not been left out. As President of the Bamessing Traditional Council, we incorporated all the female folks into the council and 40% of traditional councilors in Bamessing are women. These women educated other women on how to manage their homes with the little income that they had and send their children to school. It is regrettable that for two years school was interrupted but things are beginning to pick up again. The build up to school reopening is going on and I went out with the Honourable member of Parliament from school to school and we noticed that the buildup was impressive. The MP donated books and gave scholarships to some desperate children.

How have they been braving it through this crises period?

They have not been quite hurt because of the stabilised atmosphere. Ours is a municipality with a hundred and sixty thousand inhabitants and it is quite big in terms of administration. The responsibility is subdivided between the Fons, the quarter heads, the administration like the SDO, the DO, so that together we harness our efforts. With the stability built from the base you see that the people are able to build the beautiful houses that you see. They are gradually but surely moving from a rural milieu to an urban area. If you stand up at Sabga and throw your glance down this way you will see that we are growing into a city. We have one of the first modern slaughter houses that we have opened and it is among the best in the region. We think that the butchers and cattle breeders will be very happy with it. It guarantees for the hygiene of what goes into the stomach since we will be able to use that in processing our meat. Apart from the slaughter House, we have our modern market which I have been notified will take about 600 tenants. It will soon be constructed in agreement with FEICOM and they will construct some houses here to incorporate the civil servants that are transferred here. I am hoping that after Bamenda, it should be Ngoketunja that should lead development in the Nortwest Region. It will be a transit market because we hope that the Bamale-Mbouda road will be tarred soon and those going from Nkambe, Kumbo coming down will not need to go to Bamenda. There will be the possibility for people to construct very strong Warehouses. We think that sooner or later Ndop should be a city.  

Message

Things have generally been very difficult and we have also noticed that Technical schools were left out from this region apart from GTC Ombe within the Tiko Municipality. As a result everybody struggled to go to Nigeria for Technical Education meantime French speaking Cameroonians were enjoying a system with a lot of Technical schools. The authorities have now stepped in to adjust that and there are many Technical establishments today. More space has been created for our English Educational Sub system. ENAM now has been beefed up with the common Law system. For everybody who is progressive in nature, there is no life that has no hitches. If you move round in dust, you must have jiggers entering your feet and when this happens it does not mean that you should cut off the foot. Try to remove it and do so carefully before you destroy a tendon. I think we should put our heads together and stop loosing souls. 

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