Halt The Wastes!

Commentary

For the umpteenth time, government is once again attempting to handle the vexing problem of the purchase and use of administrative vehicles in the country in its drive to improve public spending.  Numerous past efforts have yielded little or no fruit as public speeches on the issue and field reality continually go at variance. The incessant circulation of uncountable State-acquired limousines in the country, worse still, serving hugely other purposes than office use, shows to what extent texts and instructions on inhibiting the ill are flouted with near impunity.
From a simple hindsight, the quality of vehicles purchased already pose a problem. It is common to see officials who simply work in Yaounde riding in cars that would have otherwise been plying bad roads in villages. It is almost a truism that roads are bad almost everywhere but simply leaving the officials’ residences that are not found in just any neighbourhood to their offices wouldn’t absolutely necessitate the types of vehicles most of them use. No one denies the fact that senior government officials deserve the comfort of their high offices. But simple and less costly vehicles could still give them the comfort and save the State from wasteful spending that the haphazard purchase of administrative vehicles entails.
For instance, why use a double-cabin Hilux vehicle that costs dozens of millions as service car in Yaounde when a smaller vehicle at a quarter of the price could still serve the purpose?
Worse still, those heavy vehicles are hefty as well in terms of consumption and maintenance with the State paying wholly for all of that. What even becomes worrying is the alleged double dealing where users of the costly vehicles turn around after little time of usage to request that they be reformed, with flimsy excuses that the vehicles are already bad and would be too expensiv...