Actualités of Wednesday, 16 July 2014

Source: The Post Newspaper

Gov’t Delegate resolves Kumba Hospital land crisis

The Government Delegate to the Kumba City Council, Victor Nkelle Ngoh, has been petitioned to step into the land crisis between the Kumba District Hospital,the Nnoko Mboh family and over 500 inhabitants of Press Quarters, Kumba.

A complaint to this effect dated July 10, 2014, addressed to the Municipal Authority, a copy of which The Post laid hands on, is urging the city boss to seek a solution to the crisis that has put the FCFA 25 million Government project on hold and could leave some 500 inhabitants without an access road to the town.

The same land dispute has seen the family of Magistrate Nnoko Mboh in constant conflict with successive administrators of the Kumba District Hospital.

Speaking to The Post, July 10, Peter Mulango, Spokesman of Press Quarters, explained that the construction of a fence round the hospital will see some 500 Kumba City dwellers live without access road to town. Mulango claimed that the same area remains a busy itinerary for students, during school periods and national days, alongside people from Mbonge Subdivision and Ndian Division who use the road daily.

According to Mulango, a road was earmarked for the said area during the reign of Elango as Mayor of Kumba but was intercepted by Chief R.M Ntoko, then Manager of Presbyterian Schools, who refused the caterpillar driver from digging out the hibiscus fence. Mulango further revealed that, even till the era of Caven Nnoko Mbelle as Government Delegate, some facilities such as electric poles were shifted inwards to allow for free movement of persons.

Nnoko Mboh Denies Suspending Gov’t Project Reacting to accusations that she suspended work for the construction of an FCFA 25 million fence around the KDH, Pamela Ndedi Nnoko, told The Post that she has never stopped any work on the said area. Ndedi denied requesting for 10 meters of land to create a foot path.

She explained that her major concern is the common interest of people living around the area. She remarked that if the Mboh’s decide to construct a fence without any sacrifice, like the hospital authorities, there will be no road for the population to pass.

Corroborating her mother, Robinson Eben Nnoko Mboh, disclosed that after the accusations leveled against her mother during a meeting of the follow-up committee of Public Investment Projects on July 8, the same persons came on July 9, and the director of the KDH Ebongo Nanje offered 50cm to create a path. The 50cm, according to Eben, would mean people of certain sizes cannot use the path.

Eben said it is a road networks that led to development and so any plans in the present without considering the impact on the population and the future, defeats the reason why Government has technical services such as State Property, Land Tenure among others, planted all over the country. He stated that work on the hospital fence has not begun because the people are not yet ready with their materials.

Ndedi and Eben averred that, if they had interest in disturbing projects of common interest, then, they would have equally stopped the first construction of the fence started by Hon Abel Mukete when he served the people of Kumba in Parliament.

Going by the Mboh’s Family, they have been the occupants of the Press Quarter area since the 1930’s before other people came in, including the health facility. They lay claim to being the ones who championed the handing over of land for the putting in place of the Kumba District Hospital.