SOWEDA Board lauds management for efficiency, 2022 budget execution.

The Board Chair of SOWEDA, Ediage Apande Herbert, gave the mark of approval during the 48^th Ordinary Session of SOWEDA. The session held at the Buea Mountain Hotel June 23.

The session had as goal to examine the management reports of SOWEDA's activities for the year 2022. The budget of over 1.7 billion FCFA voted for 2022, management recorded and execution of over 1.3 billion FCFA, representing a 78% realisation.

The Board noted that the level of realisation of the budget by management, despite the numerous challenges faced by the institution, was thanks to the dedication and commitment of management and staff. 

“The Board is extremely proud with the realisations of management, given the problems of insecurity that we all face, and which prevent SOWEDA from deploying its activities to the entire Region and the fact that subventions are inadequate and come in for the most time very late into the year. But the Board is very impressed with the efforts management has put in to come up with this level of realization,” Ediage said.

SOWEDA understaffed

The Board noted with dismay the fact that SOWEDA remains understaffed because of the regulations in place to limit the amount of resources that can be used on salaries. 

According to the Board chair, the institution has a staff shortage of 58%.Despite the staff shortage, he lauded management for the marvelous results despite the limitations. 

“We continue to push them on because they are very motivated because they have a team. Though the organigram has a staff shortage of 58%, they still work to full capacity like all the positions are filled,” he added.

Despite these limitations in terms of personnel and resources, the Board urged management to continue serving the population of the Region as they pleaded for subventions to be provided on time. 

“We will hope subventions can be provided on time and to provide us with more heavy equipment to fulfil our task of accompanying local and regional authorities,” Ediage stated. 

To ensure equitable development and that some areas are not left out as far as development is concerned, the Board Chair pleaded with the population to denounce separatist fighters and secure their communities so that projects will not be taken from one area to the other because of security concerns. 

“We call on communities to unite and make sure that they secure their areas, so that projects are not moved from one area to another,” he said.

Meanwhile, the Board Chair, while welcoming a new Board member; Akamba Ava, representative of the Cocoa and Coffee Board, invited the Board to organise a workshop to acquaint new Board members on the functioning of the institution since a third of the members are new.