Akonolinga: CONAC launches robust nationwide corruption-free back-to-school campaign.

The campaign, tagged: “Corruption-free back-to-school”, was launched Tuesday in Akonolinga, Nyong and Mfoumou Division of the Centre Region.

The campaign, which runs from August 19 to 24, is under the theme: “Let's work together for a corruption-free 2024/2025 school year".

It was launched in the presence of administrative and municipal authorities, led by the Senior Divisional Officer, SDO, of Nyong and Mfoumou, François Franklin Etapa, heads of security services, school authorities as well as teachers. 

Speaking at the event, CONAC Chairman, Rev Dr Dieudonné Massi Gams, harped on the need for all and sundry to federate forces with the institution to shun all forms of corrupt practices within the education sector.

While regretting that corruption is usually rife during the back-to-school period, the CONAC boss said the campaign seeks to educate and raise public awareness on the need to avoid any corrupt practice in the education sector within this period. 

Rev Dr Massi Gams said the nationwide sensitisation campaign targets education community, particularly school principals, parents, students and leaders of Parent-Teacher Associations, PTAs.

According to Massi Gams, the campaign is to ensure that education stakeholders participate in reducing and even eradicating corrupt practices within the school milieu, which he said is always very frequent at the start of every school year.

He said during this period, teams from CONAC will visit schools, decentralised services of the education sector and areas with a high population density to sensitise them not to fall prey. 

The CONAC chair used the event to urge all education stakeholders as well as parents to use the toll-free number to report cases of corrupt practices as victims or those they might witness during the school resumption period. 

"...if we want a corruption-free Cameroon tomorrow, we must invest today to spare the education sector from corruption,” Rev Dr Massi Gams stated, while calling on all and sundry “not to remain silent in the face of any abuses they may suffer”.

Rev Dr Massi Gams told his hearers that “your telephone is a weapon in the fight against corruption. Use it particularly during this back-to-school period". 

Enter Nyong & Mfoumou SDO

For his part, the SDO of Nyong and Mfoumou, François Franklin Etapa, said the launching of the campaign in the town of Akonolinga was not by chance.

The SDO said his administrative unit plays a vital role in accompanying CONAC in its nationwide fight, especially in the process of changing behaviour in general and particularly in the sensitive period of school resumption. 

"Akonolinga therefore becomes today the town that must serve as an example so that the message conveyed by CONAC will have a ripple effect and reverberate throughout the country,” the administrator said, adding that the Division remains determined for a corruption-free school year. 

"The education sector is crucial in the construction of a country in the sense that it trains the leaders of tomorrow and produces the technocrats who must change the course of development," the SDO said.

This, he said, underscores the need for all stakeholders to join CONAC in the fight to eradicate all corrupt practices within the education sector, particularly during the back-to-school period.

"It is well known this period is a breeding ground for a good number of practices that are decried, detestable and detrimental to the smooth running of education of young Cameroonians,” the SDO said, noting that his area of command is firmly against corruption in all its forms. 

The SDO challenged school officials to join in the fight, warning that the slightest case of corruption noticed during the new school year or at any other time will not go unpunished.

"Let us therefore work together, alongside CONAC, to ensure that the start of the new school year is free of corruption," the SDO appealed.

School resumption period has over the years been considered as peak period for corrupt practices within the education.

It is a period, administrators of especially government schools, and PTA members are repeatedly accused of selling spaces for admission of students in their various establishments. 

Through the campaign, CONAC intends to raise awareness for parents and the general public by distributing and posting posters in schools and decentralised services that denounce corrupt practices. 

This story was first published in The Guardian Post issue No:3205 of Tuesday August 21, 2024