The best thing that ever happened to Mezam in general and Bamenda city in particular was to have had Mr. Mache Joseph Bertrand as Senior Divisional Officer, SDO for Mezam division. Mr. Mache Joseph Bertrand who is a senior and respected civil administrator came to Bamenda as Mezam SDO some four years ago. Apparently the longest serving SDO for Mezam in the past 20 years, Mr. Mache Bertrand has been seen as the silent locomotive in the development and progress march of Mezam in general and the city of Bamenda in particular. His stay in Mezam division has been so eventful that everybody in Mezam wished he stayed longer. His charming and disarming smiles notwithstanding, Mache Joseph Bertrand has been the very epicenter of economic and social life in Bamenda.
The one person in Bamenda who knows Mache Bertrand just so well and made it a point last November 16, 2012 at the send-off and installation of the new Senior Divisional Officer for Mezam, is Vincent Nji Ndumu, Government Delegate to the Bamenda City Council. Vincent Nji Ndumu, known for never mincing words said he had no doubt that Mache Bertrand has endeared himself to the people of Bamenda and was leaving the place with a very heavy heart.
Remarkable Achievements
In enumerating his achievements, Vincent Nji Ndumu was unequivocal about the efforts Mache Bertrand has put in transforming the Bamenda city. He stressed that when Mache Bertrand was installed some four years ago, the ceremonial grounds were not what they are today. Under the leadership of Mache Bertrand, Bamenda has had the most impressive grandstand only second to the one in Yaounde . The grandstand today is a key attraction in Bamenda city. Ndumu stressed that the general transformation of the city of Bamenda has happened under the watchful and supervisory eyes of Mache Joseph.
The outgone SDO also assisted Bamenda in no small way through their first steps as a city council, especially when it set out to clear the streets of containers, making the city centre more airy and most modern. Mache Bertrand is credited for having stood by the city of Bamenda to ensure that order was brought into the motorbike transport sector as well as in the management of traffic congestion on the main streets of the city with the introduction of parking meters.
One cannot count Mache Bertrand’s achievements without mentioning the thorny and later, effective privatization and management of public stand taps and the lighting of all street corners in Bamenda.
It is equally thanks to the tactful and methodical management style of Mache Bertrand that order was brought back to reign within the city board of the Bamenda city council, yet another new structure that saw the light of day with the municipal transformation of Bamenda under Mache’s stewardship from an Urban to a City council. Vincent Nji Ndumu however, did not fail to attribute his success to the fortunate fact that Mache Bertrand has had the singular privilege of working with two governors in the North West Region. It was under the direct supervision of Mache Joseph Bertrand that Bamenda was transformed from an urban to a city council. In paying glowing tribute to the outgone Mache Bertrand, Vincent Nji Ndumu did not fail to express his appreciation and kind regards to his successor at the council, Mr. Tadzong Sandjou Abel Ndeh, who together with Mache Bertrand worked tirelessly to see to it that Bamenda became what it is today.
Too true to himself, the Government Delegate did not fail to recognize the hurdles Mache Joseph Bertrand has had while serving as SDO in Mezam. Given the specific difficulties and challenges in Mezam given its cultural background with extremely powerful fondoms and given the fact that Bamenda is the bedrock of Cameroon politics, the outgone SDO had his share of hurdles. This notwithstanding, the Bamenda Government Delegate holds that if a panoramic view of his administrative career were to be taken, one would conclude that Mache Bertrand has been a lucky man indeed.
His Insightful Career
Interestingly, Mache Joseph Bertrand before coming to Mezam division was SDO for the Diamare in the Far North Region with Maroua as administrative seat and Regional headquarters. From there, he came to Bamenda, administrative seat of Mezam and Regional headquarters of the North West . According to Vincent Nji Ndumu, the one thing in common with the two is that Mache Bertrand had the Governor just next door. Like Bamenda and Maroua, Dschang, the new destination of the outgone SDO, is a University city . This means that Mache Bertrand remains in control, and the buck stops within him.
While inviting the outgone Mache Bertrand to always feel free to come back to Bamenda especially for his weekends and holidays, Vincent Nji Ndumu declared that Bamenda was and remains his second home. How could it be otherwise, Vincent Nji Ndumu opined, when he and his dear wife, Sylvie spent the best of their adult life in Bamenda. Proof positive has been the fact that it was in Bamenda that God blessed the Maches with “a wonderful baby-girl”- Joseph Marthe Kelly. The Chronicle newspaper joins the Government Delegate to the Bamenda city council, Vincent Nji Ndumu to wish Mache Joseph Bertrand well in his new functions in the Menoua and continue to share in his glory. The sky is the limit.
No comments:
Post a Comment