A good debt is one that is reimbursed on time as agreed says a Cameroonian adage.

 Authorities of the National Employment Fund have been gnashing their teeth following blatant disrespect of engagement from over 60 debtors of the seaside town of Kribi to whom it gave out loans to help them in their business ventures. In effect, of the 102 beneficiaries of the loan dished out in January, 2015 payable in 11 months, only 40 have honoured their engagements paying back all their debt.

The corridors of rumour justified by open resistant from the debtors tell of the rest of the debtors claiming they thought what was handed to them was a grant from the Mayor for enabling him win the last elections. The money might appear insignificant considering that each one of them got FCFA 80,000 to be reimbursed with an interest of FCFA 2,832 but the whole issue is that the beneficiaries saw in the loan a good gesture from the National Employment Fund; one that was to alleviate them from poverty. Whether or not they made good use of the loan is a different issue.

The refusal to refund the debt can readily be interpreted as bad faith. This entails intentional dishonest act by not fulfilling contractual obligations or entering into an agreement without the intention to fulfil it. In fact, the beneficiaries have openly violated basic tenets of honesty. This act is however not circumscribed to Kribi alone. Similar cases abound with similar government projects designed to assist the underprivileged. The consequences, of course, can be quite devastating not only to the government but also to the individuals concerned.

Once the loan is held back, there is a blockage making it difficult for the project concerned to issue out more funds to the rest of the needy population.  If the trend were to continue, there will come a time when the funds allocated to such projects and programmes will completely disappear. And once this happens the whole purpose of fighting poverty is defeated.

Well, the damage seems to have been done. This will however serve as a lesson for government to rethink the procedure to adopt in giving out such loans. Maybe, there is a communication vacuum where the population is not well informed about the conditions of the loan scheme. If that is the case, then enough time should be given to communication to enable those qualified for the loans to understand the intricacies involved.

In the same vein, stop gap measures ought to be taken to ensure follow up of the projects presented by beneficiaries to ensure smooth implementation. Many other international institutions do that. They accept to release the funds but compel the potential beneficiary to build up a project with their collaboration. Once this is done, the funds are released in stages till the final goal is achieved.