MIDENO Presents 2023 Annual Report, Discloses Food Transformation Project For 2024

  

MEDINO's General Manager, Cletus Anye Matoya At The Press Conference 

By Raymond Dingana

The North West Development Authority known in it's French acronym as MIDENO has presented highlights of  development results scored by the institution for 2023. This was during a press conference in Bamenda to evaluate the activities of MIDENO in 2023 chaired by the General Manager GM, Anye Cletus Matoya who said the Anglophone Crisis has dealt a heavy blow to the farming sector with many abandoning their farms because of insecurity.

According to a report presented by the Director of Technical Development DTD at MIDENO Nde Emmanuel, Thursday Dec. 18th, the institution intervened on eight different areas all a bid to transform the socio-economic environment of the region. He said the result achieved was thanks to an intervention strategy which focused on engaging the communities, ensuring active participation of key stakeholders in the chain.

"In the facet of improving access of farmers to improved seeds, MIDENO in 2023 distributed 7.9 tones of improved maize seeds and 6 tones of potatoe seeds to farmers. Stock farm inputs worth FCFA 25million was acquired and shared to farmers at the launch of the farming season in Nkambe amongst others,"

indicated the DTD.

He also explained that things will never be the same again in the coffee sector as something big is coming it's way.

" MIDENO has equally invested FCFA 50million to revamp the coffee sector .The aim is to promote the marketing of Kola Coffee produced by the North West Cooperative Association, NWCA. Coffee shops are under construction in Bamenda."

MIDENO was also interested in inclusive development reason why persons with disabilities PWDs also felt the magnanimity of the institution.

"As concerns the socio-economic development of PWDs, over 516 were targeted in the area of Livelihood support. 228 received 3000 three-week-old chicks,coupled with fowl feed. 66 got electric sowing machines,grinding mills, while 118 received wheelchairs, and white canes. As concerns education, didactics we're distributed to 104 PWDs."

The DTD went further to say that as the old adage says where a road passes, development follows, MIDENO signed a partnership with the Ministry of Public Works within the framework of maintenance and rehabilitation of some 41.7 Km of road stretching from Galim through Bamenyam, Awing and Mile 11 stretch.

He said the stretch is an alternative access road linking the North West and West Region effectively done in 2023  worth above FCFA 487Million with MIDENO contributing more than FCFA 287Million to the success of the project.

The DTD added that in partnership with the city council, river pathways were opened notable the bridges at Sonac Street and Mile 3 to take care of flooding.

MIDENO's Agriculture Value Addition Project To Promote Food Transformation To See Light Of Day

One of the high point of the press conference was the announcement of an Islamic Development Bank (IsDB) funded Agriculture Value Addition Project to the tune of FCFA 5 billion.

The project that has a 6-years lifespan is aim at promoting small scale food transformation in the Region.

"They are many small scale farmers interested in food processing but MIDENO observed that there are key constraints involved in that. Most of them lack the adequate capacity, and right equipment, so this project is intended to empower them so that they can better process and market their products in order for us to start consuming home made products."

Challenges Faced By MIDENO In 2023

The achievements recorded by MIDENO in 2023 was not a walk in the park as there were many challenges raging from difficulties in making seeds available to farmers.

"We have thousands of farmers in the Region but we were only able to meet the needs of only about 750 of them because of limited resources. We carried out several missions to Yaounde following up the disbursement of the fruits of the partnership with the Ministry of Public Works and this was really cost ineffective. Over 80% of the ministry's contribution has not been paid even though works have been completed. We also suffered breakage of equipment leading to high cost of constant maintenance."

Enters the Administrative and Finance Director, Mr. Bawe Ernest Ndi who said despite the limited resources, MIDENO has been able to pay it's 120 permanent and 50 temporarily staff.

He said with a functional budget of FCFA 550 million though not enough, MIDENO was able to settle all it's debts, carried out many development project scoring a 79% rate of budget execution.

Participants At The Presser

He added that because of the inadequate resources, allowances for both active and retired workers may hit the rocks.

On his part, the staff representative of MIDENO, Mr. Ndula Lawrence thanked the GM for his management by participation approach saying staff are more serious at work than before. He said many were decorated with medals as a sign of hard work. He also saluted the GM for preparing a better retirement scheme for workers among others.

On a sad note, he lamented the death of a staff and two spouses of MIDENO workers while thanking the GM for mobilising the entire staff to support the bereaved.

Anye Cletus Matoya 

For better execution of Public Investment Projects in the Region, the General Manager, Anye Cletus Matoya prescribed effective engagement of communities as the best way out.

Created by a presidential decree in on August 13, 1981, to among other things, act as the overseer on behalf of the Government of the Republic of Cameroon with respect to the implementation of government sponsored development projects in the North West Region.

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