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If we can remember well our basic chemistry lessons in the secondary school, we would as well remember the end results of an atomic fission. We were told that an atom acting as a projectile, strikes a molecule to produce two atoms that would strike another to produce four atoms, eight, etc. We were also told in Biology that cell division by binary fission follow a like manner. In the same way, one can imagine the consequences of a binary fission theory in the spread of HIV from the project. Some of the expatriates working in the project who might end up being infected would carry the virus safely back to their countries of origin. The Nationals too mostly men who are working in the project with their recorded acts of infidelity would certainly take good quantities of the virus that they have been infected with back to their wives at home. If these men do have other sexual partners back home, they too would certainly be dished their own dose and who would eventually continue the distribution. Experience has thought the African hunter that when a dead animal is removed from the trap, the ants go away thus the prostitutes coming from all ends of Africa will eventually carry the virus back to their various localities at the end of the project. They would distribute it to the residents there and that’s how this virus would continue to cross national and international boundaries unnoticed. Each person in the chain infects two others who would infect two others etc… and so the unending binary fission theory for the spread of the disease continues.
We all know that in the construction company, and to the best interest of the country in which such a project is taking place, what produces good benefits is not only the liquid cash and fixed asserts invested. The real economic benefits along side the cash revenues come also in terms of personnel experience gained. An experienced work force to participate in future projects constitutes a potential human capital for the country. Considering the case of the Chad-Cameroon Development Project, I am afraid it would hardly be the case. The project would likely end with all the workforce and experience gained being lost as most of the skilled workers would have fallen sick or become bedridden from HIV/AIDS and would be in their untimely graves before other projects come. This would therefore mean that the knowledge gained would not be able to be passed on to the younger generation and thus the law of continuity reversed altogether.
I begin to ask my self where the national AIDS commission for Cameroon kept its head. It was not until late January 2002 that the first posters from the Cameroon national committee for the fight against AIDS were seen in some of the villages crossed by the project. Some very few HIV/AIDS organizations have marked present in the project since then though very timidly and often with very brief programs that leave the desperate population as confused as ever before.
Today the world over with the song of sustainable development being sang everywhere; every Tom, Dick and Harry would have expected the project to leave behind a legacy of wealth, economic growth and the resources capable of financing sustainable health projects that could help curb hazards such as the one being brought to bear on the Cameroonian populations by the HIV/AIDS thus may be somehow reaching the pass make of the “Health for all by the year 2000” cliché lunched by WHO and which registered a resounding failure especially with HIV still widening the front.
I am just afraid and too certain that until a rigorous HIV/AIDS sensitization program is set up to educate the workers and to start catering for those already infected, our dream to see this project sail us through the troubled oceans of poverty would instead see us sinking down towards the zones of the HIV. I don’t need to remind us that the uncomfortable temperatures around these zones just like those of plate tectonics could chop off a huge toll of the vital working age and thus there would be nobody with the know-how left to man the pump stations along the pipeline and the rest of the related tasks. What a counter productive project this must have been, we might find ourselves at such a time wishing to have been left alone than be pushed into destitution and irreparable grief. It would certainly be the first time that a giant development project spent time and resources developing infrastructures and forgetting to develop the people who would benefit and maintain those infrastructures. This could be pretty bad news for a country such as Cameroon and especially Chad suffering from a dangerous strain of the poverty epilepsy.
Even the Israelites in the Bible at one time while in the wilderness wished they had been left alone in their slavery in Egypt than be brought to dye of thirst and hunger in the wilderness. God through their leader Moses had and answer for them. Lord, I pray this is our own manner that truly came to save our souls and not to manufacture corpses. We are waiting for that leader to lead the way out.
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Writer Profile
Crystal_Abongta
Abongta is my name, some people especially writers choose to call me Crystal Brain. I am 28yrs old and a proud Cameroonian, who insists in seeing things in a slightly different perspective. I have a passion for satire thus my artistic works bring out that aspect in me which is most often kept in the catacomb of my being.
The tyrannical society, in which I grew up, shaped me into what I am today. My works especially the paintings serves as a major outlet without which I would better not exist.
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Comments
NICE Pooja | Apr 4th, 2003
Good article!!
CATASTROPHY AWAITING TO HAPPEN WORLD BANK CONSULTANT | Jun 6th, 2003
The story above regarding the pipeline prostitution is very disconcerting but true. However, a CATASTROPHY of high degree awaits the general public of Chad/Cameroon when the pipeline is commisioned. The pipeline and support systems are INFERIOR SUB-STANDARD AND UNSAFE and should not be commissioned owing to irregularites and anomalies at design,procuremnt,construction and operation phases. The World Bank have connived and colluded with Exxonmobil to defraud and deceive public funds.
Exxonmobil do not give a damn for the local people or the environment, they have compromized every conceivable international regulation in the construction of the pipeline and support system.
International health and safety regulations have been consistently compromized.
Exxonmobil care about one thing only $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$.
CHAD CAMEROON PIPELINE CATASTROPHY WORLD BANK CONSULTANT | Jun 16th, 2003
The emergency shutdown valves on the pipeline are not in accordance with international standards. Exxonmobil have compromized every conceivable regulations for the hydrocarbon industry and the Offshore Floating Storage tanker is an obsolete "rust bucket" Welcome to Exxonmobil cowboy projects .
The Chad Cameroon pipeline is a time bomb waiting to go off.
The financial institutes funding the project do not give a damn for the general public, i.e COFACE/World Bank/EIB/IFC/ABN-AMRO/EXIM.
They have allo got their fingers in the till!!!!
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