Extra ordinary session of senate called on the request of Paul Biya sees a bill on decentralization put on the table
The extra ordinary session of the senate has opened in Yaoundé today with top of the agenda a bill to fast track the decentralization process in Cameroon.
Senators will in the days ahead be looking at the code of regional and local authorities which some senators see as a very useful innovation which will be a way of empowering and involving local authorities and communities in managing their own affairs.
It is also seen as a response to the grievances of the English speaking community as Senator Mbella Moki Charles puts it adding that he and his colleagues are going to do their bid to ensure that he doesn’t let the people he is representing and Cameroonians as they seat to deliberate on this bill.
This extended session of the upper house called by the head of state comes as a respond to the proposals for the recommendations of the major national dialogue to be looked into and a means of ending the ongoing crisis in the North West and South West Region.
The Head of State, president Paul Biya also called for an extraordinary session of the lower house of assembly which met today to adopt what was provided as the Special Status to the anglophones. The president of the Republic had promised a Special Status to the North West and South West regions as provided by the country’s constitution.
The arrival and adoption of the form of the Special Status is as a result of the Yaounde Major National Dialogue, put in alongside other recommendations to resolve the ongoing anglophone crisis.
The Special Status introduces the establishment of the Regional Executive Body and the Regional Assembly in the North West and South West Regions. Under the Special Status, Regional Executive Body will be a result of the Regional Assembly. The Regional Assembly will constitute 90 councilors and the organ will be divided into two; House of Chiefs and House of Divisional Delegates.
The Regional Executives will be made of the President, Vice president, two Secretaries, a Questor and three Commissioners in charge of Economic Development, Social and Health Development, Sports, Education and Cultural Development.
John Paul Sama
