The Prime Minister Philemon Yang presided at the National Decentralisation Council session on thursday.

Fourteen ministries will transfer powers and accompanying resources to Cameroon’s 360 local and 14 City Councils in the 2011 financial year within the framework of the second generation of the effective devolution of powers and resources by the central government to the local governments. This was the main information that came out of the first annual session of the National Decentralisation Council, the Prime Minister, Head of Government, Philemon Yang chaired at the Star Building in Yaounde yesterday, November 11. The Council whose mission is to monitor and assess the implementation of the decentralisation process met to approve new transfer of powers and determine the budget of the decentralisation process for the 2011 financial year.

The first generation of effective transfer of powers and accompanying resources to local and City Councils in the current year 2010, concerned nine ministries. The new Ministries that will join in effectively transferring powers to councils in 2011 include the Ministries of Trade, Urban Development and Housing, Youth Affairs, Small and Medium-sized Enterprises, Social Economy and Handicraft and Tourism. The Minister of State, Minister of Territorial Administration and Decentralisation (MINATD), Marafa Hamidou Yaya, chairperson of the Inter-ministerial Committee on Local Services that follows up and makes proposals to the National Decentralisation Council, during a presentation in the Council session disclosed that the nine ministries that effectively transferred powers to councils in 2010 will continue in the same domains. He however disclosed that the Ministries of Agriculture and Rural Development, Public Health and Public Works plan to devolve powers and resources in new domains in 2011, besides the ones embarked on in 2010.

Prime Minister Philemon Yang in his keynote address at the opening of the Council session that later on continued behind closed doors, said the success of the decentralisation process called for the effective involvement of all actors who must work in synergy. The irreversible decentralisation process in the country’s development, Mr Yang said, explains the Head of State’s circular calling on ministries concerned with the transfer of powers to allocate financial resources in their 2011 budget for implementation of decentralisation.

The members of the National Decentralisation Council examined the proposals of the Inter-ministerial Committee on Local Services presented by Marafa Hamidou Yaya, specifically on the programme for the transfer of powers and resources in 2011, and also evaluated the Common Decentralisation Fund for 2011.

The second generation of the effective transfer of power and resources to Councils in 2011 is expected to be more successful as the major problems faced in the first transfer in 2010 have been tackled, Mr Marafa said in an interview. He disclosed that the Prime Minister gave directives on ways of handling the difficulties and ensuring the total commitment of all actors.