The Governor of the Centre Region;
The Government Delegate to the Yaounde City Council
The Director-General of the Special Council Support Fund for Mutual Assistance;
The Director of the Local Government Training Centre;
Mayors,
Dear Collaborators,
Ladies and Gentlemen,

I am, once more, very happy to share with you, these moments of conviviality and communion offered us by this ceremony for the presentation of New Year wishes for 2010.

First of all, I would like to express my heartfelt thanks for the very kind words and wishes addressed to me by the Secretary-General on your behalf. Accept my sincere thanks.

Ladies and Gentlemen,
Dear Collaborators,

Besides the feasting that usually accompanies family meetings, this ceremony is equally and above all, the right moment,
Firstly, to draw up a balance sheet of our common actions during the just ending year, and
secondly, to specify the priorities and major outlines of our road map for the new year.

Concerning the balance sheet of the just ending year, as presented by your spokes person, I confirm that the conducive results you attained and the several activities satisfactorily implemented are sufficiently eloquent and speak for themselves.

I therefore seize this opportunity to extend to each and everyone of you, my warm words of encouragement.

I call on you to shower greater efforts, abnegation, devotion and the quest for the general interest, values and qualities that our ministry will always need to better accomplish its numerous important missions.

Dear Collaborators,
Ladies and Gentlemen,

Several challenges await us in the implementation of our road map for 2010. Permit me mention just a few major projects and activities.

As concerns the implementation of decentralization, we must have to accompany, monitor and evacuate the exercise of the first transfer of powers and resources to councils and city councils. This, of course, is a delicate phase in our decentralization process.  However, we must not lose sight of the fact that, according to the prescriptions of the President of the Republic, His Excellency Paul Biya, made in his nation-wide address of last December 31, and I quote, “we are obliged to succeed”, end of quote.

In this light, capacity building for the stakeholders of decentralization will be high on the agenda for 2010, through various training activities for administrative authorities, officials of devolved State services, municipal authorities and council personnel.

Similarly, the transfer of significantly increased resources to councils and city councils will be accompanied by an intensive control mission which entails an acceleration of procedures, as the case may be, to enable sanctions on unscrupulous managers of council public funds.

I should underscore here that this is the price to pay for decentralization to effectively become a fundamental driver in the promotion of governance and local development.

In the same area, a place of choice will be given to the harmonious functioning of the Inter-ministerial Committee for Local Services, notably to ensure a more rational programming of the second generation of the transfer of powers and resources.

Furthermore, the other committees and working groups shall imperatively, during this year, finalize the preparation of various regulatory instruments, some of which determine the effective and harmonious implementation of recently enacted laws. I am referring notably to the law on the financial regime of Regional and Local Authorities and the law on local taxation.

Dear Collaborators,
Ladies and Gentlemen,

In the area of territorial administration, special attention shall be paid to the reform of our civil status system. Activities envisaged for 2010 include, among others:

- the execution of the priority intervention programme which should finally lead to the putting in place of a National Organ in charge of the management of civil status ;
- the finalization of cartographic work on civil status registries, a prerequisite for the cleansing of this sector, in relation to the decision I recently took to suspend the creation of new civil status registries.

Still in the area of territorial administration, the reform of the system of games will be re-launched with all the diligence it requires, given the malfunctioning and deviant practices observed in the sector.

Similarly, and without being exhaustive, the following are envisaged for this year:

- continuation of the cleansing of the private security sector;
- accelerating the materialization of the boundaries of administrative or traditional command units;
- monitoring the outcome of the reform of traditional chiefdoms, and to better prepare it through the drawing up of the list of existing chiefdoms, as well as maintaining the decision to suspend the setting up of new chiefdoms.

Furthermore, our ministry shall pay special attention and make all its contribution for the improvement of our electoral system.

As concerns civil protection, besides laying emphasis on the various sensitization and prevention activities, the file on the putting in place of a permanent funding mechanism devoted to civil protection, as well as that relating to the construction and equipment of civil protection warehouses will be given all the attention they deserve.

In another area, the improvement of the working conditions of our collaborators, as well as their capacity building will continue to be part of our priority goals for 2010.
As such, the modernization of territorial administration will continue, on the one hand, with the on-going reform aimed at setting up a prefectorial corps, and on the other hand, with the efforts at the construction and equipment of the offices and residences of administrative authorities.  

In the same light, the implementation of the Regional Management Programme for Sustainable Development envisages for 2010:

- the construction of 43 (forty-three) offices and 43 (forty-three) residences for Sub-Divisional Officers;
- the construction of 7 (seven) residences for Assistant Sub-Divisional Officers in the border areas ;
- the electrification, through solar energy, of about ten offices and residences in the border areas ceded back ;
- the acquisition of 74 (seventy four) vehicles for administrative authorities ;
- the completion of construction work of the offices for the Far North Regional Governor’s Office ;
- the launching of architectural studies for the construction of offices for the Adamawa, East and South Regional Governors’ Offices ;

In order to increase the professional performance, efficiency and output of the staff of the central and external services of my ministry, as well as those of the Regional and Local Authorities, several refresher courses and training seminars shall be organized for them both in Cameroon and abroad.

In the same perspective, particular attention will be paid to the implementation of the training plan recently adopted by the Local Government Training Centre (CEFAM), as well as the finalization of the reform of the centre, which together with the Special Council Support Fund for Mutual Assistance (FEICOM) remain indispensable support institutions in the implementation of the policy of decentralization.

Ladies and Gentlemen,
Dear Collaborators,

It is self-evident that the successful conduct of these activities and many others supposes that, throughout the year 2010, public order be maintained, the security of people and property guaranteed and peace preserved within the national borders. These regalian missions are mainly the duties of administrative authorities, to whom I recommend vigilance at all times and a strengthening of anticipated enquiries.

Dear Collaborators,
Ladies and Gentlemen,

I want to count on your sincere and loyal collaboration, the hand of each and everyone of you, as well as the synergy that luckily exists between the personnel   of the central services of my ministry, those of the prefectoral corps, Regional and Local Authorities and organs under the supervisory authority of my ministry.

In return, I wish you and your chose ones, health, happiness and success in 2010.

Thank you for your kind attention. /-