Minister urges mayors to respect laws governing urban planning

By Vera Fon

The Minister of Housing and Urban Development, Celestine Ketcha Courtes has urged council mayors to be vigilant on the laws governing urban planning in order to fight urban disorder in the country.

This was during an awareness-raising workshop that was held on May 23 in Yaounde, the country’s capital.

According to the minister, the main aim of the workshop was to take stock of the laws governing urban planning and review a document containing recommendations geared towards fighting urban disorder, dubbed the “Bertoua declaration” following last year’s declaration of World Habitat Day in the capital city of the East region.

“We are gathered to share the directives of the Prime Minister, head of government, to be aware of the reoccurring landslides that we observe more and more in our cities, buildings that collapse, repeated floods. I think consolidation actions are an effective collaboration with locals are needed to achieve sustainable development goals in their various constituencies” the Minister stated.

“We examined in Bertoua, with all the actors alongside UN-Habitat, all the causes of these phenomena. We realized that Cameroon has a couple of laws sometimes unknown by the actors that must be implemented. So we came out with the Bertoua declaration and some recommendations. Decentralization is going to be reinforced and will be completed on these recommendations. It is up to the mayors to appropriate these recommendations to share them with actors of the different cities.” She continued.

Going by Minister Courtes, the international laws will help them carry out their missions well especially with the already signed contracts with certain town halls.

Giving his opinion on the meeting, the Mayor of Batchenga Council in the West region, said “The problem that we all have and for which we ask for the help of the public authorities, is to ensure that the mayors on the ground have a good environment to work. I believe that a workshop like this is a real advocacy that must lead these different actors to understand that our country, Cameroon, can only develop through decentralized territorial communities”.