National Youth Council: Preparing Ground For Smooth Transition

The current Cameroon National Youth Council (CNYC) bureau mandate ends next month. Despite social media power tussle, there seems to be answers to certain concerns of young people, expected from the National Executive Board. Within the framework of exercising its duties, the current mandate noted certain elements in the statutes and internal regulations of the National Youth Council that need examination to ensure a better transition towards a new term of office. Within this backdrop, a consultative meeting of Members of the National Executive Board and Regional Presidents of the National Youth Council of Cameroon met last Friday, March 19, 2021 to ponder over issues relating to the end of the mandate and make a set of resolutions and recommendations for the proper functioning of the structure in the future. These resolutions and recommendations were given to the Minister of Youths and Civic Education after a heated discussion at the Council’s headquarters in Yaunde.

The members unanimously called on the Supervisory Body to pay the 2018, 2019 and 2020 subsidies to the various regional, divisional and municipal executive bureaus of the CNYC. According to the South West Regional President of CNYC, Vitalise Legenju, there is need for the government to make available subvention to the structure. “Since we took over office, we have been running the bureau from our private accounts. Whereas many youths in our various regions think the money has been made available,” Vitalise Legenju explained. The members also committed themselves to a broad consultation with the CNYC leadership at the municipal level to consolidate the proposed revisions of the umbrella body's Articles of Association and Internal Rules and Regulations. They equally requested the Minister of Youth Affairs and Civic Education for an extension of the current mandate, given the difficult backdrop caused by the Covid-19 pandemic and the tight financial situation due to the difficult socio-economic climate. The Secretary General of CNYC, Mathieu Vatvoumsia reiterated the need to amend the internal regulations that govern the association. “During our tenure, we realized we could not properly manage certain happenings because of some legal loopholes”, the SG explained.   The members also questioned the positioning of the CNYC in the ongoing decentralization process. “