Major National Dialogue Recommendations : Resolute Determination For Continuous Implementation

A fifth session of the National Follow-up Committee to implement recommendations of the September 30 to October 4, 2019 Major National Dialogue met in Buea, last Friday, 11 August, 2023. The Prime Minister, Head of Government, and Chair of the Committee, Joseph Dion Ngute, presided at deliberations that held at the Mountain Hotel conference room. He closed deliberations by making another call on “separatist fighters still creating fear and havoc on the ground to down their arms and join disarmament centres for a serene reintegration into society”. The Head of Government explained that it would also be a way to facilitate the execution of development projects needed for the progress of the regions under conflict. PM Joseph Dion Ngute in his preliminary statement explained that repentant combatants have benefitted from new skills, vocational training, and deradicalisation in the various DDR centres to help them reintegrate into the society.
Among some twelve key resolutions by the Committee to facilitate the implementation of the 2019 Major National Dialogue’s recommendations, the Buea session resolved to intensify the implementation of economic recovery measures to consolidate local development and national growth. The Committee also resolved for the consolidation of progress being made on the field to facilitate economic growth. They suggested a community-based approach in the identification, study and award of development projects. The Committee strongly discouraged what they termed “a self-destructive attitude by communities that hide criminals and maintain a passive collaboration with the Administration in tracking armed fighters”.  
Evaluating the economic implementation process since the last session of August 2022, in Yaounde, statistics from the Ministry of Economy, Planning, and Regional Development revealed that the North West and South West Regions have respectively realised 52.6 per cent and 31.05 per cent execution of the Public Investment Budget in the last quota of 2022. That mediocre performance was attributed to the on-going crisis still plaguing the Anglophone Regions of Cameroon. They called on local authorities to work with competent State institutions to open up farm-to-market and plantation roads for the benefit of small holder farmers. The Buea session called for a complete transf...