Month: June 2024

The General Certificate of Examination (GCE) Board has suspended the chief supervisor of GCE examinations at the GLOBICOL Aacommodation Centre in Kumba over allegations of misconduct.

The suspension, announced Friday, June 7th, 2024, came after reports that the supervisor failed to forward fees from registered GCE candidates and produced counterfeit timetables. The GCE Board condemned the actions as a blatant attempt to defraud the examination body, jeopardizing its integrity.

An interim supervisor has been appointed to ensure a smooth and transparent continuation of the examination process. The GLOBICOL Kumba accommodation center is hosting over 300 candidates for this year’s exams.

Despite the incident, the written part of the GCE examinations in Kumba is proceeding without disruption, amid tight security.

Source: Cameroon News Agency

Travel along the Douala-Dschang route has come to a standstill, leaving commuters stranded overnight as deteriorating road conditions block passage between the West Region and major cities.

At Souza in the Moungo Division of the Littoral Region, a backlog of vehicles has formed due to a large hole rendering the road impassable. Passengers who embarked on journeys from Dschang to Douala or Buea yesterday have found themselves stuck, with vehicles unable to progress.

The situation demands urgent attention, given the critical role this route plays in facilitating economic activities. Despite claims of significant investment in infrastructure, roads vital for transporting goods and facilitating development are rapidly deteriorating.

Truck operators, in particular, express concern over the negative impact on transportation and the urgent need for effective measures to address the crumbling road network.

Source: Cameroon News Agency

Nchendzengang Tatah

The National School of Local Administration, NASLA will begin a special training for Municipal Police by July 2024.

Over sixty councils will have their local police trained inline with the norms, and regulations stipulated in their creation and functioning.

The Minister of Decentrilisation and Local Development, Georges Elanga Obam made it known after a strategic meeting at NASLA, June 6 in Buea.

The Director General of NASLA, Tanyitiku E. Bayee explained that the training of the Municipal corps will unfold first with Councils whose deliberations have been approved by the Minister. He noted that the process is going to be sequential.

‘A number of preparatory steps have been taken, the training programmes were prepared and adopted, the trainers have been contacted, the site where we are hoping to lodge the trainees we are in discussion with the relevant authorities. In terms of the material preparation, everything is falling in place,’ the NASLA chair highlighted.

Discussions during t
he board meeting also focused on the examination for those who are coming into the institution. Minister Elanga Obam, was positive at the end of the incamera exchange. ‘I think everything is under control. The work that is done here is good. Bravo!’

The Decentrilisation Minister equally evaluated construction work on the new infrastructure of NASLA which contains office space and standard classrooms. He said he was amazed at the speed of work six months after his last visit.

The broad edifice compromising three floors which is spread over a considerable area of land will serve significantly to advance the drive of the institution, prided as the bedrock of local development in Cameroon.

Source: Cameroon News Agency

The government of Cameroon inorder to foster the decentrilisation process and enhance local development plans on beginning a project this 2024 to raise a structure for the South West Regional Assembly.

Over one billion will be mobilized to begin work on the site in Buea. The Minister of Decentrilisation and Local Development disclosed in a June 6 outing.

Minister Georges Elanga Obam said the building plan to unfold on the piece of land was evidence that the decentrilisation process in the South West Region is on course with great results.

‘It means that the Regional Council of the South West is a reality physically. We are appreciative of what they are doing and we hope that very soon we are going to come here for the beginning of the work,’ the Decentrilisation Minister applauded.

According to the President of the South West Regional Assembly, Elango Zacheus Bakoma, the structure which will compare with none other around. ‘Once realised, it will be one of the jewels to have been constructed in the South
West in recent times,’ President Zacheus Bakoma said.

He further disclosed that negotiations with FEICOM were making progress. Though delayed in the process of acquiring a land certificate, he informed that the issue had been sorted out.

‘Today I am proud to say we are in possession of the land certificate. I think no sooner from now, the Minister of Decentrilisation will come back to the South West region to lay the foundation stone for this edifice.’

The site to host the South West Regional Assembly which is one of the two institutions accorded the North West and South West following the Major National Dialogue of 2019 has a total area of over two hectres.

Located around the Buea Central Prison, it is surrounded to the North by an existing road, to the west by state land and existing road, to the east by existing road and south by the main road of the Buea boulevard.

Source: Cameroon News Agency

The Inspector-General of Police, Kayode Egbetokun, has called on West African police chiefs to collaborate and devise innovative ways to tackle emerging complex security challenges facing the ECOWAS bloc.

Egbetokun made this known at a meeting of the West African Police Chiefs Committee (WAPCCO) technical sub-committee on training and operations in Abuja.

He said that the West African subregion had in recent times been confronted with complex national security challenges, which had been accentuating transnational crimes.

‘The activities of these cybercriminals has imposed on us all the additional burden of developing our national security capacity to dominate cyberspace and deny criminals the liberty to operate in our overriding national and regional security interests.

‘The differences in legal frameworks and legislative systems continue to hinder effective law enforcement operations and criminal justice delivery initiatives among member states.

‘Our security reality continually deepens the need to comm
it to regional collaboration, towards dissecting the pattern and trend of crimes on the one hand, and towards pulling together and supporting each other in bridging our national security gaps,’ he said.

According to him, these challenges have been posing significant threats to the national security order of member states, as well as regional peace and social economic profile.

Egbetokun enumerated such crimes to include traditional crimes of stealing, cross border robberies, human goods, drugs trafficking, small arms and light weapons smuggling, banditry, terrorism, as well as other non-state actors.

He further said that cybercrime and cyber-enabled crimes were now emerging as bigger challenges to the subregion’s security.

The I-G said that a critical hindrance to effective regional law enforcement operations and criminal justice delivery initiatives was the differences in legal frameworks and legislative systems among member states.

‘The situation calls for a collective review of the multivarious legal f
ramework and regulates law enforcement and criminal justice delivery system.

‘It also calls for a stronger operational partnership that will encourage the evolution of workable protocol that will engender stronger operational integration amongst security forces and border management agencies within the sub region,’ Egbetokun said.

Also speaking, ECOWAS Commissioner for Political Affairs, Peace and Security, Amb. Abdel-Fatah Musah, said that the fast evolution of information technology had further sophisticated the platforms and tactics used by criminal networks against targets.

Represented by Dr Abdourahmane Dieng, the Permanent Secretary, WAPCCO, Musah said that crime and criminality continued to pose a big threat to lives and property in the subregion, thereby creating an unconditional environment for meaningful development.

The commissioner said that security and law enforcement agents in the region had for so many years focused on territorial, aerial and maritime borders as key points for close survei
llance against crime.

‘However, with the dynamic availability and capacity of cyberspace, which transcends beyond geographical borders, criminality has become more efficient, faster and safer for criminals to execute.

‘Therefore, our mandate is to increase our capacity on the fight against transnational border crime of all forms which include employing training and operational strategies.

‘The illicit traffic and proliferation of small arms and light weapons, human smuggling activities, armed robbery, illicit migration, child trafficking and labor, kidnapping, abduction, maritime piracy are but a few of the main highlights trending in our region,’ Musah said.

He, therefore, urged the participants to share, inform, exchange and discuss issues and activities surrounding training and operations in their respective member states with a view to coming up with joint strategies on security personnel’s training and operations.

The Director, Interpol Regional Bureau, Abidjan, Ivory Coast, Paule Ouedrago, said the
transnational dimension of the crimes required collaboration between countries, adding that the Regional Office would support the efforts through international police cooperation.

She called for the strengthening of collaboration between the Permanent Secretariat of the Committee of Police Chiefs and her office in the organisation and implementation of police training and operations.

‘This is how, together, we will succeed in dismantling and disrupting the criminal networks that undermine the tireless development efforts,’Ouedrago added.

Source: News Agency of Nigeria