Cameroon to host 60th Commonwealth Parliamentary Conference

Members of Parliament from Cameroon’s National Assembly and their colleagues from the Senate would be receiving their counterparts from the other 53 member countries of the Commonwealth sometime this year.

The Members of Parliament, close to 600 in number would be in Yaoundé to attend the 60th Commonwealth Parliamentary Conference that would unfold at the Yaounde Conference Center for about 10 days in October.

With firsthand knowledge on how such a gathering would impact the country’s economy and visibility, members entrusted with the organization of the parliamentary conference agreed at a preparatory meeting last week that a perusal of all the various aspects concerning the organization of the conference was critical.

These include the safety transportation and accommodation of delegates, the availability of health and banking services, provision of badges, documents and other stationeries to all participants. Other issues patterning to the formalities for the provision of visas and other official documents were also discussed during the meeting chaired by the Vice President of the National Assembly and General Coordinator of the Committee, Hon Emilia Monjowa Lifaka.

“The Vice Patron of the conference is the Head of State, Paul Biya so the stakes are very high. They sent us a check list from the CPA Secretariat in London of the things that we are suppose to do and that is the check list we were examining and through this we discovered that there are some areas where we are late, there are some areas where we are ahead.

Between now and maybe two-three months, we would be able to cover many grounds. We have issues that depend on other administrations like visas issues because we are 54 Commonwealth countries and we have High Commissioners in just four which means fifty of these MPs would have to have visa clearance before they come in.

So those are the issues we discussed and I think that within the shortest possible time, there would be cleared because the different administrations were present in these meetings.”

The organizing committee made up of Members of Parliament and representatives from some key ministries have as General Coordinator, the Speaker of the National Assembly, Hon. Cavaye Yeguie Djibril who is also the Chairman of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association.