(Business in Cameroon) - The land process was reformed to facilitate the access to property

In 2005, the land process reform has allowed to decentralize the land management and to facilitate the access to the property, besides the measures taken for the concessions and the emphyteutic leases in favour of companies.

The access to the landed property was both simplified and reassured thanks to reforms described in the Decree no 2005/481 of December 16th, 2005 (modifying and completing certain measures of the decree N°76 / 165 of April 27th, 1976 setting the conditions of access to of the land title).

The government planned particular measures for the setting-up of companies which would need land reserves for their exploitations (emphyteutic leases) or an influence of the state administered property for their activities (concession).

According to the Judge Robinson Tchapmeni, author of a thesis on the dispute of the landed property in Cameroon, this reform aimed at "bringing elements of reflection and answer to the ambient land insecurity in Cameroon, to land lack of civic virtue, to recurring land conflicts and to lack of craze of the Cameroonian populations for the land title. The reform of December 16th, 2005, sounds like an official answer to these problems. This reform seeks to generalize the landed property by boosting the interest for this legal instrument likely to reassure the right land taxes of the owners ".

Changes

Before this reform, the Cameroonians, showed not enough craze for the access to the land title, because of the heaviness and of the complexity of the procedures of registration of lands. The procedure was centralized at the level of the capital city and all the files at the level of departments had to be supervised by the Ministry of domains. There was tremendous delay in the process and it was a source of discouragement for the applicants who contented themselves with occupant's precarious statuses which can be left at any time. Moreover, there was too many participants implied in the procedure. This has changed the 2005 reforms with the delivery of thousand of land title in diverse regions of the country. The land titles being the guarantee the most appreciated by credit institutions, authorities hope, by facilitating the access to the landed property, to help the populations to mobilize resources with various banks in order to finance their business.

Reduced and decentralized procedures

According to the Ministry of domains and land affairs, the new measures effectively shortened the deadlines and simplified the procedure of obtaining of the land title. For instance, the visa of the direct files of registration, stemming from dresses of palavers, will henceforth be tuned to the regional service of the land affairs, and not any more to the central management. The notices of fences, which used to be published the Gazette of Cameroon, will henceforth be published in a provincial bulletin of the state-owned opinions and the land tax created for that purpose within the regional delegations of the Ministry of the land affairs- which is published every month. The settlement of conflicts – which was until now made by decision of the Minister, is henceforth delegated to the governors of regions.
The land titles which used to be delivered previously by the leader of the regional service of domains- will be established from now on in every department by the land curator. Binding deadlines would be imposed on the persons in charge, on all the phases of the treatment of files, to accelerate their routing in the following stages.

The land titles being the guarantee the most appreciated by credit institutions, authorities hope, by facilitating the access to the landed property, to help the populations to mobilize resources with various banks in order to finance their business.

Moreover what, the new decree guaranteesthe land title by nullifying the secret demarcations made by a geometrician who will not belong to the Advisory committee, and by prescribing that the penalties of demarcation are countersigned by the president of the Advisory committee, the leader of the village, as well as all the local residents.
Beside this legal device, the government planned particular measures for the setting-up of companies which would need land reserves for their exploitations (emphyteutic leases) or an influence of the state administered property for their activities (concession).

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