(Business in Cameroon) - During the cabinet council held on July 25, 2019, in Yaoundé, Cameroonian minister of rural development and land affairs Henri Eyebe Ayissi (photo), presented a review on the digitalization of the land register as well as security of public spaces and land documents.  

The minister indicated that a progressive transfer of lands and assets’ data from hard copies to IT supports is planned by the law. In that regard, in 2010, the government initiated Projet d’appui à la modernisation du cadastre et au climat des affaires (Pamocca), articulated around three axes. These are namely elaboration of a national geodetic network and digital cartography as well as the realization of communes’ digital land registry plans.

To date, 2,974 geodetic plans have been elaborated and 198,510 land registries digitalized. In addition, there are ongoing processes to digitalize 130,000 land certificates and 480,000 public lands in pilot cities (Douala, Yaoundé, Garoua and Maroua).

Henri Eyebe Ayissi explained that it is of utmost importance to secure public domains because of anarchic occupation of those domains and misappropriation of these lands.

The strategy to do so, the minister explains, is tailored around two axes namely, an audit of the public domains that have already been taken into account in the pilot towns and reinforcement of the legislative framework.

For the securitization of public land titles, the ministry in charge initiated technical and institutional actions that led to the creation in 2012 of six additional special areas of conservation, and the manual and digital transcription of 520 land registers.

S.A