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Cameroon: Parliament - Bill on Constitutional Amendment Tabled
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Cameroon Tribune (Yaoundé)
7 April 2008
Posted to the web 7 April 2008
Emmanuel Kendemeh
Two bills were tabled at the National Assembly at a plenary sitting on Friday.
Members of the Constitutional Laws Committee of the National Assembly are getting set to examine the bill to amend and supplement some provisions of law of 18 January 1996 to amend the Constitution of 2 June 1972, tabled before the entire House during a plenary sitting on Friday, 04 April. Also tabled, was the bill to authorise the President of the Republic to ratify the convention of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO). The bill was forwarded to the Foreign Affairs Committee for scrutiny.
The Speaker of the National Assembly, Hon. Cavaye Yeguie Djibril presided over the plenary. The plenary was originally programmed for question time during which members of government were to answer questions from MPs as well as for the adoption of the to authorise the President of the Republic to ratify the international convention on tropical timber was equally programmed to be examined and adopted at the same plenary. Neither the question and answer nor the adoption of the bill on tropical timber took place.
Members of the Social Democratic Front, (SDF) Parliamentary Group, at the start of the plenary, occupied the rostrum and resisted all calls to liberate the place. The Group leader Hon. Joseph Banadzem called on all deliberations to stop and the entire House address the issue of one of theirs, Hon. Nitcheu of the Wouri constituency was arrested, hand cuffed, questioned by the Police for over nine hours and his passport seized. According to the SDF MPs since the March session started last 13 March, no mention has been made about the issue.
Hon. Joseph Mbah Ndam, one of the Vice Presidents of the National Assembly and former SDF Parliamentary Group leader surrounded by the other SDF MPs insisted, "Let us suspend the question- and-answer plenary sitting with members of government and address the issue of amending the 1996 constitution that is affecting the life of the entire Cameroon nation ». He resisted all calls from the House Speaker and MPs of the other political parties and further said, "We think that the issue touching the fundamental law of Cameroon is more important than a few questions addressed to government". The House Speaker gave the floor to Hon. Marie Rose Nguini Effa to ask a question addressed to the Prime Minister but the insistence from SDF MPs overshadowed her.
Hon. Hermine Patricia Tomaino Ndam Njoya of the Cameroon Democratic Union (CDU) on her part, took the floor purportedly to ask questions to ministers but instead insisted on the respect of the Standing Orders of the House. She called on the entire House to stand and declared, "It is abnormal that a Member of Parliament should die and we start deliberations at plenary without observing a minute of silence in his honour". She was referring to Hon. Abdoul-Kadri Bello from Djerem constituency in the Adamawa Province who died on Thursday, 03 April 2008.
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Unable to contain the disorder, the House Speaker, Cavaye Yeguie Djibril announced the government bills received and called off the plenary sitting.
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