“The Douala Urban Council has met with key actors of the real estate, land and property management of the Wouri division to discuss the right of preemption in the city of Douala”.
This was during a sensitization workshop that took place on Thursday October 5th 2023, at the Douala Akwa City Hall under the patronage of the city mayor Roger Mbassa Ndine.
The preemption right is an act slated in the Cameroon urban code of article 86 of law num.2004/003 of April 21, 2004 which gives the public authority a priority purchaser of a real estate good that an owner wishes to sell. Applies in areas where the public authorities wish to ensure control of the land, want to control the evolution of land prices or acquire certain built or unbuilt buildings, without however resorting to the expropriation procedure.
The sensitization workshop was thus aimed at creating a wider awareness with all actors involved in land and property management in the Wouri division on the knowledge of this law. The preemption right is however a systematic process. The landowner must be aware of the existence of a preemption right by the Douala Urban council where there may be a denial or acceptance of the council. Where there is a denial the landowner may choose to sell the land to whoever he chooses to but in the case of acceptance the city council will pave the way for negotiations in order that the council may be in possession of land reserves. “What we are trying to do is to improve or strengthen the land property of the city. It is important for the city in order to realize some investments which are important to every land asset and the fact is that we didn’t have any access in the city of Douala. It is time now to try to buy land and what we are trying to do here is to say, from now everybody wanting to sell his piece of land above 2000 square meters must first propose a land asset to the city and if we need this land asset, we will try to negotiate with the owner in order to find a price and to buy the land.” Roger Mbassa Ndine Douala City mayor said. By this declaration, private land owners of more than 2000 square meters who wish to sell out their land must first of all inform the city council before transactions are being done. The city mayor said these land assets will give birth to several achievements “The intention is to meet enough reserved lands in order to implement projects, roads, hospitals and so on. We need assets and we didn’t have any and the fact is that we cannot develop a city without having enough land reserves” the city mayor added. At the practical level, there is still much work to be done as described by Marcelin Doumbe, Director General of Land and Property Management Authority of the Douala Urban Council who says practically, they go towards land owners with whom they negotiate for the acquisition of a land title because there are some loopholes. He said they have observed that for the past 60 years of the existence of the council and since 1987 that the Douala urban council exists there have been little constitution of land reserves at the level of Douala. Adding that today they have to restart again. Noting that in terms of available lands, the council has no meter square so there is an enormous work to be done. He revealed that for the past two years they have been trying to lay actions but to no avail reasons why the workshop comes in to lay down foundations for better continuity.
At the end of the workshop it is therefore expected that key actors involved in real estate, land and property are better oriented on the exercise of the preemption right previewed by the law, have a wider perception on the developmental actions initiated by the city council in line with land management to ensure a harmonious occupation of spaces in the city of Douala.
JULIETTE MESAME
