APA- Conakry (Guinea) – Colonel Mamadi Doumbouya has insisted on his pledge to hand over power to civilians at the end of a 24-month transition period.
By Aboubacar Siddy Diallo
Following an unequivocal message from the current chair of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) that the 24-month transition period must be respected, the Guinean government is giving reassurances that the transition timetable will be completed.
To this end, the second meeting of the Steering Committee to monitor and evaluate the implementation of the transition timetable was held on Wednesday 12 July in the presence of the ECOWAS representative.
The committee, made up of members of the government, technical and financial partners and representatives of international institutions, validated the minutes of the first meeting, tabled a summary of the work of the technical committee and presented the timetables for PN-RAVEC and RGPH4.
According to Mory Condé, Minister of Territorial Administration and Decentralisation, progress has been made in implementing the transition timetable.
As part of the progress made on the population and housing census, Mr Condé said that the National Institute of Statistics had received a certain amount of equipment.
The minister also announced that the agents recruited to carry out the census will soon be trained.
“As far as the administrative census for civil status purposes is concerned, the first thing that had to be done was to revise the legal framework. So, during this meeting of the Steering Committee, the two (2) preliminary draft laws were validated, namely the law on the civil status system in Guinea and the law on the identification of natural persons in Guinea. These two (2) have so far been validated and sent to the National Transitional Council (CNT), the legislative body,” the Minister of Territorial Administration said.
His colleague in charge of local authorities added that tenders had been launched for the construction of civil status and identification centres, which will serve as the basic structure for the census, and for the acquisition of the equipment needed to compile the electoral register.
As part of the implementation of the roadmap, the Guinean government committed to investing 400 billion Guinean francs in the first quarter of 2023.
This was intended to speed up the process of restoring constitutional order. This sum was to be used to finance the 10 points of the roadmap.
Mr Condé pointed out that the government had earmarked 150 billion to support the population and housing census. To date, the Guinean government has released 750 billion Guinean francs for the entire process.
At this second meeting, the Minister for Territorial Administration and Decentralisation reminded the partners of the need to be able to honour the commitments made to Guinea in order to meet the timetable set for the transition.
“There are no concrete measures,” Condé added ruefully.
The Minister for Planning and International Cooperation, Rose Pola Pricemou said that the timetable was progressing according to the programme drawn up beforehand.
“We can announce that the pilot mapping will begin on 17 July. This consists of making a digital breakdown and knowing in a preliminary way how we are going to carry out our census, at the level of civil status, the texts of the law are ready to be sent to the CNT and several other activities related to this civil status census have been carried out,” explained Rose Pola Pricemou.
“We’re sharing what we’ve done, we’re listening to the opinions of partners who have experience of the same exercises elsewhere, and this allows us to learn from them and know that we’re on the right track,” Ms Pricémou added.
Louis Blaise AKA-BROU, the ECOWAS representative in Guinea, said the points discussed at the meeting indicated that the timetable was on the right track.
“We are all happy that this process is proceeding normally,” he said.
The Guinean transition authorities have announced a budget of 600 million euros, or more than 5 trillion Guinean francs, for the return to normal constitutional order in Guinea.
Following the coup that toppled Alpha Condé on 5 September 2021, the ruling junta pledged to hand over power to civilians at the end of a 24-month transition period beginning in January 2023.
Junta head Colonel Mamadi Doumbouya, has repeatedly stated that he and members of his team will not participate in the elections that will mark the end of the transitional period.
ASD/ac/lb/as/APA