Jacquis Kemleu: The dynamic mayor of Dschang
Elected mayor of Dschang on February 25, 2020 for 5 years, Mr. Jacquis Kemleu wants to make his municipality a first rank economic destination. Dschang is a historical and university town of Cameroon located in the Western region, in Bamileke country. It is the chief town of the Menoua department and the second largest city in the Western region after Bafoussam.
Jacquis Kemleu described his mandate as “a mandate of challenges”, challenges such as those related to improving the quality of the electricity network, sanitation, access to drinking water through the construction of boreholes and the rehabilitation of mini drinking water supply networks (AEP).
In terms of sanitation, the Dschang City Council has initiated the “Clean Thursday”, a day dedicated to keeping the city in its best condition by involving all sections of the population. On June 20, 2022, the Municipal Youth Council of Dschang, a platform for the promotion of youth actions in the Commune, was at work. It was preceded the week before by the families of internally displaced persons (from the crisis in the North-West and South-West) residing in the city.
This operation of systematic cleaning of the city of its anarchic deposits of garbage had been initiated during the election campaign by Mayor Jacquis Kemleu. Since then, the installed city council has included this action in its plan. This action is implemented with the support of the Municipal Waste Management Agency (AMGeD) and the involvement of the population of the Commune of Dschang. Every Thursday, the cleaning operation applies not only to public services, but also to households and businesses installed in the urban perimeter.
The municipality of Dschang is also implementing a project focused on the management and valorization of household waste. The mayor Jacquis Kemleu shared his municipality’s experience at the Africities 9 Summit, held in Kisumu (Kenya) from May 17 to 21, 2022, through a presentation that aroused the interest of his counterparts. “I can tell you that the mayors of Africa, the presidents of regions, the actors of development present in Kisumu were seduced by the presentation of the experience of the municipality of Dschang in terms of waste management and many other initiatives of sustainability. Indeed, they were edified on the capacity of the municipality of Dschang to manage the issue of sanitation and lead to the protection of the environment, the production of organic fertilizers commonly called compost, the setting in motion of the circular economy, by creating jobs and income, which are primary missions of the State, of which the municipality is only a dismemberment,” said the mayor to the press in a telephone interview.
Under the impetus of its mayor, the city of Dschang is also forging several partnerships in decentralized cooperation at the international level.
Express Bio
Jacquis Kemleu, born in Yaoundé on April 18, 1964, worked as a water expert in the “Education II” project financed by the African Development Bank in Cameroon. In April 2007, in view of his experience in the construction of boreholes, he created Afrigroup Engineering Services and Trading to take advantage of the largely unsatisfied demand in the water sector, renewable energies and a little in civil engineering. Jacquis Kemleu holds a Master’s degree in Law from the University of Yaounde. He started working at the age of 25 in the production department of “Le Petit Electroménager”, a Cameroonian company established in the industrial zone of Bonaberi, his home town in the 1990s. At the time, it manufactured supports for fluorescent tubes. Well integrated in the activities of the Foto Kingdom from which he originates, he chaired the commission in charge of Cooperation and Communication. Coming from the business world, Jacquis Kemleu is the secretary general of the Association of Oilseed Refiners of Cameroon since 2009.