Cameroon:Bate-Eya Florence Rated “Best Land Conservator”

By Christopher Ambe

Bate-Eya Florence Eya Epse Arrey, a sworn land conservator of the Ministry of State Property, Surveys and Land Tenure, has been as the Best Land Conservator in Cameroon.

        Mrs. Arrey until recently was Fako Land Registrar for five years. She is on record to be the first ever English-speaking (Anglophone) woman to occupy such a sensitive office and she did her best to educate the public on land issues.

        She is one of the laureates of LIFE TIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARD, which took place on Saturday May 30, 2015 at Blue Pearl Hotel Bamenda.

Bate-Eya Florence Eya  displays award

      The award ceremony, chaired by Quetong Handerson Kongeh, the Senior Divisional Officer for Kupe Manenguba, was organized by Life Time, a Bamenda-based newspaper.  The chairman said Life Time newspaper is noted for its investigative reports and implored the laureates to keep up the winning spirit, by contributing even more towards nation-building.

     Tim Finnian Njua, publisher of Life Time Newspaper, who congratulated the different laureates for their outstanding performances in whatever they are engaged in, personally handed out the prizes to the awardees that included West Governor Awa Fonka Augustine - who emerged as Life Time’s Man of the Year, for his proficiency as civil administrator. The award ceremony coincided with the newspaper’s “four years of journalistic excellence”, according to a statement from the event’s organizing committee.

      It emerged that the laureates were the results of random sampling and public opinion conducted by Life Time.

      Colbert Gwain (of L’Action Newspaper), chair of the organizing committee of the ceremony, remarked in a notification letter to Mrs. Arrey before the award proper: “This award is in recognition of your exemplary and selfless sacrifices towards nation-building.”  The inscription on her plague-award reads: “LIFE TIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARD 2014-2015 RECOGNIZES THE PROFICIENCY OF ARREY BATE EYA FLORENCE AS THE BEST LAND CONSERVATOR”

     Concerning her job as land registrar, Mrs Arrey told The Recorder in January 2014:“I very much enjoy doing my job as the first woman to be a land registrar in Anglophone Cameroon. No woman in this part of the country has ever signed a land certificate.”      

     Mrs. Arrey holds a BBA (Hons) Degree in Secretarial Administration from the Irish University Business School, London.

    She was recruited into the public service in 1984 (in the then Ministry of Town Planning and Housing), and transferred to the then Provincial Service of Lands in Buea. She has headed several units and services at the Divisional and Regional levels of Public Service. In 1995, she was Chief of Bureau for General Affairs in the Provincial Service of Lands, Buea; in 1999, Mrs.Arrey served as chief of Bureau du Livre.

In 2006, she was appointed the Divisional Chief of Service for Land Tenure, Kumba-Meme Division. In 2008, she served as Interim Provincial Chief of Service for Administration and Finance at Provincial Delegation of State Property and Land Tenure-Buea. In 2010, she served as Fako Divisional Delegate cumulatively with the post of Conservator of Lands in Fako Division.

      Staunch CPDM Adherent

 Mrs.Arrey is  politically conscious. As member of the ruling CPDM in Cameroon, she thinks this political party is one that any patriotic person should join. “In the CPDM you have so many patriotic and responsible people committed to nation-building.

“When you read the Word of God, it says no authority can exist without the approval of the Almighty God. It is the CPDM whose chairperson is Cameroon’s Head of State. It is God who has enthroned Mr. Paul Biya, CPDM National Chair as Head of State”, noted Mrs. Arrey, who is Councilor of Mamfe Council. “The CPDM party for now is God’s choice, so I will continue to be its member.

     Devout Christian

     Mrs. Arrey is a devout Christian. She is an Ordained Mother of God in a Jewish Church-The Holy Sabbath (Community of Yahweh worldwide), and former Special Envoy to the General Overseer of the above -mentioned religious organization in all French –speaking countries in Africa.

She loves humanity. “I do to others what I want them do unto me as the Bible in the Book of Mathieu recommends”, she says. She is empathic and philanthropic.

     She is very motherly and a caring .She is member of several social groups such as the Solidarity Group -headed by the wife of Southwest Governor Bernard Okalia Bilai.This group gives assistance in different forms to the less-privileged. “I enjoy charitable works. That is one of the things Mrs. Chantal Biya, the First Lady has taught us”, she told this writer.

    Married to Mr.Arrey E.Gregory, she and the husband are blessed with four well-brought up children.

   Mrs. Arrey is bilingual (speaks English and French) and she loves preaching the Word of God and giving hope to the less-privileged.

(First published in The RECORDER Newspaper, Cameroon, of June 10, 2015)