The Mauritanian Minister of Interior, Mohamed Salem Ould Merzoug, announced that the government has been working for more than a year to reform the regional administration so that it can be’’ able to fulfill its important duties’’, stressing, in a different context, that the level of crime has significantly decreased.
The Minister, who was interviewed by the Mauritanian Agency of Information( official), said that aim of the regional administration reform is so that it can be able to ‘’ restore the authority of the state and securing citizens and their properties’’.
Ould Merzoug confirmed that the reform operation started ‘’successfully’’, before noting that the matter is related to ‘’ rebuilding the administration. According to him, the Process‘’ requires a sustainable, multi-year, and multi-dimensional work that is concrete through the coordinated and converging procedures’’, he said.
The Minister provided the administrative reform details and said that it is based on two main axes: the first is strengthening the institutional and legal framework for decentralization and local development. The second is boosting the local self-government.
According to the Minister, the execution of these axes necessitates what he called’’ the changing of models, particularly regarding the territorial governance and development of employment capabilities of local communities and public administration’’.
As for the spread of crime and its high rates in Mauritania’s biggest cities, Ould Merzoug said that more than eight months, misdemeanors, and crime cases began to decrease, ‘’especially rape, murder, and extortion’’.
The Minister pointed out the recorded drop of crimes ‘’is significant in terms with numbers: 20 to 30% and sometimes reaches 55 to 62% according to the case’’, he explained.
He declared that this drop became ‘’ sustainable’’, referring to what he called ‘’ the efficiency of our security forces and the noticeable improvement on the level of crime prevention through inquiry, arrest, and apprehension of perpetrators’’.
The Minister added that the results were always in the line of expectations, saying that through the last eight months,’’ no criminal act has been recorded against an unknown perpetrator; thus we are proud of the results we achieved in such a short time’’.
