77% of Cameroon's road network in bad shape

Information from the Ministry of Public Works reveals that the state of roads in Cameroon is awful, with only 23 per cent of the 122,108 km road network in good shape.

The information was disclosed in Yaounde on Friday November 13, 2015 during a meeting of officials of devolved services of the Ministry to evaluate construction and maintenance strategies with stress on corrective measures.

The year 2014 was gloomy for the road sector, with information revealing that 53 per cent of major roads were in bad shape, 28.6 per cent not so bad and only 18.1 per cent considered good.

The level of degradation increased with figures indicating 4 per cent of ruin on our roads in 2014. Though figures for 2013 are not available, experts at the meeting were unanimous that the state of roads in 2014 was far worse than previous years.

The West Region tops the chart with 83 per cent followed by the Far North at 64 per cent and the South West at 44 per cent. The East Region at 89 per cent, Littoral at 69 per cent and Centre at 55 per cent were listed as those with pretty good road networks. The situation has been blamed on the economic slowdown of the 1980s that limited Cameroon’s financial resources.

That notwithstanding, the Ministry of Public Works was able to rehabilitate 249 km of road in 2014 via the Special Emergency Programme of the Head of State that started in 2012.

Beneficiaries to the projects were the Yaounde-Bafoussam-Bamenda road at 103 km, the Yaounde-Mbalmayo-Ebolowa road at 60 km, the Ngaoundere-Garoua, and the Figuil-Magada road at 72 km.

The Minister of Public Works, Emmanuel Nganou Djoumessi decried the inability to meet the obligation of the Growth and Employment Strategy Paper, GESP, in the road sector. He outlined that; “Five years to the end of the development strategy, les than 1,000 km of additional road has been tarred as against the earmarked 1,750 km.”

Nganou Djoumessi regretted that recurrent cessation of contracts, the non-mastery of contracts and execution time frames, among others, are setbacks to effectively maintaining the country’s roads. He said it was therefore time for State engineers to master the nitty-gritty of contract awards and execution.

After listening to presentations on the state of roads of the 10 regions, the Minister urged Regional Delegates to henceforth supervise and repair potholes on roads as soon as they appear.