Road maintenance

B’da-Mbouda road crying for attention
- Gov’t evokes lack of funds
- Populations urge PM Yang to launch another cour-de-couer
By Mercy Neba in Yaounde
Passengers commuting the 360km distance between Yaounde and Bamenda will have to hold their patience a little longer to permit government to raise the funds needed to rehabilitate the highly degraded national road.
    This was part of the take home from a press conference given by the minister of public works, Patrice Amba Salla, in Yaounde on Tuesday 5 May 2015.
    Fielding questions from prying journalists, the “engineer of the state” said the government is quite aware of the urgent attention needed on the very busy road; but the fact is that the funds needed to rehabilitate the road are not readily available.
    Minister Amba Salla explained that of the over 130 billion FCFA needed to rehabilitate the Ebebda-Bafoussam-Bamenda stretch of the road, the government has been able to lay hands only on FCFA 30 billions. Even though he reassured that efforts were being multiplied to make up the totality of the funds needed, Patrice Amba Salla did not however give a precise time lag when the road would be done.

    Commentators at the occasion remarked that as the government goes aroud looking for the money passengers will have to continue bumping into deep potholes and risking their lives as they commute the the 360km distance from Yaounde to Bamenda, on a daily basis.
    It should be recalled that with a recurrence of deadly accidents on major roads in the country, President Paul Biya ordered for some of the “death traps” to be urgently repaired as a bid towards curbing the huge death toll due to road accidents. To put paid to the urgent project, the President in February 2012 ordered for the disbursement of FCFA 100 billion from the road fund.
    However, the French company that won the contract to rehabilitate the road from Yaounde right to Bamenda, was able to do just the 70km stretch from Yaounde to Ebebda and the about 40km distance from Bafoussam to Mbouda. The Ebebd-Bafoussam and Mbouda-Bamenda stretches have since been abandoned.
    Sources in Yaounde have hinted The Median that with the expensive war on Boko Haram, the government has been forced to direct all its earnings to bankroll the war efforts in the North.
    Yet, commuters along the Yaounde-Bafoussam-Bamenda road have not stopped complaining that they have held their patience for too longand that the government should do something on the road even if it means launching a cour-de-coeur.
    Commentators in Bamenda are saying that it would be full-hardy and preposterous for Prime Minister Philemon Yang to leave the star building without doing something even on the Bamenda-Mbouda stretch.