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| B'da population is coping with very bad roads |
Inhabitants are voicing anguish over the
bad state of roads in Bamenda, the country’s fourth largest city, which is now
replete with potholes and gullies.
Five
years since the last major works, the city’s roads have broken down to a point
where traffic frequently stalls and most street corners have become “death
traps”.
Commuting
from one end of town to the other has become a nightmare, city dwellers say,
interviewed over the course of the last week.
“Getting
things done at the right time is practically impossible here because of traffic
partly caused by bad roads,” says Journalist Azeh Innocent.
Tarred
sections of the city’s streets are peeling off and no one is paying attention
to dusty and muddy roads leading to the city’s ever expanding suburbs.
“It
takes a lot of stress to ply the city of Bamenda,” complains John Tarla, a taxi
driver. “At times we even go as far as violating driving rules, which is very
risky, in a bid to escape some of these potholes.”
“What
we have here in Bamenda as roads are death traps,” says a motorcycle rider
called Cosmos. “You cannot even say whether the are earth or tarred roads.”
The
city council repairs roads every year, but it hardly takes a month or so for
potholes to resurface. Inhabitants blame rogue engineers, who are suspected of
pocketing large sums of taxpayers money and deliver a bad job.
City
Council officials admit the problem is urgent.
Vincent
NjiNdumu, the Government Delegate to the Bamenda city council has in several
media outings stated that the entire road system in Bamenda needs total
reconstruction.
He
is quoted to have said that the road has outlived its time and only total
reconstruction can help matters.
Five
years ago, Bamenda was given a face lift in terms of road maintenance when the
Head of state Paul Biya was coming to preside over a military parade to mark
the 50th anniversary of Cameroons armed forces. But it brought only short-lived
relief to the city.
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