Decongestion of Motor Parks:

K’ba Gov’t Delegate dancing Bafia dance with bus drivers
-Two steps forward one step backward
In what can be seen as dancing to the tune “go for before for back”, the government delegate to the Kumba City Council has kept going forward and backward in his determined but vain effort to rehabilitate the decentralized motor parks in Kumba. For their part, bus drivers have had to be oscillating from the main motor park at the city centre to the peripheral motor park at Buea road, under the guise of making way for rehabilitation works to be done by the city council. 
By Sirri Ntonifor Tangwe in Kumba
The Government Delegate of Kumba appears more hesitant, indecisive and confused than ever before. Victor Nkele Ngoh who some time ago ordered bus transport agencies to transfer to the main park adjacent to the Kumba Central Market to enable for rehabilitation works to be carried out at the Buea Road Park, has again asked the transporters to return to Buea Road, even when no traces of rehabilitation work can be seen to have been done at the park.
    Thus, after spending three months at the Central Park, the bus transport agencies have had to return to their base at the Buea Road Motor Park one month ahead of the stipulated deadline for the completion of the rehabilitation works.
    When the bus transporters left the Buea Road Park on June 1st 2015, they did so to allow for construction works which were to run from June to September 2015. Council officials said the rehabilitation works were aimed to transform the park into an ultra-modern complex.
    But three months after, the only evidence of any construction work at the park are mounds of abandoned sand at the site, and very muddy environments which have given the park the semblance of a potential pig sty.
Owners of the different bus agencies say they have had to erect makeshift structures roofed with canopies and/or raffia materials just to cope with the worsening rainy season.
    However, City Council authorities have denied the blame for the sad situation; they have rather diverted the blame to the Councils Support Fund FEICOM.

    According to the Chief of Cabinet at the Government Delegates Office, Epie Paul, the Councils Support Fund FEICOM is responsible for stalling the rehabilitation works at the Buea Road Motor Park. He explained that FEICOM failed to provide a letter of non-objection, the document which must be procured before the contractor can proceed with execution of the job. Epie says FEICOM has to provide this document because she is the funding body for the project.
    He assured that once this document is procured, the construction works shall proceed without further delay. But observers say this would entail the Bus agencies transferring once again to the main park if they must give room for the works to proceed.
    Paul Epie explained further that the bus transporters were ordered to go back to the Buea Road Park because their presence at the Main Motor Park was becoming somewhat of a burden to deal with; he said the buses were causing traffic congestion and hampering the free movement of taxi cabs and persons around the city centre amongst other undesirable consequences.
    He however, used the opportunity of a chat with this reporter to pray the bus drivers and passengers to exercise patience, saying that all will be fine in the near future.
    For his part, the President of the Meme Divisional Highway Drivers’ Union, Nkwo Noah, said they returned to the Buea Road Motor Park after an appeal they made in writing to the Meme SDO and the Kumba Government Delegate.
    “In the letter, we drew their attention to the harassment of citizens, growing insecurity and lack of office and parking space at the Central Park. Besides, we did not see why we had to continue suffering at the main park when the planned rehabilitation works at the Buea Road motor park was not in progress three months after it was announced to start,” Nkwo explained, regretting that despite being one of the busiest parks in Meme Division, the Buea Road motor park has since remained an eye sore with old, dilapidated structures that pay no compliment to the Kumba City Council.
    What’s worse, in spite of recent measures prescribed by the Meme SDO to curb the Boko Haram menace, including notably the stationing of forces of law and order at all parks to ensure scrutiny of persons coming in and out of the division, the Buea Road motor park still appears naked and open to all and sundry; there is no security post or any security officers in sight.
    Yet, drivers at the park complain that in spite of these logistical short-comings council and syndicate workers stationed at the park still continue extorting money from them.