The Ambassador of France to Cameroon
has reaffirmed his government’s determination to develop the town of Bamenda to
a modern city. H.E Gilles Thibault as part of his two days visit to the North
West Region made a stopover at the Bamenda City Council during which he had an
exchange with the government delegate to the City.
While sharing on the life of the city, Ndumu Vincent Nji
painted images of a peace loving city and hardworking people. Though with a
deplorable road infrastructure, the government delegate told the Ambassador
that government had already put in place a project to improve the roads within
the city. The French diplomat will however express the wish for Bamenda people
to feel roads not just to be told that there will be a project.
Accompanied by the city delegate, the Ambassador visited
Bamendakwe and Nsongwa where some future projects for the city have been
earmarked.
The development project christened “Capitales Regionales” by
the French government has as main goals to improve urban mobility and to open
up enclosed neighbourhoods, to improve the basic urban services, to support and
improve the economic development of the city and increase the attractiveness of
the city.
From what this reporter gathered during the visit of the French
Diplomat’s visit, Bamenda was selected to benefit from the development program
in the framework of the third Debt-Reduction and development Contract C2D which
was signed in 2016 during the visit of the former Minister “Secretaire d’Etat
charge du Development et la Francophonie” Valllini.
By 2020 when construction works are effectively expected to
start Bamenda will witness an improvement on road infrastructure, markets, bus
stations, public space development like parks, drilling drinking water fountains,
public toilets, public lights amongst others.
H.E Gilles later in the day visited the Rice reference Center
in Ndop where there is supposed to be an improvement in rice production
following financial support from the French government through the Debt-Reduction
and development Contract C2D for the production of the rice. Though most of the
production reference center was only seen on picture with few bags of rice in
mouth sealed sacks and motors bags or jut bags, one lone machine expected to be
for hauling and some blackened drums used in pa-boiling rice, the Ambassador
will tell the press that he was satisfied with the work done so far in
increasing rice productivity and dissemination of quality seeds of improved
rice varieties.
The Ambassador ended his day in Ndop with a visit to the
dilapidated Ndop Vocational Training Center being what is popularly called
SAR-SM supported by the French Development Agency better known by the French
acronym AFD being one of four centers across the country financed by the
Debt-Reduction and development Contract C2D amounting to about FCFA 6.5
billion. The center is expected to develop a more professional training base
defined by the needs of the labour market thus limiting unemployment and
underemployment through activities like agribusiness processing and
manufacturing, maintenance of small equipment, renewable energy and mechanics. The
center is expected to go operational in 2019 after the contractor is recruited
and sent to work this year.