Bamenda Referral Hospital project: Parliamentary commission inquiry results awaited 8months after as site turns to a thick bush

By Bakah Derick

Work has failed to resume at the  construction site of the Bamenda Referral Hospital eight months after the enquiry mission of a parliamentary commission that visited the area and met with the project stakeholders.. The commission's visit was as a result of no work at the site since 2018. 

Main entrance to the Referral Hospital project site

Visiting the site in Ntabang-Nkwen Bamenda III Sub division Mezam division on Thursday 14 October 2021, only the office of the security officer at the main entrance was open. With no one to let us into the bushy project site, we could see two abandoned caterpillars and Incomplete buildings (skeletal in nature) seen from top. A lighted bulb was at the entrance. No worker 

Satellite images of the projext site 

Facts to remember about the project 

The construction of the Bamenda Referral Hospital was announced on Monday 27 February 2017 by the then Prime Minister Philemon Yang during a Cameroon People's Democratic Movement (CPDM) rally at the Bamenda Commercial Avenue. The hospital PM Yang said was going to serve as a teaching hospital for the University of Bamenda.  (We were there)

Three months later precisely on Wednesday 3 May 2017, then Minister of Public Health Andre Mama Fouda was in Bamenda to lay the foundation stone. The Minister announced that the construction was going to last 18 months costing 15 billion FCFA with 10billion being for the building and 5billion for the equipment. At the time, he said a Moroccan company had the responsibility to construct the ultramodern health facility. He noted that the referral hospita is government's way of limiting movements of inhabitants of the North West who are forced to go to other regions in the country or abroad in search of health care. (We covered the event) 

Part of the abandoned buildings 

February 17,  2021, that is four years after the laying of the foundation stone, a parliamentary commission headed by Hon Bami Emmauel is on site to conduct an enquiry on the state of the project and to find answers to unanswered questions. 

"We are at a lost that the project to construct the Head of State's special gift of a referral hospital for the North West Region since 2017 is yet to be completed and delivered. Our parliamentary commission was on the field in Bamenda to evaluate the progress of the project and report to the competent authority for action because parliament has the concern for the project to be delivered." Hon Mbami told Cameroon Tribune. 

Talking on Cameroon Calling, a flagship programme on the state broadcaster: the Cameroon Radio Television (CRTV) radio, the member of parliament  rather talked of a certain Alliance Cameroon as the construction firm instead of Andre Fouda's Moroccan company. Worst still, the Alliance Cameroon disappeared after subcontracting the project to a local contractor with the name Mr Baker Company. The Executive Director Michael Mubang while blaming the abandonment of work to security concerns, said he lost contact with Alliance Cameroon the main contractor.  

The Bamenda Referral Hospital project site and neighbouring areas 

Effective work on the site resulting in the raising of seven out of 14 apartments above foundation level according to public contract shareholders in the region ended sometimes in 2018. 

Beside the hospital is an abandoned project site for the construction of low cost houses. 

Exactly 4 years, 7 months and 14 days today since the announcement of the project, wherever the parliamentary commission report was taken to, the wish of many in Ntabang-Nkwen Bamenda and the North West Region in general is to see the ambitious project come to reality.