By Shey Godbless
The Chairman of the North West Regional Participatory follow up committee of the execution of Public Investment Projects for the North West Region, Hon. Wallang Richard Ebua says the slow start of works along the Bamenda-Babajou stretch road was due to the lack of peace.The Lawmaker was speaking in Bamenda on Tuesday 28 July 2022 during the first seminar meeting of his committee aimed at evaluating the level of execution of public investment projects in the region.
According to Hon Wallang, for work to fully take its steam, there is need for peace and team work from everybody. He stated that there were still doubting Thomas’s who had not accepted the fact that contracts for effective work on that road had been awarded.
“If you tell them that the contractors are already having their contracts in their hands with a letter indicating that they are to start work which is known as OS, they will not still believe”, he said.
A journey that should not take up to thirty minutes takes more. It becomes even longer and dangerous in the rainy season with some vehicles remaining stuck in mud. Passengers are obliged to spend risky moments pushing the heavy vehicles out of the mud.
Fatal accidents have over the years been recorded and blame attributed to the poor state of that road.
“Each time I dream of traveling to the West region, I feel like throwing up just because of that stretch of the road which has remained an eye sore to us here in Bamenda... My friends who are in the other side of the country cannot visit me here in Bamenda simply because they say they are not ready to have their vehicles destroyed on our poor road.” a Bamenda based road user said
The North West Regional delegate for Public Works NGWAIMBI PAUL during the meetig acknowledged that contracts had actually been awarded to some contractors by the Minister of Public Works. Section one being Babajou-Matazem, Section two Matazem-Welcome to Bamenda and section three Welcome to Bamenda-Ecole de champions upstation Bamenda.
North West Regional delegate for Public Works NGWAIMBI PAUL
“Since the month of march, BUNS has mobilized on the Babajou-Welcome to Bamenda stretch of the road, and it is already around twelve percent completion. All has been put in place for the contractor to do work of quality,” he narrated.
“Since the 12 of July, 2022, they are mobilizing to take care of some of the bad spots. We are already deep into the rainy season. We are going to commit the contractor to take care of our roads during the rainy season to render it passable. Around the rainy season proper work of tarring will start,” he remarked adding that while waiting, the contractor was already anticipating all the preliminary works that will enable him to properly and fully start work immediately the rains will subside.
Cameroon News Agency reported that BUNS, had as main objective in June the laying of the foundation surface at least right up to “kilometre post 500” and for this to be realized, the company had mobilised it human, material and logistics resources.
Admitting that the road goes beyond Welcome to Bamenda, NGWAIMBI PAUL revealed that the sum of over two billion francs had been allocated for the stretch from Welcome to Bamenda to Tradex.
For decades, the population of the North West Region has received a string of unfulfilled promises from a plethora of quarters on the effective start and completion of the same stretch of road including the office of the prime Minister. The ring road linking Bamenda via Ngoketunjia, Bui, Dunga Mantung and Menchum Divisions is yet to be complete.
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