Classification of Road Construction Enterprises Recommended

Focal points in the National Road Board made recommendations on September 12, 2013.

Focal points and experts in the National Road Board, CONAROUTE have made recommendations to the Board, that have to subsequently be transmitted to the Prime Minister on ways of improving Cameroon's road network. This was at the end of the second series of conferences of focal points in CONAROUTE at the Prime Minister's Office, Thursday, September 12, 2013.

The experts and focal points proposed mechanisms of reducing the cost per kilometer of tarred road in Cameroon from the current FCFA 205 million to the average cost of FCFA 100 million in most African countries, the rapid take off of the Small and Medium-sized Enterprises Bank, effective implementation of the programme-budget and effective involvement of the local population in road construction and maintenance. The Permanent Secretary of the National Road Board, Moumbain Matapit Issofa disclosed the recommendations while talking to reporters after the closing ceremony of the conferences.

He further said they recommended that government restore the image of the Road Fund and give it the necessary means to function properly. Mr Moumbain disclosed that the Prime Minister instructed that resources allocated for road construction that pass through the Road Fund be increased from FCFA 55 billion to FCFA 70 billion. CONAROUTE focal points, he said, recommended that the amount be increased on a yearly basis to reach FCFA 110 billion, the objective set when the Road Fund was created.

The Special Adviser N0 1 at the Prime Minister's Office, Professor Touna Mama chaired the closing ceremony on behalf of the Secretary General at the Prime Minister's Office, Louis Paul Motaze. He re-echoed short, medium and long-term recommendations the focal points made.

He singled out the review of the Ministry of Public Works to ensure the coherence of different internal structures and the urgency for the ministry to finalise the inventory of rural roads and to ensure better protection earth roads through the effective management of rain gates. They focal points and experts ended up by visiting a road construction project at Nkolafamba at the outskirts of Yaounde.