Drivers grapple with bad road

Bate Ekang, an executive member of the Meme Divisional Road Transport Workers Union, MEDRATUW, assigned to the Ntam Park, Three Corners Fiango Kumba, told The Post that drivers have only heard about the purported tarring of the road. He said what the drivers want is reality and not promises.

Bate said the same road, which was supposed to be under construction this year, going by Government declarations, has been handed to a contractor to do maintenance works for three years.

According to the MEDRATUW official, most of the drivers are jobless because, the bad state of the road causes most passengers to opt for the Bamenda-Mamfe corridor, leaving them with limited passengers to transport.

In the meantime, Bate said it takes over four and a half hours from Kumba to Mamfe, whereas if the road is tarred, drivers will take a little over one and a half hours to get to Mamfe. He appealed to the Government to ensure the tarring of the road so that drivers can pay their children’s school fees, take care of their families and stop suffering.

Lobe Ituka, a driver who has been plying the road for the last seven years, said the situation of the road, though bad, is manageable, despite hurdles such as multiple police checks and agony of passengers.

According to Lobe, last week, he saw some road construction equipment on the road but cannot say, for sure, if work will begin soon, because, no official ceremony to that effect has been reported anywhere.

Analysing the cost of plying the road, Ituka said passengers pay a “demolished” price of FCFA 6,000 and FCFA 5,000 for Toyota DX commonly called ‘clando’ and 19-seater bus, respectively, during the dry season. In the rainy season, the cost rises to between FCFA 9,000 and FCFA10,000; a period during which, according to the driver, only 4-wheel Hilux vehicles manage to ply the road.

A single trip from Kumba to Mamfe, according to Ituka will cost a driver by way of bribe, FCFA 8,000 for four police and Gendarmerie checkpoints viz; Mambanda, Konye, Babese and Mamfe and petrol for FCFA 25,000, plus a balance of between FCFA 10,000 and FCFA 15,000 to the car owner per day. With the rainy season soon to set in, Ituka said most of his colleagues would move over to Bamenda by June 2014, lest they become jobless.

No Information Available When The Post visited the Kumba III Council, May 12, the 1st and 2nd Deputy Mayors Hannah Elonge and Peter Youashi, respectively said no information was available concerning the road, even at the level of the Divisional Officer.

Mayor Youashi told this Reporter that, not even the name of the company to tar the road has been made known to the Council which is supposed to help in the recruitment of labour. Youashi said, the Kumba III Council is one of the institutions that will defend workers against exploitation when the work begins, but admitted that a public declaration without proper information on the road is bad news.

Kumba Mamfe Road The Kumba–Mamfe Road is about 173km long and is one of the roads to be constructed under the transit routes defined by the TIPAC (Central African Inter State Transit Programme) put in place by CEMAC countries.

The road, which is divided into three sections, namely: Kumba-Supe-Kumbe Bakundu (length: 54km), Kumbe Bakundu-Nfaitock (length: 51km), Nfaïtock-Bachuo Akagbe (length: 47km), will cost the Government of Cameroon and other partners FCFA 85.75bilion to have it tarred.