Massive Construction of Drainages Underway in Douala

Inhabitants use their flanks as footpaths to easily reach public roads.

No city dweller is a stranger to the rapid facelift the Douala II Subdivision has witnessed within the past few months. One would not need to impute some form of development efforts than the construction of a good number of rain water channels that has drained the municipality of flood waters and some pollutants.

These gutters are usually covered by strips of cast iron, plastic and kitchen wastes, but over the past few months and weeks since work started they have been removed, particularly in the heart of New-Bell, to give way for the construction of the channels. The construction of the channels will help avert inundation, stagnant water which favours mosquito breeding and disease outbreaks but may well pose a new challenge to the council if maintenance is neglected.

Construction of the channels (deep gutters which run across the several neighbourhoods and roads of the Douala II Municipality), about 2,999 metres long between 2007 to 2013, also necessitates regular dredging, as waste carried in from adjoining buildings has encroached into the channel in recent months. Particularly, work on the 3 km channel that cuts across Marché Central through New-Bell, Nkolmintag to New-Town Aeroport is expected to soon end. Some 8,066 metres long of small gutters have also been constructed.

Dredging, therefore, needs to be regular to improve the flow of water or else the loss of free flow already witnessed in some sections of the channels may as well cause changes in depth of the channels. Laterytic soils have been used to cover both flanks of the channels that have also been expanded into usable roads for vehicles and pedestrians.

In most sites where work is completed, the flanks of even small gutters are now good footpaths for easy discharge onto public roads. The responsibility for maintaining them in a safe and working condition rests with the inhabitants who must be sensitised not to turn these costly investments into dumping grounds for their waste.