A lot of water has gone under the bridge since the Yaounde-Douala Double lane project was initiated. And interestingly, nothing, until the announcement of the construction of the first ten kilometres a few months ago, had moved an inch.
From the look of things, many things block projects in the like of Yaounde-Douala Highway. The major one from every indication is the search for finance. Once the money has been "found", other hurdles, mainly, administrative, crop up.
That said, the good news at least is that the long awaited project has at last been put on the rail. The first compensation of the population residing along the track has begun with the inhabitants of Nkolkoumou in the Yaounde VII Sub Division where the ceremony of the posing of the laying of the foundation stone will be organised. The families who own the land in that area yesterday received FCFA 213 million as compensation. The spontaneity with which the process is being tailored really rekindles hope of a project initially feared abandoned finally taking off.
The whole issue of paying money to the populations that reside in areas where projects are being executed has often raised a lot of dust because of the intrigues that come into play. People would want to be compensated for what does not exist. Some will create artificial graves so as to be paid. Many will provide information that is not exact on the number of farms and crops in the land. Cases abound of people who will rush to the project area, acquire land and hastily establish land titles in order to receive pay.
That notwithstanding, the decision to kick start the Yaounde-Douala Highway with the compensation of the 12 families is laudable. The ardent wish of many a Cameroonian is that the whole process be taken to its logical end. The importance of the Yaounde-Douala road is known even by babies. The joy that ran through the faces of Cameroonians when the project was announced was visible even to the blind. It will certainly be meaningless for the project to come to a halt after people must have earned their money and completely forgotten about what they were paid. In other words, Cameroonians will like to see heavy duty machines take over and accelerate work. That is the real compensation we should be talking of; compensating Cameroonians for their hard work and ability to pay taxes by providing them with a good quality road worthy of the country in search of emergence.
