Gov't back to initial option of building deep water port in Ngeme

After announcing in August 2013 the relocation of the project for the construction of the deep water port of Limbé, from the Ngeme site to Isonge, the State of Cameroon has come back to the initial option, “after assessing several hypotheses”, reveals a report just made public by the National Port Authority (APN).

At the time, the then-Minister of Economy, Emmanuel Nganou Djoumessi, had justified the relocation of this project by the narrowness of the Ngeme site, and above all, the costs linked to the payment of compensations. Indeed, he specified during a site visit, in addition to being bigger, the Isonge site is almost uninhabited, is close to the site hosting the project for the construction of the Afko Cement factory, and has a depth of 17m, thus 2m more than the Ngeme site, which would enable bigger vessels to berth.

All these particularities of the Isonge site, whih were then presented as advantages for the implementation of the project, are finally brushed aside since, according to APN’s revelations, it is finally in Ngeme that the deep water port of Limbé will be built. We can however note that these hesitations on the site meant to host the project considerably slowed down the start of the works.

As a reminder, it was on 1 November 2013 that the Cameroonian government signed an agreement with the Cameroonian-Korean consortium called Limbe Port Industrial Development Corporation (LIPID), for the construction of the deep water port of Limbé, in the South-West region of the country. This infrastructure, which should cost no less than FCfa 300 billion, according to updated estimates, should be delivered in 2018.

With the 2-year delay in the implementation of this project, and in order to make the deep water port of Limbé quickly operational, LIPID “proposed to the Cameroonian government to start with the construction of multifunctional floating pier, with the capacity of berthing 20,000-ton vessels, whose cost is estimated at approximately USD 35 million (FCfa 17.5 billion)”, the government had announced at the end of a meeting held on 15 January 2015 in Yaoundé.

Nine months later, this floating terminal, which according to the timeline presented in January 2015 by LIPID, “could be built and delivered in six months”, is still expected. Likewise for the other components of this port, which “will be specialised in the transport of heavy products such as hydrocarbons (the only refinery of the country is located in Limbé), cement (a cement factory will be built in the town of Limbé), containers and other agricultural products (CDC operates thousands of hectares of banana, palm oil and rubber tree around Limbé)”, the Cameroonian government specified.