Cameroon: Infrastructure projects, efficiency needed

A popular saying goes that where a road passes, development follows. Added to the roads, whose contribution to the socio-economic life of man and nation need no insistence, are other infrastructure projects of national interest like schools, hospitals, stadiums etc. The quantity of the projects is as important as their quality. The two are interwoven for change to come.

Countries aspiring for emergence imperatively need infrastructure projects worth the name. Cameroon has slightly over 10 per cent of her roads paved. Considerable efforts are on course to augment the quantity of the tarred national roads so as to make them passable all season. This is evident in the number of road projects spread across the country ranging from fresh pavement to rehabilitation.

As good as this sounds, there are vexing problems that must be handled and urgently too if the country must continue on the already charted growth path and aspire to attain desired goals. Efficiency in the execution of infrastructure projects; all categories inclusive, is not supposed to be an option.

Curiously, the country seems to be wanting therein. If not, what justifies the fact that a project as important as the Sangmelima-Mekok-Bikoula stretch, part of the trans-national Sangmelima-Djoum-Mintom road linking Cameroon and Congo Brazzaville, is not evolving satisfactorily.

In fact, in an inspection tour to the site Monday, Public Works Minister, Patrice Amba Salla came face-to-face with the disheartening reality not only that the project was at a snail-pace but equally that the executing and control firms did not abide by takeoff engagements.

The rate of execution is dismally at 23.68 per cent even as the contracting Iranian firm, Kayson Inc, is already beyond the required deadline. The FCFA 23.3 billion project jointly financed by the Islamic Development Bank and the government of Cameroon had a 30-month execution period (13 October 2012- 12 April, 2015).