Limbe Council announces demolitions before Women's Nations Cup

In a drive aimed at beautifying the City of Limbe which is one of the host cities of the 2016 African Female Football Nations Cup, the Government Delegate to the Limbe City Council, Andrew Monjimba Motanga, has announced that “dilapidated” houses located along the major streets of the City shall be demolished come 2015.

Motanga’s announcement was made on Wednesday, December 24, during the 2015 Budgetary Session of the Council.

In December, 2012, Councillors of the City Council took a deliberation where they agreed that all owners of dingy structures and other odd-looking houses along the major streets of Limbe should, in three years, demolish them and rebuild befitting structures. It was also put as a condition that all new structures must be “at least from one storey building onward.”

It was based on this 2012 decision that Motanga said that he shall, in 2015 (barely months away from the 2016 Female Nations Cup), begin the demolition of all of these houses still existing along Limbe’s tarred streets.

If the Limbe Municipal decision has to be implemented, most of the houses along the main way leading into town at Mile Four, at the New Town, Half Mile to Mile One stretch, Gardens, Church Street and Isokolo Main Road, shall be demolished.

“We gave the owners of these structures three years (from December 2012) to change these structures. I wish to announce here that the Limbe City Council shall embark, without fear or favour, on the demolition of such structures at the expense of their owners in 2015, to give this City another look,” Motanga stated.

But other voices have argued that if the occupants of these houses do not, yet, have the means to immediately rebuild in time for the Female football tourney in 2016 , then, Motanga’s planned outing shall, more or less, leave the town in a rather more chaotic state than it is now.

Meantime, the budget for 2015 was voted at FCFA 6 billion, same as in 2014. Motanga said the Council had decided to stay the budget at a level that they can be able to realise.

As to what the Council plans to do besides demolishing of houses, Motanga said a lot of emphasis shall be put to alleviate the problem of “acute” water shortage in the City.

“We shall construct new water and electricity networks, especially in new layouts costing FCFA 95 million,” Motanga said. He added that the Council intends to build a hotel at Bota Canteen Quarters and complete a restaurant project at Krata at FCFA 100 million.

The Delegate said some FCFA 300 million shall be spent to uplift the façade of the Regional Hospital in Limbe as SONARA, in 2015, also plans to begin construction of an ultra-modern ward in this same hospital. Other projects have also been budgeted.

The SDO of Fako, Zang III, reiterated his readiness to find a way-out where SONARA, which is the Limbe City Council’s major tax payer, shall pay its taxes direct into the Council’s coffers and no longer in Yaounde.

Motanga said, since 2012, the Limbe Council has not had any payments from SONARA in terms of taxes. He said this has helped to retard some of their major engagements.

The SDO called on the Council to work more and more with the taxation services of the State in a bid to guarantee a better and more effective recovery of their revenue.