Local youths coached on job acquisition on Kumba-Mamfe project

Some leaders and representatives of youth groupings from communities within the Kumba -Mamfe axis have received technical training as part of the youth employment component of the Kumba- Mamfe road development project.

The training was the core of a three-day workshop organised in Kumba, October 1 to 3, by the International Labour Organisation, ILO, to enable the youth and local communities get maximum benefits as the construction work on the road progresses.

Speaking at the workshop, Tomaz Da Vera Cruz, who is ILO Country Representative for Angola, Cameroon, Sao Tome and Principe, said the training is in response to the new approach of the World Bank that takes into consideration the employment situation of youths at individual, national and international levels.

Cruz stated that, in line with the African Development Bank, ADB, concept of Employment Intensive Investment Programme, abbreviated in French ‘HIMO’, the ILO, in partnership with the Government of Cameroon, is training the youths to make use of the multiple employment opportunities in the course of the road works in the form of the rehabilitation of secondary roads, the building of schools, markets, health centers and the maintenance of cultural houses.

Justifying the place of local administrators such as Mayors within the training programme, Cruz averred that the Councils could end up absorbing the trained, that is, adopting the HIMO concept into the investment plans. The Country Representative also stated that, encouraging the use of local labour and materials, construction cost will reduce.

Simon Bernard Toum, National Coordinator of the ILO component of the Kumba-Mamfe Road works, explained that their role is solely to make sure that the communities benefit in ways that will address the problems of exploitation, poverty and unemployment.

Toum remarked that the ILO is only a technical partner in the road construction work and not the company that won the bid to build the road. He disclosed that, within two years, the mission of the ILO team concerning the Kumba-Mamfe road will be over.

Within the two-year period, the Project Coordinator said, their concern remains that of monitoring and implementing the secondary projects that will be put in place as part of the road works in partnership with institutions such as the Public Works School in Buea and the Southwest Development Authority, SOWEDA.

Representing Public Works Minister at the workshop, Meme SDO, David Koulbout Aman, stated that the training is to strengthen and guide the insertion of the youth into the job market, even after the secondary projects on the roads round carried out.

Aman declared that the workshop was coming on the heels of Governments’ resolve to reduce poverty and unemployment, in partnership with the ADB. The creation of small medium size enterprises accruing from the road projects, according to the SDO, depicts a 2006 national youth policy outlined by Government.

Mayors John Kona Makia and George Musima Lobe of Kumba III and Konye Councils, respectively, who sat through the workshop, both saluted the impending benefits from the Kumba–Mamfe Road construction as outstanding, given the positive changes expected in their communities as a result of the project.