Talk of development and minds will run to roads. Policy makers and politicians would hardly make popular speeches without mentioning roads even when they sometimes know the project will hardly be executed. The quality of roads a country possesses defines its level of development, hence the popular adage known even by children, “where the road passes, development follows.”
In order to respond to the exigencies of this important factor of development, the Cameroon government created the National Road Board (CONAROUTE) on May 09, 2005 giving it the mission to establish dialogue between the actors of the road sector via permanent consultations and meetings aimed at coordinating road sector operations, projects, programmes and policies. Placed under the Prime Minister, Head of Government, CONAROUTE remains a consultative body that meets frequently to diagnose the problems in the road sector and seek solutions. As a sector that is extremely costly and requires a lot of engineering expertise, road construction has so far remained a difficult endeavour both for government and builders.
In Cameroon, road development is surrounded by a whole gamut of entangled interventions both at the public and private sectors, a phenomenon that has instead paralysed the smooth functioning of the sector, leading to the production of poor quality roads. This state of affairs has led to several interpretations from the road users; either the government is not interested in providing good roads to the population, or those who win contracts to work on such projects are unqualified. The rapidity with which roads deteriorate after construction tells of the inadequacies in the whole building system.
Engineers blame the situation on inadequate financing. Some think, the road sector has been largely penetrated by quacks that have very faint knowledge on road construction. The consequences are many including; poor conducting of feasibility studies marked by weak knowledge on geophysical conditions and soil texture, approximate project budgeting and poor execution. Cases abound where water, electricity and telephone agents come digging off brand new tar to unearth cables and pipes in order to rectify certain mistakes.
One of the Engineers, Shey Jones Yembe, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of MAG Road Construction Company, blames the poor state of road on two main problems. Minimum rehabilitation construction contracts where the contractor is simply provided with the basic minimum to, for instance, put up a little bit of “laterite” on the road and minimal road tarring or surface dressing where it is well known the road will not stay above five to ten years as required.
From every indication, in some cases, the blame equally goes to the government for providing limited resources and expecting huge results. That notwithstanding, the past years have witnessed significant increase in budget for road construction and rehabilitation. In which case, the inadequacies in road construction can be said to be highly contradictory to the importance government is giving to the sector. In 2009, government allocated FCFA 236.178 billion for road infrastructure. This amount increased to FCFA 248.963 billion in 2010 for road maintenance, rehabilitation and tarring. The issue, in any case, is not the money allocated but the quality of work it will produce.
LUKONG Pius NYUYLIME
