The official kick off of work on the site coincided with the project’s 8^th committee meeting in Kribi Monday.

Mboro, the site to host the general ports of the ambitious Kribi Deep Seaport Project, is gradually taking shape with the hitherto thick forest fast giving way to vast stretches of cleared land. Clearing and cleaning to render the site visible and passable has effectively begun and the contracting firm, Razel, is upbeat that everything being equal, work on the 90 – 100 hectares of land would be through in 12 months. The work consists in bringing down the thick forest, clearing the area, excavating the top soil and backfilling the area. Speaking to journalists on the site, the Director of Works of Razel, Francis Gendet, said the first phase is scheduled to last 12 months and it is only thereafter that the government will decide the next step to take.

The official kicker to the work was given on Monday December 27 in Mboro, some 35 kilometres from Kribi and it coincided with the 8^th steering committee meeting of the project which held at the Conference Hall of the Palm Beach Hotel. It was chaired by the Committee’s President, Louis Paul Motaze, Minister of the Economy, Planning and Regional Development in the presence of the committee’s Vice President, Bello Bouba Maigari, Minister of State, Minister of Transport. The session was among others to evaluate the path covered thus far by the project, examine the 2010 administrative account of the steering committee, the budget for 2011 as well as priority areas to give shape to the much-heralded project. Nothing filtered out of the conclave but committee members who visited to inspect excavation work on the Mboro site were apparently optimistic that the project was on a good footing. Sources said the steering committee’s priority for 2010 were among others to secure the port sites, draw up a master plan for the Kribi industrial port complex, draw up a general management plan, finalise economic and financial studies of the project, begin compensation of the affected population and clearing and cleaning of the Mboro site to host port’s infrastructure; projects which are on course.

Monday’s dual-purpose Kribi sojourn by the steering committee members came barely days after effective compensation of the population who will be affected in one way or the other by the project began. Over FCFA 4.4 billion will during the first phase of the compensation period be distributed to over 100 of 300 people retained as having only either land or land and property on the project’s sites. This also came a few days after Louis Paul Motaze led a battery of cabinet ministers to the port’s village to announce compensation and payment modalities. Alongside the Ministers of Social Affairs and that of Housing and Urban Development, the ministerial delegation also advised the beneficiary population on the need to plough back the money into other income-generating activities to boost their living standards as well as the local economy.

Reports say the project will host merchandise and shipping traffic (industries, container, timber, hydrocarbons and cereals and vessels) and will upon completion be expected to boost the mining of Cameroon’s minerals like cobalt, iron, bauxite and nickel as well as open a vast economic corridor for Cameroon and neighbouring countries like Gabon, Central African Republic, DRC Congo and Equatorial Guinea among others.