Bamenda council: Road infrastructure debates postponed

The decision was arrived at during the city council session that held on Tuesday April 10, 2018 in Bamenda

The Bamenda City Council session of Tuesday April 10, 2018 was dedicated to handling issues connected to the administrative and management accounts of the city council led by the Government Delegate, Vincent Ndumu Nji.

During the session the works committee raised issues concerning roads, precisely the degrading nature of the road infrastructure, poor execution of road projects and abandonment of these projects by entrepreneurs for one reason or the other.

The issues raised were in line with disposition earmarked by the City Council especially on a planned road infrastructure debate in the town of Bamenda.

The Protem chairman of the session, Senior Councilor Kaba Charles from the Bamenda III council talking to the press at the end of the session indicated that the presentation from the works committee almost called for the convening of an extra ordinary session to handle the road issues through infrastructure debates.

The government delegate, Vincent Ndumu Nji after listening to the talks during the session and the need for an extra ordinary session, took a commitment to postpone the said debates for a date to be announced in the months ahead.

He told the councilors that “during the midway evaluation, we are going to pay more attention to the road networks of the city of Bamenda. I sure hope that by the end of this year, much should have been done concerning our road networks”

Council Budget

On the budget realization and the session, the Protem Chairman explained that despite the Anglophone crisis, the Bamenda City Council could still manage to collect over 50% of the intended revenue and much work has been done around town.

This reporter gathered that at least 1.6 billion FCFA of the over 2 billion FCFA budgeted last year was realized. It shows that there was a drop of about 10% compared to last year at this same period.

It is thought by most of the councilors of the Bamenda City Council that if the crisis were to come and pass, the council could still do more.

The Protem chairman, Kaba Charles who is an opposition councilor of the social Democratic Front, SDF, however praised the city council officials for achieving what they did despite the difficult moment.

The City Council session was held at a time when Bamenda roads have been reduced to undulating footpaths with an unprecedented growing number of potholes.

Besides roads, lack of water, poor electricity supply plus the self-imposed public holidays “ghost towns” every Mondays by the population have all reduced Bamenda to a city with a staggering economy and collapsing infrastructure.