Timber transporting truckers share the same narrow roads with taxis and cars
Yaounde, Cameroon Africa(Cameroon News) -
The roads in Cameroon have been found to be in dismal conditions and require a serious makeover.
Countries in the Central African Region suffer from some of the most pathetic roads in the continent of Africa. The nations that make up the list are Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Equatorial Guinea, The Democratic Republic of Congo and Gabon.
Cameroon, one of the relatively robust economies in the Central African region, is plagued by poor roads and the road situation is creating a lot of hurdles to the development in the economic, political and social sectors. Shockingly not even 20 percent of the country’s roads are asphalted.
In Chad, the story is not any different with unsurfaced roads which can almost not be travelled on once the monsoons commence. In the north, roads are nothing more than tracks along the desert and land mines which can erupt anywhere pose a serious threat. There are but very few roads in N’Djamena, the capital, that are paved.
The Central African Republic constitutes one of the world’s least developed countries. The country is also affected by some of the worst roads in the sub region. Once the monsoons start, you would require nothing short of a four wheeler to traverse on these roads. There are 2,880 km of highways in Equatorial Guinea, most of which are yet to be paved in 2010. You cannot even imagine travelling on these roads without an accident once the monsoons commence.
Ground transport in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has never been an easy task. The terrain, the climate, despicably managed economy and political crisis have driven away serious investors since time immemorial.
In Gabon a north-south road runs throughout the length of the country, from Bitam to Ndendé. An east–west road networks between Libreville and Mékambo. A major chunk of these roads are also unpaved.
In the recent past the government of Cameroon placed a ban on night time travel after there were fome serious accidents that took great many lives in the previous year. This ban however has not at al been easy on the hawkers and street vendors who depend excessively in the trucks that carry the produce to the markets during the night from the villages. These trucks find it near impossible to get the fresh produce during the mornings without getting it wilted in the string sunlight. A lot of the poor hawkers have had to close down their businesses because of this move from the government of Cameroon.
Civil servants who live in remote parts of the country were also affected by the move what with them having to rely on day buses to address issues with respect to their careers which resulted in serious loss of time. Due to the spate of arguments back home and protests from foreign countries after the issue was highlighted by the local media the government, finally decided that the move was probably not in the right direction and decided to call it off a few weeks later.
Cameroon’s Ministry of Transport has revealed that statistics indicate that night traffic constitutes just around 5 percent of human transport, but is the causative factor of more than 35 percent of road accidents. About 1,258 people lost their lives in accidents in 2010, according to the Cameroon government and many more were seriously injured or mutilated. This situation is no different in the other Central African countries.
A research project was carried out by the World Health Organisation (WHO) in 2009 under the subject ‘A status report on safety in countries of the WHO African region.’ According to this report, speeds crossing 50 km/hour, every 1 km/hour reduction in the average speed brings down the number of crashes by 2%.
Assessment of vehicle crashes in rural regions with a 60 km/hour speed limit determined that the “relative risk of crash involvement with injuries to car occupants doubles, or more, for each increase of 5 km/hour of travelling speed above 60 km/hour”.
The roads in Central Africa are bad due to a variety of reasons. These issues start from political and move onto other sectors like social, economical and even legal. The biggest reason behind pathetic roads is the attitude of the leaders of the country who hardly feel that improving the road condition is a priority issue. They would much rather prefer to flag off road projects and amass a fortune by just keeping them hanging. In fact there are lots of road projects which have not moved beyond the stage of paper work.
The economy of most African countries and Central African countries in specific is heavily reliant on financial aid from developed countries. Government officials who have been bestowed with the responsibility of ensuring that road infrastructure benefits move on from being just the objectives of the Millennium Development Goals in Africa but instead just rake money out of embezzling the financial aid that they have secured from the West.
Another factor which can be held responsible for the poor road infrastructure in the Central African region is the total absence of efficient and practical legal organizations and instruments. The institutions that are accountable for formulating and institutionalizing policy on road infrastructure waste resources on arranging seminars and workshops. Money and time is lost on training road construction engineers, the majority of who once they are equipped move out to greener pastures that lure them from the western world.
Legal instruments like constitutions, laws sanctioned by parliaments and ministerial agreements are not doing anything much to alter the situation. The Central African Region has undergone several constitutional reforms but these changes are directed only towards rescheduling the term of office of the Presidents of these countries rather than altering constitutional provisions and laws that are standing as barriers to infrastructural development.
It is therefore ideal that countries in the Central African region hand over these resources to lead agencies, and offer them the right kind of support to set up and deploy national road safety strategies. It is also important that national level targets are put in place for bringing down of road traffic accidents, injuries, and loss of lives. This is a very important process that will bring together all pertinent sectors and players belonging to government and non-governmental agencies.
Reliable top quality national and local information needs to be accumulated so that policy-makers and program managers can employ them on need basis so as to ensure that limited resources are put to the most efficient use. Data systems should be based on the current status, provide for networks between data from varied sources, and distribute it to stakeholders and the general public.
Financing, practicing and updating proper legislation, and guaranteeing that laws are in tune with proof-based international standards is also crucial in putting a tab to the poor maintenance on roads in Central Africa. Regular and informative public sensitizations drives campaigns should be started and the right kind of enforcement provided.
Corrupt governmental officials and politicians who are behind the poor roads in Central African states should open their eyes towards the benefit from good roads. It is time to put a firm stop to the corruption that has ended the roads in such dire straits.
