Cameroon’s 2022 road maintenance budget has been set to XAF41.479 billion, according to the Ministry of Public Works (Mintp). This budget will be used to maintain 5,496.36 km of national and regional roads, we learn.
According to the ministry, the budget includes XAF1.659 billion not committed in 2021. For Mintp, the road maintenance budget is significantly lower than the needs estimated at some XAF800 billion.
This means that only 5.1% of the needed envelope is available to maintain 13.81% of the 23,424.85 kilometers of Cameornn’s national and regional roads this year. As the result, sections that did not go through maintenance will continue to wear out.
Those figures demonstrate the age-long issue of financing road maintenance in Cameroon. The issue was once again raised by Minister of Public Works Emmanuel Nganou Djoumessi while defending Mintp’s 2022 budget before the parliament on December 1, 2021.
"The linear road network has increased by 121%, from 55,000 km in 2010 to 121,873.93 km in 2021. However, the maintenance resources did not grow accordingly,” he said. As a result, only 48.86% ( 121,873.93 kilometers) of the country’s road network is in a good or average condition while the remaining 51.14% is in a dilapidated state, he added.
To address the situation, the government intends to not only concede the road maintenance but also implement a new strategy aimed at ensuring the sustainability of dirt roads that constitute well over 93% of the national road network, he explained.
The new strategy was developed because the Ministry of Public Works noticed that the maintenance solutions implemented so far have limitations. On June 1-3, 2021, a workshop was organized in Yaoundé to discuss the new strategy, we learn.
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