Centre Region: Obala enjoying fruits of Germano-Cameroon ties in road transport sector.

This was during the visit by a 15-man media team to the of the German Cooperation-financed Obala Bus Station. 

The visit at the bus station was part of day 10 of the media team’s ongoing four-region trip covering over 20 towns and cities in the West, Centre, Littoral and East regions. 

The team is out to highlight the projects that the German Cooperation has executed in Cameroon in the last 60 years of its presence in the country.

Besides the visit at the Obala Bus Station, the press team made two other stopovers on Wednesday.

The group visited an association of beekeepers in Ngouetou in the Mbam and Kim Division of the Centre Region who recently benefitted from the German Cooperation to scale-up their income-generating activity. 

The farmers told the pressmen that their beekeeping activity has unimaginably improved thanks to the support from the German Cooperation unveiled through the provision of equipment and training.

The media team was also taken through a presentation of the shared vision of the German Cooperation for the municipality of Yoko still in the Mbam and Division.

The presentation was coordinated by the Mayor of Yoko Council, Annir Tina Dieudonné.

The municipal authority said that the municipality today prides itself as one of the finest in Cameroon partly thanks to the mouthwatering support it gets from the German Cooperation.

Obala benefitting in road transport sector 

The Obala Bus Station was commissioned in September 2023 after the completion of work at the site by the Special Council Support Fund for Mutual Assistance, FEICOM, which executed the project.

The station which comprises among others of two loading bays with 36 car parks, a main building, a restaurant, six ticket offices, over six shops and toilets, cost some 608,268,843 FCFA. 

It was financed by the German Cooperation through the German development bank, the KfW. 

The construction of the facility which serves travellers using the Obala-Yaounde, Obala-Batchenga, Obala-Ntui-Mbanjock, Obala-Monatele and Obala-Ebebda-Sa’a lines, was financed under the good governance pool of the German Cooperation’s activities in Cameroon.

Bus station giving population new travel experience

Speaking to pressmen Wednesday, Faustin Georges Mvogo, who has been the registrar of the station since its commissioning, said the infrastructural masterpiece has since its opening, given the people of Obala and its other users a new experience in travelling.

According to Mvogo, despite challenges arising notably from recalcitrant behaviors from bus drivers still haphazardly loading vehicles without respecting registered points, the station has brought law and order in the road transport sector in Obala. 

He said Obala had before the facility, suffered for years from an unprecedently urban disorder coming from the sector.

“The former site of the bus station was practically in the central town. The positioning caused all the urban disorders that one can imagine. But thankfully, authorities in place paired with partners and found a way forward by introducing this bus station which has definitively ended the urban disorders,” Mvogo stated. 

“It has changed our way of working because the working condition is now lively and very relaxed. The infrastructure and its accompanying facilities have brought an impressive level of discipline. Even infrastructurally because formerly we had no toilettes,” he added.

He also frowned at those he described as recalcitrant individuals, who are still not making use of the facility.

“We are in a zone where law and order is still a major challenge. We still have drivers who carry travelers haphazardly on non-indicated areas on the road. But competent authorities in place are working on measures to ensure that that is solved,” he stated.

Bus station blessing to drivers 

The president of Obala-based driver’s syndicate, SYNCEPROTMBUICAM, Ndongo Bedziga Appolinaire, said the bus station has been a source of immeasurably blessing to the drivers in the area and travelers using the facility.

“We are grateful to authorities for putting this infrastructural beauty at our disposal here in Obala. The facility excellently constructed,” Ndongo Bedziga, who is also a driver stated.

He appealed on authorities to double their efforts in ensuring that the recalcitrant drivers hindering the smooth functioning of the facility are definitely stopped.

“…we still have difficulties in fully exploiting the facility because there is a group of gangsters blocking us from effectively benefitting from it. The commercial drivers still loading their buses inside the town and not at the park are killing us and should be stopped. We don’t have customers,” he said.

The Obala Bus Station is one of several infrastructure in Cameroon that has been financed by the German Cooperation. 

It is also one of such facilities put in place by the German Cooperation that the media has visited as part of the ongoing tour. 

Delegation entering final phase of tour

The ongoing two-week media tour got underway on Monday July 1 and rounds up on Sunday July 14. Per the official calendar of the trip, the mission rounds up with the final lap covering some five localities in the East Region.

Yoko concluded the Centre Region lap of the series Wednesday July 10 with visits at the municipal mango nursery in Nyem and the Mankim forest plantation both under the Yoko Subdivision.

The team also visited the community Ndjangsang plantation in Nyem village which is also administratively placed under the Yoko municipality, the biggest municipality in Cameroon per landscape.

Target areas in East Region 

On Saturday after the team moves from the Centre Region to the East Region, the delegation will make stopovers in some five areas across over four towns and cities that benefitted from the largesse of the German Cooperation in the last years.

In the Lom and Djerem Division, the team will visit a charcoal production hub in Mandjou and the East Regional Health Promotion Fund based in Bertoua in the capital of the East Region.

Batouri in the Kadey Division will host the team as it visits Catholic Church sisters in the community engaged in agri-food production. 

The team will also visit the Timangolo refugee site where the German Cooperation has among others, been assisting with birth registration, the provision of materials to the Timangolo civil registry centre and the identification of children old enough to have birth certificates. 

This story was first published in The Guardian Post issue No:3166 of Friday July 11, 2024