Stakeholders brainstorm on optimising road construction, increasing earth roads.

This was the focus of a high-level consultation meeting held in Yaounde, Monday.

Chaired by the Minister of Public Works, Emmanuel Nganou Djoumessi, the consultation meeting assembled a number of expert engineers, the President of the National Order of Engineers, heads of technical consultancies and officials from the National Civil Engineering Laboratory, LABOGENIE, among others.

Identifying ways of optimising road construction techniques and increasing the number of earth roads in the country was the focus of the consultation. 

Several months ago, the Ministry of Public Works launched a debate on pavement design, the first of its kind to be led by the ministry.

The initiative aims at proposing appropriate solutions to minimise construction/maintenance costs while ensuring the durability of existing road infrastructure. 

It has been established that the pavement structure accounts for between 25% and 40% of the cost of asphalting a road, and can account for more than 70% of the cost of certain road rehabilitation works.

Experts are unanimous that the composition and dimensions of pavement layers are therefore an important factor in optimising the cost of road construction. 

The issues addressed by the players all converge towards a common objective including extending the service life of existing infrastructure. 

During the meeting, works minister gathered proposals from all attendees, by combining their experience and intelligence. 

The discussions, we gathered, will lead to the development of a catalogue and a pavement dimensioning guide adapted to the national context. 

The next decision-making meeting, scheduled for November 11, with the same participants including the Director General of Labogénie, President of the National Order of Civil Engineers, the president of the South Regional Council, Director General of the Bureau D'études Le Compéting BET, as well as experienced engineers will consolidate the technical contributions. 

Following Monday’s working session, LABOGÉNIE was instructed to locate existing local materials by regions.

This article was first published in The Guardian Post Edition No:3282 of Wednesday November 06, 2024