Ngaoundere-Garoua Road: Minister dismisses claims State loss billions of FCFA in reconstruction.

The rebuttal from the minister comes days after a section of the media reported that the State was losing billions of FCFA following the award of the contract.

In his outing, Minister Djoumessi quickly dismissed such claims as grossly misleading and inconsistent with reality.

In setting the records straight, Minister Djoumessi disclosed that with regard to project funding, the African Development Bank, AfDB, Technical and Financial Partner, TFF, approved the funding to the tune of 216.8 billion CFA francs for the reconstruction of the Ngaoundéré-Garoua road as part of the Transport Sector Support Programme Phase 4.

He said after authorising the use of Advance Procurement Actions, the donor gave its no-objection opinion to the draft Tender Documents on December 9, 2024.

The minister detailed that the project has been divided into five lots in a bid to reduce the time frame required to complete the works.

With regards to the successful bidders, the Minister clarified that an Open International Call for Tenders was launched on December 13, 2024 to select the companies responsible for carrying out the works. 

“The bids received on February 13, 2025 were examined by the relevant National Tenders Boards, namely the Special Tenders Board for Joint Financing Projects based at the Ministry of Public Works and the Central Contracts Control Board for Road Works found at the Ministry of Public Contracts, in line with the Public Contracts Code and the Donor Guidelines. The resulting report was submitted to the Donor on August 7, 2025 so that it could assess the quality of the analyses and conclusions to give its no-objection opinion,” he said. 

Minister Djoumessi continued that: “As for the signing of contracts and the mobilisation of companies on September 2, 2025, the Technical and Financial Partner, AIIB, gave its no-objection to the award proposals resulting from the report examined by National Tenders Boards”.

He added that: “At the end of this process, the following companies were selected for the various lots: Lot 1. Ngaoundéré Cliff base (50 km), CGCOC GROUP; 46,058,144,793 CFA francs including taxes; Lot 2, Cliff base-Keroua Bridge (39 km), China Harbour Engineering Company Ltd, CHEC: 34,807,741,248 CFA francs including taxes; Lot 4. Salah Bridge-Ouro André village entrance (56 km), China First Highway Engineering, CFHEC: 23,911,833,000 CFA francs including taxes; Lot 5, Ouro André village entrance-Benoué Bridge (56 km), China International Water & Electric Corp, CWE: 31,091,169,134 CFA francs including taxes”.

The minister said for its part, lot 3, Keroua Bridge-Salah Bridge (77 long), is subject to a petition filed by a bidder. 

The said petition, he disclosed is being examined by the Technical and Financial Partner, following the notice from the regulator, the Public Contracts Regulatory Agency.

The Minister insisted that: “The award of contracts was guided by the qualification criteria defined in the Tender Documents, validated by National Tenders Boards and approved by the Technical and Financial Partner. The successful bidders are those with bids found technically compliant and financially competitive”.

The Technical and Financial Partner, he said gave its no-objection to the contracts of the four (4) companies not affected by the pending petition. 

“They were signed on November 19, 2025. These companies are now active in the project's area of influence, carrying out execution studies, installing the living quarters, identifying borrowing pits and maintaining traffic flow,” he said

Regarding other investments covered by the project, Minister Djoumessi said in addition to road reconstruction, the financial support from AfDB, will cover the development of 15km of urban road systems in the towns crossed including 5km in Ngaoundéré, 2.5km in Mbé, 2.5km in Gamba, 2.5km in Gouna and 2.5 km in Ngong.

He announced that the investments will also include the development of 263 km of municipal roads identified with the assistance of local authorities.

This article was first published in The Guardian Post Edition No:3639 of Friday November 28, 2025