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Cameroon: Satom Suspends Muea-Kumba Road Works, Wants Payment
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The Post (Buea)
18 April 2008
Posted to the web 18 April 2008
Ernest Sumelong
Buea
SATOM, the company carrying out construction on the Muea-Kumba road, has suspended work due to failure by the European Union, EU, to disburse funds, The Post has learned.
SATOM relieved its employees from work on Monday, April 14. They could be seen loitering along the streets of Ekona, when The Post went there on Tuesday. Also, most of the company's trucks were grounded at SATOM's Ekona base. But at their stone-crushing site, work was going on normally.
For now, the road from Muea to Kumba has been graded, while gravel has been spread only up to Muyuka, about half the stretch of the road.Some of the workers, who talked to The Post confirmed that work has been suspended. They said the company has been working without money from the European Union, which largely sponsors the project. The company has also been paying its workforce from its pocket, according to them.
"But for the fact that the company provides the equipment and produces the raw material for the construction work, they would have stopped earlier," one of them said.The situation seems even more precarious because the government still owes SATOM after it completed work on the Mutengene-Muea road and it is unlikely that it would be paid soon.
The Post was also hinted that government has not finalised agreement with the European Union for the money to be disbursed. But when the EU representative in Cameroon, Javier Puyol, alongside the Prime Minister, Ephraim Inoni, launched the project in 2007, he assured an enthusiastic crowd that everything had been put in place and the project would be completed by 2009. But it is now unclear if the project would meet the deadline or it would be completed at all. However, some SATOM officials kept mute on the issue.
Company's Dishonesty
Meanwhile, some of the SATOM workers revealed that the company is cheating government on the project. They said the company does not respect the 40-centimetres thickness stipulated in the contract.
"Even when the project would have been completed, the road would not have the 40-centimetre thickness. This is the same thing that happened to the Mutengene-Muea road and will not last the stipulated time," one of them said.
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On the other hand, the workers are not helping matters. The Post learned that some of them are dishonest; stealing some of the company's equipment and selling them. There have also been complaints that they steal and sell diesel and sell them to drivers. There seems to be a vicious cycle against the road project.
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| Copyright © 2008 The Post. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com). To contact the copyright holder directly for corrections -- or for permission to republish or make other authorized use of this material, click here. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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