The Coordinator of the Rumpi Area Participatory Development Project in the South West Region, Besong Ntui Ogork, has said that some 30 billion CFA francs is needed for the second phase of the project.

He said more emphasis will be placed on developing agricultural infrastructure which will consume 60 per cent of the budget.  As per the pre-project document presented to steering committee members recently, some 500 km of rural roads will be constructed and rehabilitated while rural water schemes, rural markets and electrification of more rural communities will be carried out. The project would also provide technical support and capacity building to farmers.

The steering committee members also adopted amongst other resolutions the 2014 work plan of the project and the budget that stands at FCFA 2, 355, 99 billion.

The Steering Committee chair, Governor Bernard Okalia Bilai, pointed out that the second phase of the project will be most appropriate and timely especially with the construction of the major road corridors in the region that have always been a breadbasket of Cameroon. He said the success of phase I which stands at 93.5 per cent physical realisation is an indication that the project has impacted households in the region.

It emerged from the steering committee meeting that before the formulation of the project, the rate of poverty in the region in early 2000 was 145,000 below the national average of 148,000 going by the per capita income. In April 2012 when an assessment of the project was made, the per capita income witnessed an upsurge of between 366,000 to 700,000 in some places giving a general average of 160,000.

Mr. Ogork however indicated that one phase or even two phases of a project cannot completely eradicate poverty in the region but the hope is that the phase II will take the rate higher and the livelihoods of Cameroonians improved.

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A balance sheet of the cocoa-coffee fertilizer support programme piloted by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development shows that in three years, some 1,400 tons of fertilizer were offered to farmers and some 8,000 farmers sensitized on its use.

According to the project’s coordinator, Bernard Awasume during the fourth steering committee meeting in Yaounde on October 29, 2013, seven regions have been touched by the programme. These include the Centre, South, East, West, North West, Littoral and the South West Regions.

He revealed that the programme seeks to boost cocoa production to 600,000 tons, Arabica coffee to 35,000 tons and Robusta coffee to 122,000 tons by 2020.

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Some six Cameroonian trainers in fishing are undertaking training in Spain for efficiency in the country, the Minister of Livestock, Fisheries and Animal Industries, Dr Taïga has said.

The Minister made the disclosure in Yaounde last week during a steering committee meeting of the project to construct and equip the fishery training school in Limbe.

The three-month training, Minister Taïga said, will sharpen their skills for efficiency and better fish production in Cameroon. Statistics shows that the country spends over FCFA 100 billion to import almost half (200,000) metric tons of fish it consumes annually.

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Ongoing construction work for the multi-billion CFA francs Kribi Deep Seaport Project in Ocean Division of the South Region is reportedly over 70 per cent complete and stakeholders say the first phase will be operational by June 2014.

Reassuring members of the project’s steering committee after its 13^th session in the sea-side resort town on Thursday October 10, 2013, officials of the contracting firm, China Harbour Engineering Company (CHEC), said work is progressing normally and all is being done to deliver by June 2014, the deadline given for the construction of the first phase of the port in Mboro, some 35 km from Kribi town.

According to Cameroon Tribune reports, the dyke is already 90, 73% constructed and the container terminal 79, 06% done. With the compensation of the affected population already revived, stakeholders said there is renewed commitment to give the project a significant boost.

When the Prime Minister, Head of Government, Philemon Yang, visited the project’s site on August 6, 2013, the project’s engineers assured that out of the 1,355 m core of water break, 1,323 m  was already executed, 80 per cent of back filing done, dynamic compacting of done at 40 per cent. The dredging of access channel and turning circle executed at 70.15 per cent.

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North West-based grassroots programme, GP-DERUDEP, has reportedly voted 3 billion CFA francs within the framework of phase II of the programme for the development of the rural world in the region.

The amount, according to Le Messager newspaper, represents the budget of the programme for 2014.

The budget as well as the programme’s plan of action were adopted by the members of the steering committee headed by North West Governor, Adolphe Lele Lafrique Deben Tchoffo in Bameda recently.

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