(Business in Cameroon) - The Cameroonian Minister of Transport, Edgar Alain Mebe Ngo’o, officially launched on 13 February 2017 the activities of the Société de Transports et Equipments Collectifs de Yaoundé (Stecy SA – Yaoundé Transport and Community Equipment Company), now in charge of ensuring urban mass transport in the capital, with a fare of FCfa 200 per journey.
The result of a public-private partnership between the Portuguese group Eximtrans Sarl/Irmaos Mota and the Urban Community of Yaoundé, the office of the Mayor for the capital, Stecy SA has now started operating with 40 buses, and plans in the long term, to bring its fleet to 150 buses.
As a start, the company will run 13 routes in the capital, departing from the central post office, and plans to launch two VIP lines. Particularly to transport students from the Yaoundé II-Soa University and travellers going to the Yaoundé Nsimalen international airport. In addition to the introduction of 150 buses, the contract between the State of Cameroon and the Portuguese consortium, who took the commitment of investing FCfa 13 billion over a period of 10 years (the State will pay an annual subsidy of FCfa 1.6 billion), also schedules the construction of 26 ultra-modern terminals, equipped with toilets, newsstands and ticket booths for the purchase of tickets and passes. This contract also takes into account the construction of 65 bush shelters and 579 bus stops, all equipped with user information systems showing at the minimum the frequency and bus timetables. The new mass transport company is the result of the organisation of the Africa Women’s Cup of Nations by Cameroon between November and December 2016. But, for various technical reasons, the company was not able to launch its activities before the start of the competition.
Stecy SA thus replaces on Yaoundé roads the company “Le Bus”, a consortium gathering Cameroonian public institutions and the American group Parker International Industries. “Le Bus”, a company created in 2005, has been closed for some months now. Its workforce of 600 employees was then made “redundant”.
Brice R. Mbodiam