The project, carried out during the 2018- 2025 seven-year program, has transformed the towns of Abong-Mbang and Messamena, with nearly 12 kilometers of urban roads completed, 6.153 km in Abong-Mbang and 5 km in Messamena.
The Prime Minister, Head of Government Chief Dr Joseph Dion Ngute has officially inaugurated the Mbama-Messamena road, a 40-kilometer stretch in the Upper-Nyong Division of the East Region. The project, carried out during the 2018- 2025 seven-year program, has transformed the towns of Abong-Mbang and Messamena, with nearly 12 kilometers of urban roads completed, 6.153 km in Abong-Mbang and 5 km in Messamena.
Financed through the Public Investment Budget at a cost of 33 billion CFA francs, the road aims to open up a key production basin in the East, ease the movement of people and goods, and improve access to health care across its zone of influence. In an interview, Public Works Minister Emmanuel Nganou Djoumessi highlighted significant progress in Cameroon’s road network.
As of December 31, 2023, the country’s network was estimated at 121,873 kilometers, including 10,225.58 kilometers of paved roads. This marks a steady rise from 9,144.5 kilometers in 2021 and 9,539.5 kilometers in 2022. The Minister had earlier set the goal of surpassing the symbolic 10,000-kilometer mark, announcing in early 2023 the paving of at least 700 additional kilometers. Looking ahead, road expansion remains central to the National Development Strategy 2020 to 2030 (SND30), which charts Cameroon’s path toward becoming an emerging economy by 2035.
The strategy foresees the construction of 6,000 additional kilometers of paved roads and the maintenance of nearly 3,000 kilometers of the existing network. Major rehabilitation projects are also planned, including the Ngaoundéré–Garoua and Edéa–Kribi highways, two heavily trafficked routes.
These initiatives fall within a broader vision to modernise the country’s road infrastructure, boost economic growth, facilitate mobility, and strengthen interregional connectivity. The inauguration of the Mbama-Messamena road thus represents not only a local milestone but also a building block in Cameroon’s long-term development agenda.
By Saju LINDA
