The Minister of Transports, Jean Ernst Massena Ngalle Bibehe has threatened to suspend interurban transport and freight companies that will henceforth be involved in any road accident, without prejudice to a legal action for which he will immediately refer to competent authorities.
The warning comes after 40 persons including children perished in three different accidents that occurred in less than 24 hours respectively in the Departments of Makenene, Awae and Batchenga, all in the centre region of Cameroon between Wednesday to Thursday August 05.
The first accident occurred at about 3pm Wednesday between an inter urban transport bus belonging to the Charter Express agency and a truck belonging to the Synohydro company. Their head-on collision claimed two lives and left 28 injured.
The second accident took place around midnight in Awae, at a place called Mvog Essindi along the Yaounde-Bertoua highway. It involved an inter urban transport bus from Avenir voyages transport agency and heavy duty truck. It left 16 people dead.
The last one, the most fatal occurred early this Thursday morning along the Obala-Batchenga highway in the centre region, between a truck and a bus of the Solidarité voyages transport agency. 22 people lost their lives and many were injured.
According to a communique signed by Minister Jean Ernest Massena Ngalle Bibehe, these accidents that are more and more recurrent amid a special road safety campaign during which it is expected of users to strictly respect highway codes are the results of negligence on the part of interurban transport and freight agencies.
He has thus informed promoters of these agencies that any company that will henceforth be involved in an accident shall be suspended from every transportation activity, plus will have to deal with legal authorities.
Since the beginning of this year, the country has lost close to 200 sons on its highways due to the negligence of interurban transport bus and freight agencies’ drivers and promoters on the one hand and the bad state of the road on the other hand.
S.K.
