Renewal of the Belabo-ngaoundéré Railway: After the Eib and the Eu, Afd Gives Its Financing Agreement

After three years of negotiations with the French institution, the Head of State authorizes the signing of a loan agreement of about Fcfa 83 billion to complete the envelope already available.

We are moving towards the effective start of the renewal work on the Belabo-Ngaoundéré railway line (330 km). The reason, after a concessional financing of Fcfa 80.8 billion in 2021 (a loan of Fcfa 69.5 billion from the EIB and Fcfa 11.2 billion in EU subsidy), Cameroon has just completed negotiations with the French Development Agency (AFD), which has granted additional financing.

Indeed, a decree of August 10, 2023 by President Paul Biya authorizes the Minister of the Economy, Planning and Spatial Planning (Minepat) Alamine Ousmane Mey, to sign a credit agreement worth 126 million euros or about Fcfa 83 billion, with the French Development Agency (AFD). This will bring after the signing of the agreement, to Fcfa 163.7 billion, the envelope that Cameroon will have already mobilized, after three long years of negotiations with the French institution.

Initially planned to be launched in 2021, this project will have been hampered by the lack of funding. Until May 2023, during the 39th session of the Interministerial Committee on Railway Infrastructure (Comifer) chaired by Transport Minister Jean Ernest Massena Ngalle Bibehe, the signing of the convention was planned for July. A date that was not respected because, obviously, the State of Cameroon and AFD had not yet reached a consensus on conditions that were not revealed to the press.

However, it is since March 2020 that the feasibility and preliminary draft studies of the Belabo-Ngaoundéré railway, carried out by the Spanish group Técnica y proyectos S.A (Typsa) have been validated. Four months later (July 2021), the Head of State gave his discharge for the loan of Fcfa 1.31 billion to the EIB for technical assistance studies.

For the time being, we are only waiting for the signing of the convention to then witness the actual start of this 49-year-old infrastructure. This section of the Transcamerounais is part of the Douala-Ndjamena corridor on which about 350 billion Fcfa, goods to and from Chad per year transit. Its renewal should therefore streamline rail traffic, reduce the average travel time of passenger trains and freight trains.

The related work includes, among other things, the renewal of the track and ballast (stone bed or gravel bed on which the railway line rests, editor’s note), the rehabilitation of engineering structures and hydraulic works and the stabilization of critical areas.