The year 2024 was particularly hectic for the Road Fund, with respect to meeting the challenges set out in its 2023-2025 strategic development plan and fulfilling its mission as a road maintenance financing institution. Thanks to a suitable strategy adopted, the commitment rate of road maintenance programme for the 2024 financial year stood at 90.80% as at 31 December 2024, against 86.18% in 2023. This rate is up by 4.62% compared to the previous year. The increase mainly results from (i) the Road Fund’s sustained collaboration with authorising ministries; (ii) its permanent support to Regional and Local Authorities for a proper mastering of its procedures; (iii) continued implementation of dematerialising procedures, which has significantly reduced applications’ processing time.
With regard to Regional and Local Authorities, in 2024, a sum of 19.451 billion CFA francs was transferred to councils. This allocation is far beyond the minimum regulatory threshold, set at 25% of the Road Fund’s resources, that is 12,500 billion CFA francs. In addition, the Fund continued to build the capacity of mayors for a proper master of its financing procedures and therefore limit the number of rejected contracts and invoices. These initiatives are ample proof that the Road Fund is determined to contribute to improving the effectiveness of road maintenance projects at local level, with a view to progressively opening up rural areas and optimising the movement of people and goods, in line with government guidelines.
In addition, during the year 2024, the Management Committee continued to carry out site visits, aimed at contributing to the efficient use of the resources allocated.
In this light, more than 98 projects were visited, including 35 in the Northern Network, 30 in the Southern Network and 33 in the Western Network. After the visits, a number of general observations were made concerning in particular the poor quality of works executed, sluggish mobilisation of companies on the field, failure to meet contractual time frames, non-payment of invoices and abandonment of works by certain companies. Subsequent recommendations were therefore made to the various stakeholders.
In a different move, the momentum triggered by the Fund, through its road maintenance financing and management model, had an impact beyond our borders. During the year 2024, the Fund welcomed delegations from the road maintenance funds of the Central African Republic and Gabon, on 9 August and 21 and 22 November 2024 respectively. These benchmarking visits, which fall in line with the dynamics of cooperation and experience-sharing between member organisations of the African Road Maintenance Funds Association (ARMFA), enabled the delegations to learn from the Cameroonian model, regarding the management of road maintenance projects in general and dematerialisation of invoice processing procedures in particular.
Though many actions were undertaken, a number of challenges are still to be met in order to enable the Road Fund to strategically position itself as a road maintenance financing body in Cameroon. These include: (i) stepping up efforts to transform the Road Fund into a second-generation institution; (ii) continuing the process of modernising its administration by putting in place effective governance mechanisms; (iii) improving its brand image and human capital. It is in this light that during his address to the Nation on 31 December 2024, the Head of State pointed out the constraints facing road infrastructure maintenance and instructed the reorganisation of the Road Fund, with the aim of increasing its capacity to mobilise the financing needed to carry out road construction, rehabilitation and maintenance projects.
This report highlights the actions carried out in 2024 by the Road Fund as part of its missions, in particular the financing of road maintenance and payment of services provided by companies. It also sets out the challenges facing the Fund and prospects, with a view to ensuring the sustainability of the resources allocated to road maintenance works and optimising its performance.