26/08/2022
Breaking...💥💥💥 Limbe Deep Seaport Soon Reality
MINISTER OF STATE PROPERTY, SURVEYS & LAND TENURE SIGNS ORDER GIVING BIG SITES TO LIMBE DEEP SEA PORT
Something Great is Coming To Limbe and nearby coastal towns.
Behold ! The Minister of State Property, Surveys and Land Tenure, Mr. Henri Eyebe Ayissi, on August 16th 2022 signed history-making Ministerial Order No 1745 declaring as PUBLIC UTILITY SERVICE works to fix and secure the boundary limits of sites necessary for the development of port activity.
The Limbe Deep Sea Port sites concerned by the Ministerial Order are:
■ DOWNBEACH
■ BOTA
■ NGEME
■ CAPE LIMBOH (Sonara, National Shipyard)
■ ISONGO
■ IDENAU
■ TIKO
These sites are all situated in Fako Division of the South West Region.
Article 7 of Minister Eyebe's Ministerial Order clearly SUSPENDS all Land property and Real Estate transactions as well as the issuance of Building Permits on these chosen sites.
All private property found on these chosen sites will be expropriated and their owners compensated so as to give the new LIMBE DEEP SEA PORT enough land on which to carry out its ports activities.
A Commission presided by the Senior Divisional Officer for Fako will be put in place to define the boundaries of the sites, identify owners, and submit to Minister Eyebe Ayissi who shall prepare files for expropriation and compensation to be signed by the Prime Minister, Head of Government after the visa of the Head of State.
Thus, the Limbe Deep Sea Port is happening. Minister Eyebe's move confirms the Prime Minister Chief Dr. Joseph Dion Ngute is at The Star Building working on the Limbe Deep Sea Port file.
Six months ago, there was a Split between the Douala Port and the Limbe Port with the appointment by the Port Authority of Douala followed by the installation of Limbe-born Dr. Thomas Ndive Molungu as Director Delegate of the Transitional Administration of the Port Authority of Limbe on Tuesday, March 1, 2022.
With Tiko and Idenau in the chart now, The Limbe Deep Seaport would be the BIGGEST Sea Port complex in Cameroon.
Infact on July 1 2022, published the EdiTorial below on the Limbe Deep Sea Port, and was convinced something big was in the making. Thousands of jobs coming. This is the time to Invest in Limbe.
EdiTorial🌴
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Victoria Port, Limbe Deep SeaPort💢
GREAT MEMORIES, GREAT EXPECTATIONS
Since the visit to the City Council on June 30 by a high-profile delegation of the National Ports Authority (APN) led by its Director General, Dr. Louis EBOUPEKE, hope for a dream coming true is on most minds in the seaside city this morning.
Dr. Louis EBOUPEKE said he was happy to meet the new Limbe City Mayor Paul Efome Ngale and came with good tidings concerning the acceleration for the construction of the Limbe Deep Seaport. The APN Director General revealed that much was being done for things to materialise on the ground.
This reassuring visit and message give smiles and bring to minds once more the publication on May 5th 2020 of Two Presidential Decrees giving life to the new Limbe Port Authority, and the opening by the National Ports Authority of its branch in Limbe, Ngeme in an official ceremony, Wednesday August 26, 2020 arousing speculations on the imminence of the construction of the Limbe Deep Sea Port.
Old timers in and from Limbe have great memories of what once was the great port city. It all started with Alfred Saker who had already perceived Victoria as a Port City and materialised with the Germans.
"Plantation Agriculture also contributed to the significant economic advancement of Victoria because it led to an increase in the settlement's economic activities which was reflected in the decision to construct a Pier on the waterfront and the building of the Bota Port for handling the import and export trade of Victoria," says Researcher Thomas Ngomba Ekali in his paper titled "The Fluctuating Fortunes of Anglophone Cameroon Towns, The Case of Victoria 1858-1982". He said railway tracks were even built by the Victoria Plantation Company in the economic and administratively busy part of the town (now Downbeach) to convey goods to the port and transport people. "Victoria established a reputation as a shipping centre," Ekali writes.
In another paper titled "Rivers and Ports in Transport History of Cameroon 1916-1961", Walter Gam Nkwi states that in 1909, Victoria alone had 18 firms in active operation with 99 European employees and 4,184 Cameroonian employees. The companies and firms imported various items which included bags and sacks, cement, ci**rs and ci******es, cotton piece goods, fish, Kerosene in imperial gallons, motor spirits, rice, bicycles, radios, tilly lamps, amongst others. Vessels from at least 52 countries docked and brought goods of all kinds between 1932 and 1935.
Meanwhile, exports at the Victoria Port included fresh and dried bananas, cocoa, kola nuts, palm kernels, palm oil, rubber as well as unmanufactured wood and timber, says Nkwi. Victoria Port even registered a net tonnage of 367,142 in 1936.
"Victoria seemed to have everything, in fact, the residents rarely travelled out of the city," recalls Professor Ephraim Ngwafor in his narrative "May Former Victoria Smile Again."
Speculations have also dwelled on the shape the new Port will take at the target site in Ngeme. The wish of many, however, is to see the implementation of the 1976 Victoria Natural Deep Sea Port Project presented during the 33rd Anniversary Celebration of the Cameroon Development Corporation (CDC). According to Asonganyi Walter, the feasibility plan presented provided for a great port. "This was going to be one of the biggest projects in Africa, with countries as far as Zambia ready to invest. Victoria’s link with the sea as a result of Buea mountain; has the deepest coast line yet to be seen all round Africa that can harbour the biggest port in Africa. The feasibility plan then was to build a barrage from ‘Man o' War Bay’ all the way to close to Isokolo/Ngeme and then filled with laterite. This would have given you the largest land size for any port in the world. It would have been the only port capable of docking an Aircraft Carrier the size of George Washington; the biggest then. The transafrican rail/road would have passed through Victoria to link the likes of Zaire and all the way to Zambia," says Asonganyi Walter.
Thursday, May 23 2019 was a day of interest at the Star Building in Yaounde. During the monthly Cabinet meeting, the Prime Minister, Chief Dr. Joseph Dion Ngute, called on the Minister of Transport, Ernest Ngalle Bibehe, to ensure each responsibility in the planned transport infrastructure works is met including that of the Limbe Deep Seaport, Eden Newspaper reported.
This is what reignited hopes and expectations from the Limbe people. Hopes initially found roots in the 90s when Presidential Decree No. 99/133 of June 1999 established the Autonomous Port of Limbe. In 2009, feasibility studies were completed. On November 1, 2013, government signed an Agreement with a Cameroon-Korean Consortium called Limbe Port Development Corporation for the construction of the Limbe Deep Sea Port estimated at over 300 billion FCFA, for delivery in 2018. The agreement provided for a "Build-Operate-Transfer" model of the Public-Private Partnership project whose four terminals will be meant for both commercial and industrial activities, coastal shipping, container terminal and the oil terminal. Traffic at the Limbe Seaport is projected to reach 200,000 containers per year during the initial phase, but soar to 1.6 million containers by 2050.
Faced with delays, the Korean partners proposed during a meeting on January 15, 2015 to build a multifunction floating terminal worth 17.5 billion FCFA. A Project Follow-Up Committee was created and funding mobilised from the African Development Bank ($170 million), the Turkish Exim Bank ($106 million) and the Korean ADFC Bank ($82 million).
Initially, Ngeme (15m deep) was chosen to host the Seaport but later changed to Isonge (17m deep) in 2013 and back to Ngeme in 2016. On December 21, 2018, a meeting held in Yaounde to review and validate the financing terms of the feasibility study. This and other initiatives by the Prime Minister and Head of Government Chief Dr. Joseph Dion Ngute must have led to the May 5th 2020 decrees.
Welcoming the May 5th decrees creating the Limbe Autonomous Seaport, the Fako Chiefs Conference led by HRM Ndike Kombe Richard also stated expectations on May 14th at the Limbe City Council Hall in Downbeach. They saw the gesture as a positive step to implement the deep seaport they had been clamouring for so long.
In 2021, the Limbe people were expecting another news from the Star Building regarding the deep seaport as they had in 2020. The media has also been reminding the Star Building relentlessly.
The Limbe Deep Seaport is expected to decongest the Douala Port and create 20,000 jobs in the medium and long term. The Deep Seaport is Limbe's natural destiny.
Another big indicator that the Deep Seaport is near was the Split between the Douala Port and the Limbe Port appointment by the Port Authority of Douala followed by the installation of Dr. Thomas Ndive Molungu as Director Delegate of the Transitional Administration of the Port Authority of Limbe on Tuesday, March 1, 2022.
Before his appointment, Botaland-born Dr. Thomas Ndive Molungu was Technical Adviser N° 3 at the Port Authority of Douala.
The appointment, among others, was part of structural reforms undertaken by the management of the Douala Port Authority to speed up the irreversible modernisation of the Douala-Bonaberi Port in order to make it the "Port of Reference in the Gulf of Guinea" as instructed by the President of the Republic, Paul Biya, in October 2011 and guided by the Presidential Decree of January 2019 reorganising the Port Authority of Douala.
So in Limbe particularly, there are Great Expectations. City Mayor Paul Efome Ngale mentioned the Port when constructed will boost the city's economy, recommended the employment of youths and compensation of population to be evicted from the project site.
With two talented sons in charge like Mr. Eta Oben as South West Regional Cordinator and Manager of the Limbe APN Ports Agency, and Dr. Thomas Ndive Molungu as Douala Port's Director Delegate of the Transitional Administration of the Port Authority of Limbe, as well as the determined Prime Minister Chief Dr. Joseph Dion Ngute, nothing can go wrong. Limbe will have its Deep Seaport.
Nation Magazine
