PAUL BIYA NEEDS ANSWERS FOR THE POOR QUALITY OF OLEMBE STADIUM
PAUL BIYA NEEDS ANSWERS FOR THE POOR QUALITY OF OLEMBE STADIUM
In a letter addressed to the vice president of international operations of the company Magil, the Ministry of Sports requires the provision of a number of documents attesting to the quality of some work done by the latter.
Beyond its apparent beauty, the Olembé stadium located on the northern outskirts of the city of Yaoundé hides a particularly embarrassing secret. This secret was discovered before and during the 2021 African Cup of Nations, precisely during the cleaning work carried out by a subcontractor hired by Magil, the company awarded the contract to finish this important sports infrastructure. Indeed, according to the confidences of some employees met on site, during the days of great affluence (the games of the Indomitable Lions, editor’s note) it was imperative to deploy on site, a hydro-cleaner to suck the water that overflowed from the pits, because of the high demand for sanitary facilities. “They did not plan a treatment plant. They built septic tanks outside, which sometimes overflowed when the toilets were heavily used. So we had to regularly vacuum the water to make sure that this did not happen,” reveals a source contacted by Ecomatin.
The problem persists. Moreover, the Minister of Sports and Physical Education, Narcisse Mouelle Kombi, confessed in a letter addressed to the vice president of international operations of the company Magil. It is actually a request for explanation addressed to the Canadian company, with the subject “Situation of the external coating of the main stadium of the sports complex of Olembe and pending work in the eastern zone.
In this manifesto, the member of the government requests that the tests carried out on all the plumbing networks as well as the various related methodologies be forwarded to his services. He also deplores the fact that “beyond the reservations issued by the commission of provisional acceptance of work of many tasks in the field of plumbing, namely the manholes, pipes, and some equipment, are still not completed in the North-West, North-East, East and South-East”
Another aspect is of urgent concern to the sports boss. This is the external coating of the main stadium of the sports complex of Olembe. According to him, following the bad weather of recent days which were accompanied by strong winds, the outer coating of the main stadium of Olembe has experienced major damage in some places. These include the fall of pangolin scales and their displacement from their initial position on the structure. In view of this alarming finding, Narcisse Mouelle Kombi asked Magil to transmit to his services as soon as possible, “the technical data sheets, the certificates of conformity and warranty, the technical certificates of experimentation relating to their use in the climatic conditions of Cameroon, the various methodologies of fixing and the procedures of control and maintenance.
It should be noted that according to documents from the Autonomous Amortization Fund consulted in September 2021, 136 billion CFA francs out of the 163 billion CFA francs planned for the construction of the Olembe complex have already been used. For the time being, only the two 1000-seat annex stadiums have been completed. The main 60,000-seat stadium has also been built, but it is not completely finished.
To complete the whole complex, the shopping mall, the 4-star hotel with 70 rooms, the gymnasium, the tennis, handball and basketball courts, the Olympic swimming pool, the museum and the cinema still need to be built. Note that in addition to the 163 billion mentioned above, the government has contracted a loan of 55.17 billion CFA francs from Standard Chartered Bank for the completion of the entire project.
