Bangui, French agency sign US $10.3 million project agreements

The government of the Central African Republic (CAR) and the Agence Francaise de Developpement (AFD) have signed agreements worth US $10.3 million for water drainage and road repair projects in the capital, Bangui, and to revamp the country's river transport company, state-owned Radio Centrafrique reported on Monday. The minister for international cooperation, Philippe Waradague, and the ADF director for central Africa and Indian Ocean, Jean Pierre Barbier, signed the agreements on Monday. The radio reported that the ADF aid was a grant to the CAR. The drainage and road project, with an estimated cost of 2.3 billion francs CFA ($4.2 million), would involve the draining of stagnant water and the repair of roads in the densely-populated Bangui suburbs of Ngou Ciment, Yapele, Bakongo and Wango where roads have not been repaired for years and where rain waters pose a serious public health hazard during rainy seasons. The river transport project, set to cost 3.28 billion francs CFA ($6.06 million), would deal with the modernisation of vessels belonging to the state-owned Societe Centrafricaine de Transport Fluvial (Socatraf), which is in charge of transportation of passengers and goods on the River Oubagui to and from Brazzaville, capital of the Republic of Congo (ROC). Since the CAR is landlocked, its exports and imports pass through the Oubangui after being transported from Brazzaville by train to and from the seaport city of Pointe Noire in southern ROC. Due to civil strife in the CAR and to insecurity in the neighbouring Democratic Republic of the Congo, Socatraf has repeatedly interrupted its activities on the Oubangui. For the time being, the CAR government has banned traffic on the river, which also serves as the border with the DRC. In June, a former DRC rebel movement, the Mouvement de liberation du Congo, seized and later released CAR vessels on the Oubangui. The ADF aid comes two years after the agency suspended its activities in the CAR. French Ambassador Jean Pierre Destouesse said during the signing of the agreements that the ADF chapter in Bangui was altered into a liaison one in 2001 after the administration of President Ange-Felix Patasse failed to honour its commitments and to offer a favourable environment for the implementation of existing projects. Francois Bozize ousted Patasse in a coup on 15 March.