The annual work plans and budget of the Rumpi Area Participatory Development Project (fondly called Rumpi Project) for 2010 have been approved by the Project’s Steering Committee (PSC), chaired by Southwest Governor.
The PSC, which met at its 9th session at Chariot Hotel, in Buea,adopted the project’s 2010 budget in income and expenditure at the sum of eight billion eight hundred and sixty seven million five hundred and forty thousand(8,867,540,000) FCFA.
The PSC represents various project stakeholders and is responsible for the overall supervision of the Rumpi project.
The FCFA 17 billion Rumpi Project, launched in 2004, is intended to reduce poverty in rural areas of the Southwest province by increasing their incomes in a sustainable manner, through improving agricultural output as well as their socio-economic environment.
It is placed under the Southwest Development Authority, SOWEDA-Buea, and co- funded by African Development Bank (ADB75%), Technical Assistance Fund (TAF 8 %), Government of Cameroon (GOC15%) and the beneficiaries (2%), according to official sources.
Opening the 9th session, Dr. Eneme Andrew Ngome, general manager of SOWEDA ,who sat in for the PSC chairman, called on members to be realistic in discussing the budget and to make sure that the budget would not only be realistic but achievable.
He challenged Rumpi administrators and its executing agencies to double efforts in order to fully accomplish their objectives, as the project draws to an end. He said the government attaches much importance to the project with regards to its fight for poverty-alleviation.
Dr Eneme said the project, which has a six-year life span, is at its 5th year and is expected to end in June 2010, if a request for an extension for another one year is not approved. The government had earlier written to the ADB requesting a one year prolongation
The 9th PSC recommended that “the Project should contact the Ministry of Public Works to ensure that, the construction of 15 km along the Sabes-Kendem road be integrated among the works of the Ekok-Mamfe-Bamenda highway to be funded by the African Development bank”.
The PSC also recommended “that the Rumpi Project Implementation Team and partners should take all necessary measures to ensure that certified seeds and other planting materials are available to farmers at the right time of the agricultural calendar”
The PSC members(pictured), according to a statement issued at the end of the sitting, “noted with satisfaction the action taken by the Project management to reinforce the capacity of the Infrastructure Component by recruiting a senior Infrastructure Engineer”
Besong Ntui Ogork, Rumpi Project Coordinator, said they were now focusing on infrastructure development, noting that in the past the project had done much in assisting agricultural activities and farmers in the southwest region.
The PSC met barely two weeks after RUMPI awarded two contracts to E & T Engineering in Douala and SOTAR/SOGES, Douala for the rehabilitation and construction of some 227 km of feeder roads in the Southwest region, for a period of up to 10 months worth about five billion FCFA
The achievements of RUMPI as at now are many which include: education of farmers: construction of rural markets, rural roads, water schemes, and village banks.
Observers say Project coordinator, Besong Ntui Ogork, who is an agricultural expert and masters the development problems of the Southwest region, is greatly responsible for the strides Rumpi Project is making. They recall that he took over as project coordinator when the ADB had stop disbursement to the project but Mr. Besong Ntui Ogorkworked extra hard and regained the bank’s confidence,occasioning the resumption of disbursement
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