Cameroon: Government lifts ban on Touristique Express

The Minister of Transport, Jean Ernest Massina Ngale Bibehe, has lifted a one-month suspension slammed on the inter-urban transport agency, Touristique, last week.

He lifted the ban in a release published today, May 15.

The communique read that the Minister has lifted the suspension “on an exceptional basis” after taking into account “the first elements of the audit report” on the state of the transport agency.

The Transport Minister suspended the agency last week after one of its vehicles got involved in an accident that left 15 dead and 19 injured.

The accident occurred at Bindiba, in Dir Subdivision of the Adamawa Region.

Days after the accident, the Director of Touristique, Yaouba Bello, said the company had committed “to always put the safety of the public, whose trust honors us, at the center of our priorities”.

The agency is among many in the country that have suffered suspensions after accidents involving their vehicles.

Aside poor road network as a major contributing factor to road accidents in Cameroon, studies have shown that many accidents in the country can be blamed on the driver, and the state of the vehicles involved.

A 2019 study of road accidents along the Douala–Dschang road concluded that six main factors contributed to the incidents: overspeeding and carelessness; location of the accident; type of vehicle at fault; day the accident occurred; time of the accident and the age of drivers involved.

Cameroon’s Minister of Transport Ernest Bibehe has authorized the lifting of the ban on Touristique Express.

Also the pleas of the Grouping of Land Carriers of Cameroon, the Cameroonian Consumers’ League, and also the high mobility of the populations of the Far North due to the Hajj and the approach of the summer holidays.

The company will therefore be expected to fully resume its activities across the territory.

By Amina Hilda