Halt Growing Connivance!

Cameroon’s transport authorities are certainly beating their chests for obtaining yet another Roadworthiness Vehicle Certification Centre (Centre des visites techniques) especially as it is said to have the latest technology of the sector.

News of the centre at the Etoudi neighbourhood in Yaounde would have taken everyone off the seat in celebration given the importance of roadworthiness control in averting road accidents that often deprive families of indispensable bread winners and the State of highly trained but very scarce human resources. But the fact that rickety vehicles continually ply our roads, with each surprisingly brandishing roadworthiness certificates attesting that they are of good quality, leaves many at a loss.

Questions that come begging for answers here range from how do these vehicles get the roadworthiness certificates even when amateurish eyes can detect their defects? Do owners actually take the vehicles to the centres for in-depth controls after which the certificates are issued? What is the role of experts in the centres in ensuring that the vehicles conform?

At this juncture, one does not even need to visit a soothsayer to know that there are unethical practices going on between vehicle owners and those in charge of ascertaining the reliability of their vehicles. Reports of vehicles with worn-out tyres, poor visibility and sometimes shaky break systems plying the roads are recurrent in the country each time control teams are on the field especially the highway. This clearly translates growing connivance between vehicle control authorities and car owners.

It is alleged that the former sometimes delivers roadworthiness certificates on vehicles not even seen against a pric...