PIB: Contractors Urged to Use local Material Ngah Benjamin in Bamenda

The Local Material promotion authority known in its French acronyms as MIPROMALO has embarked in an aggressive training of youths drawn from different council area on the fabrication and use of local materials especially compressed blocs.

          During one of such training workshops organized here in Bamenda at the MIPROMALO head office in Mankon the Director of MIPROMALO, Professor Uphie Chinje Melo said the rationale behind the training was to comply with the prime ministerial decision of 12^th March 2007 urging Cameroonians especially contracting official to make use of local building materials in constructing structures up to one floor building. Though this circular was not respect to an extent she said, in 2015 the finance law makes it clear that the use of local material should be given priority in the realization of projects within the public investment budget PIB. MIPROMALO being a state structure charge with the production and promotion of local material, she said has taken upon itself to continue with the training of persons within all the ten regions of the country in order to boost production and quality. The training destined basically to small scale entrepreneurs would help those engaged in construction of classrooms and building up to one floor to benefit from the advantages that accrue from the use of local material.

          She therefore called on trainees to take the six days training seriously and to understand that for Cameroon to emerged, the use of local material is of prime importance and their skills would be highly needed. The use of local material is beneficial not only because it is cheaper, compressed blocs maintains the temperature of a house and makes it conducive, jobs are generated within communities to the benefit of the local population and compressed blocs are unbeatable aesthetically, she explained.

          Speaking earlier, Dr.Ndigui Billong, associate director of research and chief of centre MIPROMALO North West told trainees that all have been put in place to ensure that they have an even training for the six days. He reiterated the fact that most public structures like school, town halls and hospitals would henceforth be constructed using compressed of fired bricks. For this reason the demand would be high, reason why the trainees ought to take the training seriously, be focused so that they could become trainers to train others in the field.

          Some participant expressed joy and thanked Professor Uphie for the opportunity given them to train and self employed. They view it as a unique opportunity offered them to be part of the vision 2035 during which Cameroon is expected to emerge.