RACE is requesting for an electricity service regulation review

To better defend the rights of consumers, RACE (Network Association of consumers energy) decided to request proofreading and setting in accordance with the regulation of the service of public distribution of electricity (CSR) of the operator ENEO-CAMEROON (formerly AES-SONEL), in terms of the law N ° 2011/022, December 14, 2011 governing the electricity sector in Cameroon.

Indeed, while all agreements, concessions, licences and negotiated permissions, and /or signed under Act No. 98/022 dated 24 December 1998 have been revised under section 99 of the new law, this regulatory text has not yet been brought into conformity.

However, several articles of this essential text are de facto lapsed and in flagrant contradiction with the provisions of this new law on electricity sometimes.

As a reminder, the service regulations govern many aspects of the direct relations between the main electricity supplier that is the ENEO-CAMEROON (formerly AES-SONEL) company and users other than the major accounts, including legal persons governed by public law.

It is opposable to the 02 parties, setting out their rights and obligations, and applies specifically to domestic consumers, Governments and SMEs, more than 98% of the users connected to the public electricity grid.

This regulatory text approved and validated by the Decree N ° 00000013/MINEE of January 26, 2009 is therefore a fundamental legal instrument for the vast majority of consumers of electricity.

This is the main motivation that has led us to take this action of advocacy with the Government to require, in the same way that all other existing conventions related to the electricity sector, be enriched with undeniable legislative innovations made to the legal framework by Act N ° 14 December 2011 2011/022, which should be added the clauses of the amendments to the concession contract concluded in 2012 on the occasion of its second five-year review, but also under several provisions of the framework of law No. 2011/012 of 06 May 2011 on the protection of the consumer in Cameroon.

In addition to this necessary compliance, a background review in height of this regulatory text is needed today. And because, before, during and after its formal adoption in January 2009, the text currently in force had been a controversy regarding its balance and fairness.

Indeed, December 13, 2007, (ARSEL) regulator had invited the main associations of consumers, including the RACE in a meeting devoted to the consideration of the draft of the proposed regulation a few weeks earlier by the AES-SONEL operator. Curiously, the Ministerial Decree of 26 January 2009 had a total stalemate almost on all amendments to this text by consumer associations.

In the end, the current regulation of the service is infinitely unjust. It grants all rights to ENEO-CAMEROON (formerly AES-SONEL) operator and does not provide sufficient guarantees for the protection of the rights of consumers.

It should be noted that upon its release in 2009, RACE had committed - unsuccessfully - graceful appealed to the administrative Chamber of the Supreme Court to demand its cancellation pure and simple.

The notorious iniquity of this regulatory text is such that it held annually in many unresolved disputes, which feed the recurring tensions between users (residential and business customers) and the electricity supplier.

Sporadic reconciliation organized by the ARSEL under its "regulatory Tribunal" to try to overcome the numerous shortcomings contained, therein are sealed by the under-representation of the regulator in most localities in the scope granted in July 2001.

As an example of the urgent need for a readjustment of the regulatory text, but also to ensure the success of this plea and allow authorities to decide in any clairvoyance, RACE made amendment proposals of 122 points in the context