Water supply to be boosted by US consortium

A consortium of two U.S. companies, General Electric Co. and Environmental Chemical Corp., intends to disburse $603 million (312 billion CFA Francs) to finance the supply of potable water in four Cameroonian towns, the Chief Executive Officer of ECC, Manjiv Vohra, said.

The finances, to be disbursed by Eximbank of the U.S., will be used for the supply of water to Cameroon’s capital, Yaounde, and three other towns in the South West Region, Limbe, Tiko and Mutengene, Vohra told reporters in the capital, Yaounde.

The project will be executed in two phases, beginning in November with Yaounde, he said. The second phase is expected to begin in February 2015, with the repair of the water supply system in the three towns in the South West Region, Vohra said.

The project is expected to bring in an additional 55,000 cubic meters of water a day to Yaounde, which currently has a daily demand-supply gap of 200,000 cubic meters. The city has a population of two million people with daily demand of 311,000 cubic meters, according to the Cameroon Water Authority.