Gov’t seeks cash for CAMWATER

It is one of the concerns of the Monitoring Committee of contracts of lease and concession, meeting in extraordinary session, Thursday in Yaounde.

This reassuring news preceded the extraordinary meeting of the follow-up Committee of contracts of lease and concession, held Thursday at the Hilton hotel of Yaoundé, under the chairmanship of the Minister of Water and Energy, Basile Atangana Kouna.

Upon confirmation of the Director General of the Cameroon Water Utilities Corporation (CAMWATER), Jean William Sollo, it has for example been learned that: "the 50 000 m3 of the factory of Mefou are almost available."

The network designed to distribute water from the factory of Yato (2nd phase) in Douala, with a capacity of 100 000 m3 per day, will be available within the month of October. Still in October, the Akomnyada plant will produce 40,000 m3 of additional water for the supply of Yaoundé.

Just as exciting as they may be, these announcements have nothing drowned from the relevance of the unique concern on the agenda of the day.

It revolved around the economic balance and financial sector. Yesterday, it was therefore question for members of this Committee, to review the action plan proposed by the technical Commission of privatization and liquidations, which in recent months has held not less than five meetings with all stakeholders of the sector.

As pointed out by the Minister of water and energy, the guiding principles of this action plan should allow: "in the short term, the lifting of the condition precedent to the second disbursement of the Agence française de développement (AFD) on the improvement of the deserted Yaoundé and the towns of Bertoua, Edea and Ngaoundere; and medium-term measures to restore confidence to donors, to continue and intensify their assistance to the urban water sector.

Said like this, the words of Basile Atangana Kouna dilute no obvious concern for funding in this sector. A few months ago, for example, the State has had to vouch for the approaches to the financing of projects with the AFD.

If, at the end of yesterday's meeting stakeholders are satisfied with the approving presence of the representatives of the AFD and the World Bank, other avenues of funding were also discussed.

It is, according to the Director General of the Cameroonian waters, Brahim Ramdan, to explore the possibility to better maximize the sale of this product, while protecting the small and medium consumers.

More clearly, it could be a new pricing of water consumption based on Equalization which distinguishes the households, industries, utilities, etc...

We are not yet there, since it is still at the level proposals, that the Government should consider.