ENEO to get 1 million customers connected before the end of the year

Joel Nana Kontchou, Executive Director of Energy of Cameroon (ENEO), revealed that their target to reach a million of connected clients could be attained at the end of August 2015.

He made this statement during a press conference held in conjunction with the signing of the second Protocol concession contract that binds Energy of Cameroon (ENEO) to the State of Cameroon

“Currently we are around 980 000 clients, but there's hope when I look at the various indicators, we can exceed 1 million customers by the end of August," said Mr. Kontchou on the eve of his first year in the position of Director General at the enterprise where the British investment fund Actis has majority shares(56%).

In Mr. Kontchou’s opinion the signing of this second amendment of the contract permits to have a better visibility and should support the increase in the number of connected clients and thus the number of people having access to electricity.

"45% of our customers are in Douala and Yaoundé and we will work to improve our presence in other urban areas of the country,” he said.

This initiative, distributed among several actors, charges weigh on only the operator of the electrical energy sector in Cameroon. Now, the state should intervene in the management of the water dams and the management of the network of energy transport under Minister Basile Atangana Kouna, in charge of water and energy.

But the situation does not go without challenges for ENEO. The company should continue with sanitation of the distribution network infrastructure (poles, cables and transformers). The persistence of fraud and non-payment of the invoices by some consumers, including the state, remains a worry for the Treasury of the company, which at the upstream must undergo the invoice of the overloads of the transformers, and downstream, risk to increase its working capital needs.

The operator has been severely criticised by the population for some time now when they faced waves of rolling blackouts, due to decrease in the river water.

"Energy challenge is not just a problem in our country, but throughout the African region. The investment needs are important, profit margins are low and contexts must still improve. All the players must give additional attention to this situation," said Joel Nana Kontchou.

The signing of the second amendment to the contract of the incumbent marks a turning point. Because of its achievements, ENEO should still keep the leadership of production and distribution of power in Cameroon. But in the Middle, he said that many operators are alert and should now fully invest in the sector.

This is a competitive situation which associations of consumers of electrical energy, wait for a better price per kilowatt for households.