The Regional Delegate of Water and Energy Ressources North West Region, Azanga John Nkeng has pleaded with Mayors, Economic operators and other actors to be collaborative in ensuring that they give the right data needed to surveyors who will be on the field in the days ahead, to ensure the successful electrification of all 7 Divisions of the North West Region.
He was speaking during the official launch Ceremony for activities on the Diagnosis Phase of the Master Plan to generate, transmit and distribute electricity in the North West Region, at MINEPAT hall Bamenda December 29th, 2020.
"This is the starting phase, we will be going to the field to gather data hoping we will succeed regardless of the prevailing insecurity. We will have our energy supply improved upon and the public cooperation incharge of distribution, ENEO and that incharge of transmission SONATREL, are going to carry out systematic replacement of defective element which will be identifed on the spot" Regional Delegate of Water and Energy, North West Region.
The launching is a follow up to a 2 weeks intensive capacity building and training workshop by the Ministry of Water and Energy Ressources (MINEE) in Yaoundé, to strengthen skills of the different Regional staff of Water and Energy Ressources on what should obtain on the field.
During the said launch session in Bamenda, the Regional Delegate of ENEO Forcha Theodore gave reasons why energy supply has not been at its best during recent times throughout the region, a situation that caused a majority of the population to loose trust and interest in the services offered by that public cooperation.
The Regional Delegate of MINEE, Azanga John Nkeng revealed the format in which the Electrification plan of the Region will take place, the 9year plan that spans from 2021 to 2030 has 3 phases involved to realize the project: the launch, sensitize stakeholders, carry out data collection, compile and transmit to hierachy for reponse.
"Though the master plan is available to begin work, it was important for ENEO's management team to do some rehabilitation works in the Region, ensure rural electrification in order to gain the people's trust again" MINEE NWR, Azanga John Nkeng.
Forcha Theodore, Regional Delegate of ENEO talked about temporal measures being used to supply energy to different households since february 26th 2020, after an incident caused one of their poles to fall to the ground. SONATREL according to him is responsible for the replacement of the transmitter which has been put on hold due to the persisting armed conflict.
"The issue of Irregular power supply stems from the fact that our transmission lines at one moment was destroyed by some people of the underworld. The Ministry incharge has taken measures to do replacement, we have bought a new transformer but it has not yet being installed. ENEO has been using a temporal measure, the Thermal plant and a 30 KV line from Bafoussam, to keep energy supply fairly stable while waiting to use the new transformer". Azanga John Nkeng.
The Governor of the North West Region represented by his Secetary General, Viang Mekala emphasized on the need for all actors to remain focus to attend the objectives of the Master plan, improving on the quality of Energy supply in the region.
"It is incumbent for every state actor, to provide alternate assistance for the excercise to be a successful one in all the 7 Divisions of the Northwest Region, supervised by the Regional Delegate of Water and Energy Ressources. It is a challenging agenda for the next 3 months, but the objective must be attained to realize a sustainable Electricity supply in the Region." Viang Mekala, SG Governor's Office Northwest Region.
The Population of Bamenda have experienced frequent power cuts, energy supply being rationed and sent to different parts of the region at different hours of the day, the coming of the Master Plan to ensure that the situation is fixed, is of great relief to the people especially economic operators.
By Ndefru Melanie
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