In its 2022 annual report, which has just been made public, Eneo, the concessionaire of the public electricity service in Cameroon, outlines an assessment of the damage suffered in 5 years in the North-West and South-West regions of Cameroon, in the grip of a socio-political crisis since the end of 2016. According to this company controlled by the British investment fund Actis, due to the separatist demands born in these two English-speaking regions of the country, creating a climate of insecurity and violence against populations and businesses, Eneo accumulated losses of 75 billion FCFA over a period of 5 years.
These losses are mainly due to unbilled distributed energy and unpaid billed energy, due to the climate of insecurity and violence that reigns in these regions. Despite these difficulties, Eneo continued to provide an essential electricity service to the population.
Eneo maintained its operations in the North-West and South-West, despite particularly degraded security conditions, which jeopardized its agents, its equipment, its deployment and its finances. A commitment to continue the electricity service, while recording losses of around 15 billion FCFA per year, or more than 75 billion FCFA of unbilled distributed energy and unpaid billed energy over the last 5 years.” , reveals the company in its 2022 report.
Many facilities are out of service, mainly in red zones, with 50% of infrastructure in red zones in the South-West and 80% in the North-West. These infrastructures have been victims of acts of vandalism or have naturally deteriorated. The rehabilitation of these infrastructures is underway, but it is being carried out gradually taking into account security conditions. Eneo is working with volunteer residents and the authorities to carry out this work. However, the risk for field teams remains permanent. It is in this context that network extension work (around twenty kilometers more in Fako) or reconstruction of destroyed networks was carried out,” informs the electricity producer and distributor.
The so-called Anglophone crisis, born from the corporatist demands of teachers and lawyers, quickly degenerated into separatist demands advocating the partition of Cameroon. This crisis has had a considerable impact on businesses operating in the North West and South West regions. Many companies have faced acts of vandalism, kidnapping and brutalization of their employees, and even assassinations. Faced with this insecurity, many economic operators have been forced to relocate their activities.
According to government estimates, the crisis in the North-West and South-West regions of Cameroon caused a loss at the national level of 0.8 points of growth in Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in 2019 and 0.3 points in 2020. “These losses in growth points correspond to a cumulative real loss in Gross Domestic Product, at the national level, of 421.3 billion FCFA between 2017 and 2020,” specifies the Minister Delegate to the Minister of the Economy. Paul Tasong spoke this way on November 23, 2021 in front of deputies, during the presentation of the Reconstruction Plan for the North-West, South-West and Far North regions. Likewise, due to this crisis, underlines the same source, the value of trade between Cameroon and Nigeria between 2015 and 2019 increased from 15.6 billion FCFA to 2.9 billion FCFA, corresponding to a drop of 81%. “These declines are observed both for exports (-68.9%) and for imports (-85%),” specifies Paul Tasong.
