(Business in Cameroon) - The World Bank Board approved, on 7 December 2016, a loan of USD 325 million (approximately FCfa 200 billion) to the Cameroonian government, we learned in an official communiqué. The funds, the World Bank specifies, will be used to “improve the power grid” in the country.

In practical terms, we learned, the money to be disbursed to Société Nationale de Transport de l’Electricité (Sonatrel), “will help in facilitating the transfer of electricity produced in the new hydroelectric plants, and the excess energy in some regions, to towns and villages in regions with insufficient supply. It will thus improve the supply quality in urban areas”.

The project to improve the power grid financed by the World Bank has three components. “The first is making Sonatrel operational. The second is about improving the capacity and reliability of the national Cameroonian power grid, by funding priority investments to modernise and expand the network. It will also strive to improve the electricity supply in interconnected networks”.

Finally, the Bretton Woods institution continues explaining, “the third component will provide technical assistance, analyses and capacity-building activities to the main stakeholders in the sector; it will also provide the necessary technical, financial, operational and fiduciary assistance to the project management unit set up within Sonatrel”.

As a reminder, the recent creation of Sonatrel was an opportunity to upgrade some electricity power lines and build new ones throughout Cameroon, to supply households in electricity, in quantity as well as quality.

To achieve this, the Cameroonian government will have to invest about FCfa 940 billion overall, based on the estimates of the Minister of Energy and Water, Basile Atangana Kouna.

BRM