(Business in Cameroon) - All of last night, the Cameroonian capital was plunged in darkness after electricity distribution was suspended at around 6:00 pm. Saturday, a large section of Yaoundé, remained without power the entire day. This scenario was a repetition of what occurred the weekend before, but this time was worse as the power outage covered numerous areas neighbouring Yaoundé.

According to the public electricity provider, AES Sonel, which has so far enjoyed its monopoly within the sector, the power outages have been due to maintenance operations being conducted on the country’s electrical network. But neither consumers nor energy sector experts are not buying the claim. For them, the recent outages over the last few weeks is a result of inadequate production to which AES Sonel had promised to put an end in late March 2013 with the opening of a 216 MW capacity gas plant in Kribi.

But AES Sonel’s Managing Director, Jean David Bilé, confessed in a press release published on February 4, 2014 that the plant has not yet produced the promised 216 MW. “Following a few incidents, the Kribi plant will be subtracting 16 MW as of tomorrow (February 4, 2014), bringing current capacity to over 200 MW. The remaining 16 MW will be available in mid February 2014,” indicated Jean David Bilé,

Members of the Committee for the Monitoring and Assessment of Major Structural Projects by the Ministry of Finance are less optimistic. In a report dated January 15, 2014, the body revealed that the production capacity of the energy plant that was intended to fill the nation’s off-season energy deficit is far below the capacity announced by the AES Sonel Managing Director’s in the company’s February 3 press release. “From May 18, 2013, its official launch date, to December 19, 2013, the plant’s maximum output never went above 118 MW in a 216 MW facility” – a 100 MW deficit according to the Ministry of Finance.

According to a recent study commissioned by GICAM’s local BIT representative, the repeated power outages are the main hindrance to business development in Cameroon – a nation that officially loses 0.5 growth points per year due to the energy outages.