(Business in Cameroon) - Out of the 37.7 billion FCFA that the Cameroonian electricity production and distribution company Eneo plans to invest in modernising its network in 2015, 10 billion FCFA will be used to improve production facilities.

Eneo Finance Director Wilfred Ntuba, emphasises that the application of these investments will be closely tied to the civic commitment of the electricity company’s customers via their bill payment. “Our goal is to invest 37.7 billion FCFA, of which 16.2 billion will be loaned by banks and 21.5 billion derived from our cash-flow which is therefore from our sales. We believe that we can get there, especially since we invested 16 billion FCFA in 2014 from our sales,” warned Wilfried Ntuba.

Indeed, the company has traditionally struggled to get many of its customers to pay their bills due to their lack of civic duty. In July 2014, for example, Eneo had launched its forced bill payment campaign in the hope of recovering a part of the 34 billion FCFA owed by delinquent customers. For the first quarter of 2014, unpaid bills totalled 14 billion FCFA, according to the company.