(Business in Cameroon) - The World Bank will support Cameroon in the establishment of the Société Nationale de Transport d’Electricité (Sonatrel – National Electricity Transport Company) created on 8 October 2015 by a presidential decree, Louis Paul Motazé (photo), Minister of Economy, revealed. It was on 18 January 2016 in Yaoundé, during a press lunch organised by the Association of Economic Journalists of Cameroon (Presse Eco).

According to Minister Motazé, during a recent meeting with the World Bank’s Operations Director for Cameroon, Angola, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon and São Tomé and Príncipe, Belgian Elisabeth Huybens reassured the government on the availability of USD 1.2 billion (FCfa 660 billion at the exchange rate of FCfa 550 for USD 1), in order to finance the establishment and roll out of the activities of Sonatrel.

Within the electricity sector in Cameroon, Sonatrel, a company wholly-owned by the State, will be in charge of “transporting the electricity and managing the electricity transport network, on behalf of the State”. In detail, we learned in the decree creating this company, Sonatrel will be responsible for “the operation, maintenance and development of the public electric energy transport network and its interconnections with other networks; the management of the electric energy flows transiting through the public transport network; planning, undertaking studies and managing projects on infrastructure and electricity transport facilities, as well as sourcing and managing the corresponding funding; etc.”

The establishment of this new entity is in compliance with Article 23 of the 14 December 2011 Act, governing the electricity sector in Cameroon; with the article establishing “a public capital company, managing the electricity transport network”. This activity could however be delegated “in a specified area” to a private operator, according to Article 21 of the same act.

BRM