East Region: Governor issues second letter of congratulations in 7 months for improvement of service quality

 "...Since your arrival at the head of Eneo's Regional Office in the East, you have undertaken the replacement of many wood poles with concrete poles. You have also lunched the installation of prepaid meters. The supply of fuel and lubricant to the thermal power plants has become more regular. The number of power cuts has dropped significantly. These measures have resulted in a significant improvement in the economic situation and a substantial reduction in social tensions. I have the honour to express my satisfaction with the results thus obtained. I therefore offer you my warmest congratulations while urging you to remain on the path of excellence...".

This is an excerpt of the letter of congratulations sent by the Governor of East Region, Mr. Grégoire MVONGO, to the Regional Director of Eneo on 23 November 2021.  A second letter of congratulations within a year. In March 2021, Gregoire Mvongo had already praised the efforts made by Eneo. "You have devised a means to regulate the supply of fuel to the thermal power plants and effective communication with the users of the public service for which you are responsible. These measures have helped reduce power cuts," he wrote.

Eneo's teams report a 10% drop in incidents on distribution lines

This improvement in service quality in the East Interconnected Network (EIN) is essentially the result of the implementation of Eneo's investment programme to modernise and secure the electricity sector in Cameroon.

The major actions that contributed to these results are:

• Increased maintenance of the generating units and the replacement of the oldest ones with new ones has made it possible, for about two years now, to improve supply in these towns powered by remote structures;
• The Lomié and Yokadouma power stations have been equipped with new generating units.  The most important upgrade for Lomié being the construction and activation of a solar park;
• The generating units of Betaré Oya, Garoua Boulai, Moloundou and Yokadouma are undergoing serious maintenance with strict adherence to a schedule;
• The defective wood poles are gradually being replaced by a mix of wood and concrete (834 Medium Voltage poles of which 451 are concrete, and 1267 Low Voltage poles of which 53 are concrete);
• More than 75.7 km of lines were thoroughly cleaned with bulldozers, clearing the vegetation;
• Network extensions (just over 5 km)
• Normalisation of 2,317 defective meters with modern metering systems;
• Renovation of distribution sub-stations and replacement of 27 damaged transformers;
• The construction of 1,308 new connections
• Installation of 266 smart meter kits for large consumers;
• The introduction of prepaid meters;
• 653 consumers were normalised from fraud;
• The creation of WhatsApp groups bringing together customers, authorities and the media for information sharing and rapid response to power cuts and incidents.

A point of concern remains the high propensity for fraud on the electricity network in the Region. From January 2021 to date, out of a sample of 1,500 customers inspected, we have detected 949 customers involved in electricity fraud, more than 60% of them illegal. Apart from generating financial losses for the entire electricity sector, fraud is a source of service degradation and insecurity. 

Furthermore, Eneo is closely following the execution of some major projects carried out by other stakeholders. These will be decisive for a more significant improvement in the quality of service. These projects include the construction of a plant at Lom Pangar (EDC), and the construction of an interconnection between the Southern and Eastern Interconnected Networks (SONATREL).