As per the Prime Minister’s statement on the government’s economic, financial, social and cultural report to the National Assembly, energy will remain one of the priority areas. The crying shortage of energy has kept industrial production very low just as the situation has discouraged many potential investors.

Cameroon’s current energy production is in the threshold of 900 megawatts, largely insufficient to fuel the ambitions of President Biya’s “greater achievements”’ initiative whose overall objective is to make Cameroon an emerging economy by 2035. And 2035 is just 25 years away, meaning that all huge infrastructure projects, especially those meant to provide jobs for the bloating numbers of unemployed youth and those capable of taking our impoverished masses out of poverty, must start almost immediately. And it is when all the plants in the country can begin to turn, that the road to attaining the objectives of circa 2035 will become very clear. One very important condition is the supply of electric energy in sufficient quantities and of good supply and, therefore, cheap enough to make our industrial products competitive and accessible to all. Take one example. Costs of construction materials such as corrugated aluminium sheets will be drastically cut if the giant aluminium plant in Edea had enough energy and at affordable costs. The plant runs below capacity because of insufficient electricity and consequently produces sheets and other products at very high cost; the brunt invariably falling on the customer.

But there is much hope. And the Prime Minister’s statement came to confirm that, if only by the sheer number of ongoing projects or those in the pipeline. Government’s strategy is to take electricity production in the very near future to virtually twice its current capacity, in a double direction: the construction of dams and gas-fired power plants.

Apart from refurbishing, rehabilitating and increasing the capacity of existing hydroelectricity dams at Lagdo, Edea nd Songloulou, the government has started the construction of the Lom Pangar hydroelectricity dam. A huge project indeed; it will have a 50-metre high reservoir covering a surface are of about 600 square kilometres with a storage capacity of 7 Billion cubic metres of water. The hydro-electricity plant will produce just-under 30 megawatts. That may appear small, but the reservoir has the bigger advantage in that it will regulate the flow of River Sanaga, consequently increasing the electricity-production capacity of existing dams such as Songloulou and Edea. Another important dam under construction is the Mékin hydro-electricity plant in the Dja and Lobo Division (South Region). Work is virtually started and when it goes operational, it will guarantee some 15 megawatts, enough for the entire South Region, except Kribi where a gas-fired plant with a capacity of 216 (with the possibility of extending to 300 megawatts) is under construction. There is also the Memve’le hydroelectric dam (on the Ntem River) whose capacity is 200 megawatts. If all these projects are carried out according to plan, Cameroon may in the next five years produce enough electricity to sustain its “greater achievement” projects and even afford to export electricity to Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon and, even, Nigeria.