Government Unveils Plan to Generate Electricity from River Manyu

By Njong Shey 

The Cameroon Government has signed a deal to construct a hydroelectric dam on the Manyu River in the South West Region, in view of providing stable energy to Mamfe and other towns in the Manyu Division.

An agreement for the conduction of feasibility and design studies on the river was formalized at the Ministry of Water and Energy in Yaounde on Thursday, July 3.

Minister Gaston Eloundou Essomba signed the deal on behalf of the Cameroon Government, while Moses B. Obenofunde, chairman of the project, represented Bescam Company Limited, which will do the work.

Once completed, the dam is projected to generate 450 mega watts of electricity for the population of Mamfe and its environs.

According to Minister Eloundou Essomba, the company will construct, operate and then transfer the dam back to government under the BOT model.

Chief Obenofunde Moses said they had done some work in the last two and a half years, and the next stage requires them to go into details.

“That next phase requires us to measure the water tables all round the year, take the strength of the hooks that will carry the dam and do a lot of other things,” he said.

“Essentially, the results we want are that we build a hydroelectric power dam that should generate 450 MW.”

To him, once that is done, it would go a long way to address power insufficiencies witnessed in Manyu over the past years of the ongoing Anglophone Crisis.

“We will produce the electricity, Sonatrel will transport it and Eneo will distribute it. The more energy we have, the better for all Cameroonians,“ he stated.

Prolonged Blackout in Manyu

Residents in the Manyu Divisional headquarters, Mamfe, have, for years, been relying on generators and solar panels from neighbouring Nigeria for electricity.

That is because power transformers supplying electricity to the town got damaged and couldn’t easily be fixed because of the ongoing conflict in North West and South West regions.

However, the Energy of Cameroon, Eneo, seems to have rectified the problem, but electricity supply remains Inadequate and many areas in Manyu Division have no access to power.

Government Strides

The signing of the Mamfe Hydro dam project is the latest in a series of energy infrastructure projects that the Cameroon Government has been putting in place.

It recently signed a contract for the construction of two solar power plants in Maroua and Guider, all in the country’s Far North and North Regions, respectively.

Meanwhile, authorities had commissioned some energy infrastructures in the East Region. 

Electricity remains a major challenge in Cameroon, with more than 80 per cent of households in rural areas still lacking access to it.

Power is concentrated in urban areas, yet blackouts and low voltages are still major issues in towns like Buea, Bamenda, Douala and Yaounde.