On Tuesday, April 8, the Minister of Water and Energy, Gaston Eloundou Essomba, launched a vast campaign in Douala to replace wooden posts with concrete posts. As part of the fight against load shedding, the minister plans to install 50,000 concrete poles throughout the country in 2025

The official launch was marked by a visit to two production plants located in Souza (Department of Moungo) and Missolè (Sanaga-Maritime). The Minister of Water and Energy said that among the 50,000 concrete posts planned, 10,000 will be installed as early as the first phase, which starts next week. According to him, Cameroon currently has more than 1.6 million wooden posts, of which more than 40% are outdated. This project is based on a pilot phase launched in 2019, which allowed the local production of 1 800 concrete posts. In 2020, the program moved to a so-called “maturity” phase, with the aim of replacing 90,000 wooden posts with a mix of new wooden, concrete and metal posts. At the end of September 2021, Eneo already claimed the replacement of 83,000 posts

It should be noted that to stop the recurrent fall of wooden posts, the government has entrusted the manufacture of concrete posts to local SMEs, with the obligation to respect the European standards required by Eneo, the main beneficiary of the project. According to the minister, these standards concern, “resistance and quality standards, which must be rigorously respected in a context where these poles play an essential role in strengthening