Christopher Jator Njechu
21 February 2008
Buea — The government of Cameroon has undertaken what it calls "More Water for a Needy Population' project to ensure increased access to potable water both in quality and quantity to the population.
This measure comes at the heels of a public outcry for more potable water in the country, said the Minister of Water and Energy Resources, Jean-Bernard Sindeu, disclosed in Yaounde recently.
The Minister made it clear that the beginning of this measure led to the restructuring of the urban water sector, with the establishment of Cameroon Water Utilities Corporation, CAMWATER.
In this light, Cameroonians of Water, COW, was selected within the framework of the on-going privatisation of the National Water Corporation, SNEC, expected to meet up with the global objective of enabling 550,000,000 people have access to potable water by 2016.
In order to efficiently get on with the project, the government elaborated investment programmes financed by international donors, development partners and through government's bilateral relations with other countries.
The program started with the addition of other water sources in Douala, at Yato where a foundation stone was laid by the Prime Minister.
It is expected that Yaounde will be the next beneficiary under this project and also some 105 other localities in the country as prescribed by the Head of State last December 31.
The Minister of Water and Energy Resources expressed gratitude to officials of CAMWATER and government services for the results so far achieved during the elaboration of an important restructured document for the sector and also concretising documents for coming up with concrete documents for its financing.
This, the Minister stated, was done with hopes that it would permit the distribution of potable water to different urban centres in the country. He encouraged them to keep on until completion of the work.
As concerns access to water in rural communities, particularly villages, the Minister promised to intensify financing, with money from 2008 PIB, HIPC-I, IADM and from external donor communities on which government has always relied.
He said his Ministry in 2007 made use of more than 800 water sources and at least 50 additional water provisions in 200 different programs under PIB, HIPC, IADM, Japanese aid, Belgium, German and so on.
Sindeu used the occasion to call on beneficiary communities of these water sources to ensure their proper management and treatment and adapt acceptable behaviours vis-à-vis the water sources.
He said it is with this view that government has deployed minimum financial contributions necessary to stimulate full operation of CREPA (Centre Regional pour l'Eau Potable et l'Assainissement) an inter-state institution working in domains related to water and sensitisation.
Be the first to Write a Comment!
Copyright © 2008 The Post. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com). To contact the copyright holder directly for corrections — or for permission to republish or make other authorized use of this material, click here.
AllAfrica aggregates and indexes content from over 125 African news organizations, plus more than 200 other sources, who are responsible for their own reporting and views. Articles and commentaries that identify allAfrica.com as the publisher are produced or commissioned by AllAfrica.
