On 16^th April 2021, according to the general management of Eneo, a document confirming the takeover by the Public Treasury of the debt of the Cameroonian Aluminum Company (Alucam), the exclusive distributor of electricity in Cameroon.

Louis Paul Motazé, the Minister of Finance said that the State shouldered the debt of FCFA 34 billion of the aluminium producer as of December 31, 2019, while the total debt would now exceed FCFA 50 billion.

Eneo said: “Through this debt recovery, the State has somewhat cleaned up Alucam's balance sheet. This is a very positive sign. We rejoice at Eneo.”

The problem is that since December 31, 2019, the Cameroonian Aluminum Company (Alucam) no longer officially has an electricity supply contract with Eneo, the vendor of the public electricity service in the country, and for good reason, the last contract signed in 2009 expired on December 31, 2019, as reported by our sources.

The sources also confirmed: “Since January’20, Eneo has been supplying electric power to the aluminium company in Cameroon on a flat-rate basis of around 130 MW per month.”

This lack of an official contract, which the government has failed for months to propose a unit price for the supply of electricity to Alucam, has a direct significance of not allowing the State to take over all of Alucam's debt to Eneo, with a view to future clearance.

Moreover, despite the absence of a formal contract between the two companies since the end of 2019, Eneo continued to supply energy to the aluminium producer throughout 2020.