CAMEROON: The Paepys drinking water project will be completed by the end of 2022

There is news about the Yaoundé City Drinking Water Supply Project (Paepys) in Cameroon. During a visit to the construction site on July 27^th, 2021, the Cameroonian Minister of Water and Energy, Gaston Eloundou Essomba, announced that the delivery of the future drinking water production facilities has been postponed until the end of 2022. The work carried out by the Chinese company Sinomach was initially due to be completed in December 2021.

For the time being, the Paepys project is continuing in the areas concerned. According to the Cameroonian authorities, the work is 78% complete. “In detail, the Nyom II water pumping station is 53% complete, the Nkometou III water pumping station is 92% complete and its electrical transformer station is 96% complete, the laying of pipes with a diameter of 1,800 in Obala is 97% complete, the Nachtigal raw water collection station is 93% complete and finally the Emana-Batchenga drinking water plant is 97% complete,” says Gaston Eloundou Essomba.

A daily production of 300,000 m³ of water

Launched in 2017, the Paepys will benefit the towns and localities bordering Yaoundé, namely Batchenga, Obala, Nkometou, Soa and Ntui. The future drinking water installations which will be supplied from the Sanaga River, will provide 300,000 m3 of water per day, which can be extended to 400,000 m³. Officially, the current demand for drinking water in the city of Yaoundé is 315,000 m³ per day. However, the only drinking water treatment plant in Akomnyada, which supplies the political capital, provides barely 100,000 m³ per day.

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The Yaoundé water supply project is being financed by the Cameroon government with a loan of 399 billion CFA francs (more than 608 million euros) from Exim Bank of China, the Chinese state-owned bank specialising in foreign trade.

Inès Magoum