(Business in Cameroon) – The Cameroonian government aims to reduce the electricity bill of public buildings by about 10% in 2026. According to the Minister of Water and Energy, Gaston Eloundou Essomba, who presented the projection in late November 2025 to the Finance Committee of the National Assembly, the effort will focus both on electricity consumption and on improving the quality of billing for energy supplied to government administrations.
The planned measures fall under the National Energy Efficiency Program, known by its French acronym Proname, which seeks to ensure that the state pays the fair cost of its electricity consumption. The government is relying on several levers, including cleaning up delivery points, reducing technical losses, promoting energy efficiency practices within public administrations, increasing the use of efficient equipment, and optimizing public lighting.
“The first actions, particularly the adjustment of subscribed capacity for medium-voltage customers, have made it possible to generate CFA4.15 billion in savings by the end of the first half of 2025, although the current execution rate of 7% remains below the target of 30%,” the minister told lawmakers. These initial results point to a still largely untapped potential for savings within the public sector.
The financial stakes are significant. Eneo, Cameroon’s electricity distributor, says it bills public entities about CFA7 billion each month, or CFA84 billion per year. Only a small share of these amounts is actually collected, due to the recurring insolvency of many public consumers and frequent disputes over bills that are sometimes considered excessive.
To prevent financial strain on Eneo, the public treasury is often forced to step in and pay part of the outstanding bills on behalf of defaulting entities. The announced measures therefore aim not only to reduce the state’s electricity bill, but also to ease recurring tensions around the distributor’s billing practices, which are often criticized, by improving transparency and tighter control of consumption.
BRM
