A British firm, Actis, has officially taken over electricity generation, transmission and distribution from AES Sonel in Cameroon promising to use its 60-year experience in 19 countries, seven in Africa, to surmount daunting growing challenges of the sector in the country.

The government of Cameroon represented by the Ministers of Water Resources and Energy, Basile Atangana Kouna, and that of Finance, Alamine Ousmane Mey, and the British outfit represented by David Grylls, Friday May 23 in Yaounde signed five accords for Actis to takeover AES Sonel and its two subsidiaries; Kribi Power Development Company (KPDC) and Dibamba Power Development Company (DPDC).

Actis’ Commitment According to David Grylls, Actis has a vision to develop business using a long-term and sustainable approach. This will be realized through empowering local management teams, investing in employees and creating sustainable value by enhancing operations, environmental and safety standards. He said this will entail minimal disruption of day-to-day operations.

“The company will continue to honour the existing collective bargaining agreement with employees and ensure the continuity of existing employee rights,” the official said. He disclosed that the company will also invest significantly to improve the network, will prioritise improvements in technical parameters such as distribution efficiencies and enhanced customer service.

Through its independent power generation company in Sub-Saharan Africa, Globeleq Africa, Actis is committed to ensuring security of supply in Cameroon, expressing the desire to progress in the expansion of the Kribi project (Gas Fired Plant).

“This is a Cameroonian company providing central services to Cameroonians. The core part of our strategy is to localise this business, ensure that our employees can benefit from sharing the shape, and in due course; be successful in developing a solid track record with a performance that we can enlist the company on the stock exchange. We are looking forward to the challenge,” David Grylls said.

No Layoffs in View In a speech, David Grylls said Actis was conscious of the difficulties workers of Sonel, KPDC and DPDC went through during the period of the buy-over discussions, especially that of uncertainty of jobs. He said the company is striving to ensure serenity as well as transforming its activities. Actis, he said, believes that employees are the most important asset and will therefore invest in the training and development of Sonel workers as it has done in other countries.

In a declaration read by Minister Basile Atangana Kouna, no layoffs will be carried out in the ambitious programme Actis has for the sector and that workers will have 5 per cent of the company’s capital. “Actis has accepted to take over the obligations of AES Corporation which means it will continue with the investment programme undertaken by AES Corporation and to give 5 per cent of the capital to personnel and there will be no layoffs,” he said. Actis is taking over the 56 per cent shares hitherto owned by AES, 5 per cent of which will be given to personnel and the rest, 44 per cent, is for the State. What Next?

After signing the transfer agreement with Actis, Minister Atangana Kouna said the next step will be convening the Board of Directors meetings of Sonel, KPDC and DPDC to ascertain the contents of the five accords signed for the takeover. After this, he said there will be a closing session of operations. The Minister hinted that government had received a non-objection from donor agencies on the buy-over of AES Sonel by Actis.

During the negotiations, he said an inter-ministerial team went to Uganda to see how Actis is working there. While expressing the need to extend and densify the transmission network for easy access to quality energy, Basile Atangana Kouna also observed that the Actis takeover of AES Sonel is in line with government’s continual drive to bridge the electricity supply shortfall whose annual demand, he said, grows at 6 to 7 per cent. “Actis is coming to pursue work that has been begun and government has pledged to stand by the company for success,” he said.