Civil society remains concerned about limited public participation and energy planning, risks to Chad-Cameroon pipeline and forest reserves, and expectations that the dam would serve industrial interests.
During her recent visit to Cameroon, the Bank’s Acting Country Director Marie Francoise Marie-Nelly pledged the Bank’s support for Cameroon’s ailing power sector. In her meetings with the Government of Cameroon, Marie-Nelly reportedly discussed the construction of the controversial Lom Pangar hydroelectric dam in the country’s East Province.
Observers have long suspected that the World Bank will help finance the project, after it provided comments on an environment impact assessment in 2005. Meanwhile, the French Development Agency (ADF) has reportedly committed to finance the project and recently conducted a joint mission with the World Bank in Cameroon to look into the status of project preparations.
Both local and international civil society groups remain concerned about the project, in particular regarding inadequate transparency and insufficient opportunity for public participation in the project’s preparation and in the evaluation of its impacts; a lack of proper energy sector planning before project selection; risks to the Chad-Cameroon oil pipeline (a portion of which will be submerged by the Lom Pangar reservoir); threats to the protection of the Deng Deng forest reserve; and dubious development benefits for the affected population in Cameroon’s Eastern Province. Despite these issues and impacts, the Government of Cameroon appears eager to move forward with the project and is seeking financing for the construction of the dam and associated investments.
Apart from their trepidation about the potential negative impacts of the project, local communities are doubtful that they will benefit from the energy that the dam would generate. The project, they argue, is aimed more toward providing power to industrial interests than to increasing energy access for the poor.
The country’s largest electricity consumer, aluminum smelting company ALUCAM, has stated that it intends to triple its production, which would require the construction of Lom Pangar. Meanwhile, Geovic, an American mining company with rights to the world’s largest cobalt reserves located in Cameroon, has announced that it will expand its operations in the southeast of the country. Once it begins production, Geovic is also expected to require substantial energy supply, with potential implications for Lom Pangar.