Creating a positive work environment where everyone properly plays their role is one of the priorities of the new Managing Director of Cameroon’s water utility -Camwater. During his very first coordination meeting, held on October 4 in Douala, Blaise Moussa (pictured) invited his collaborators to follow the work ethic within the company.
“The Managing Director urged the central directors to preserve the organizational assets and give up on bad practices such as overbilling, fraud, corruption, administrative slowness, and absenteeism,” reads the official note published after the meeting. Blaise Moussa reassured the staff that his approach is not a witch hunt but rather “the expression of his desire to make sure the company does what it has to do in the best way”. In 2017, the former Minister of Water and Energy, Basile Atangana Kouna, announced an investigation to shed light on the overbilling phenomenon. Indeed, Camwater has long been suspected of issuing water bills to certain ministries and public entities even though no consumption indexes had been taken. Individual consumers also complain about the same problem.
Moreover, the company’s management suspects that some workers are complicit in the theft of meters. Most of the time, we learned, the thieves are after the brass contained in the devices. It is a non-ferrous alloy consisting mainly of copper and zinc, which is used in the jewelry industry. More than 900 Camwater meters were stolen between August and September this year in Yaoundé.
Written by S.A.
Translated from French by Firmine AIZAN