Power outage hits Fundong community
By Drusilla Mbehni
The Fundong municipality has since September 23, 2022, been experiencing power shortage. The blackout which has now lasted more than a week was caused by heavy rainfall and lightning, which damaged a transformer around the Grandstand.
This has left many neighborhoods such as Isaibal, Atoini, Mission in blackout.
While these quarters do not have electricity, others including Fujua, the market centre, and Teachers’ quarter live a normal life and carry out their daily activities with electricity.
Silas is a vendor of fresh fish and recounts the effects of no electricity on his business. “The electricity issue is causing me more harm than good. For two weeks, I have been unable to sell good fish to customers because of no electricity. My fish have spoiled and some are getting rotten and you know, customers will not want to buy fish that smells the way these ones do”.
Song Ngwainbi Julius, one of the workers of ” Grosse Michelle”, a contract company under Cameroon electricity company, ENEO, which was in charge of electricity from Bambui to Bafmeng, says he has been working alone since the start of the crisis because his colleagues escaped Fundong abandoning everything to him.
“I am from Fundong and I have been working alone since the start of the crisis because my colleagues and the company I used to work for, Grosse Michelle, left the area for fear of the unknown. I couldn’t also leave because I have a soft spot for my people. Imagine I left, who would be doing all these works I am doing now?”.
While some parts of Fundong have electricity, others do not. Julius explains that the whole town does not use a single transformer, therefore the areas with electricity can only count themselves lucky.
While hopping for electricity to return to the entire community, Julius adds that ” I only have to wait for someone from ENEO office in Bamenda, to come and fix the transformer because it is above me to handle. A lot needs to be changed on the pole which I can not do.”
As days go by, the Fundong people hope that electricity returns to their community as soon as possible. Fundong is a municipality in Boyo Division, North West region.
