The scientific committee of the Union of African Electricity Producers, Distributors and Conveyors (UPDEA) recently met in Tunis to prepare its congress, scheduled for the month of June 2011 in Tunis. It focused on exploring ways to help the power sector in Africa weather the current crisis. How Tunisia has benefited from this meeting? And what results emerged from this meeting?
To answer these questions, we met with f STEG distribution Director, Ammar Mohammed. Interview:
What were the issues addressed by this meeting?
The event, held from 18 to 19 February 2010 in Tunis, is part of the periodic activities of the Scientific Committee of the Union of African Electricity Producers, Distributors and Conveyors (UPDEA). It was an opportunity to discuss and exchange experiences in producing electricity between the Union countries, such as rural electrification, human resources, prices, etc..
We endeavored, during this meeting, to share our experiences in electrification, customer relations, prices, and human resources in Africa.
It was an opportunity for the STEG to review its various areas and activities in Tunisia, particularly in terms of electrification knowing that we have reached an electrification rate equal to 99.5% allowing the STEG to be ranked first in Africa in terms of electrification.
This meeting allowed us to promote the Tunisian experience in electrification, financing of power projects including the techniques used in this area, knowing that we use unique techniques in Africa. These techniques allowed us to electrify 99.5% of our territory.
This meeting allowed us finally to share with the Union countries our experience in managing human resources.
How Tunisia will take advantage of this meeting?
We are working to enhance the Tunisian experience in electrification given our leadership position in this area with a 99.5% rate in spite of our limited resources.
We try through our contacts with UPDEA companies to expand our experience in electrification and conquer the African market in the area such as our last market in Rwanda and many other partnership projects under way.
We are working through this meeting to export and promote the Tunisian expertise in energy, and we currently have contacts with several African countries interested in the Tunisian experience like Burkina Faso and Democratic Republic of Congo.
Delegations from UPDEA countries, in the aftermath of this meeting, will present their reports on the Tunisian experience in electrification and discuss the matter with officials in their respective countries, and we will receive in the coming days, notices from various African countries wishing to benefit from our experience in this field like Mali, which has expressed interest in our experience.
What were the recommendations adopted by participants at this meeting?
Several issues were discussed and recommendations were proposed in this regard.
The issues discussed on that occasion were the lack of necessary funds for mega projects of rural electrification in Africa, the low level of partnership in this area between African countries and the gap between the North and the South of the African continent.
