As part of the Floods Fight Emergency Project (Projet d’Urgence de Lutte contre les Inondations – PULCI) in Northern Cameroon, the government recently awarded contracts for the refurbishment of irrigated areas as well as the Maga & Logone and Mayo Vrick dykes to two groups of Chadian companies.

According to the official communiqué published for this purpose, these contracts were won by the Geyser SA-Sotcocog SA and SRGM-ETRA groups, respectively for FCfa 33.3 billion and FCfa 28.8 billion, which corresponds to a total amount of FCfa 62.1 billion. These Chadian companies were chosen over Hytra SA, a Cameroonian company and Russian Zarubezhv Dstroy.

Every year during the rainy season, the villages surrounding the Logone River for many kilometres, in the Extrême-Nord region, are exposed to floods. The floods caused by water overflowing from the riverbed are sometimes responsible for important human and material losses, and usually destroy crops (onion, rice millet), thereby putting populations at risk of famine.

The works undertaken by the aforementioned companies should help protect 10,000 hectares of rice farms from flooding, in which 78,000 farmers work with the support of the Yagoua Rice Farming Expansion and Modernisation Company (Société d’Expansion et de Modernisation de la Riziculture de Yagoua - Semry).