Dialakoto (Tambacounda), January 14 (APS) – The general director of the Rural Electrification Agency (ASER), Jean Michel Sène, put into service Monday, in the evening, an electricity network supplying seven villages of Dialakoto, a commune of the district of Missirah, in the department of Tambacounda.
The electrification of these seven villages is part of an emergency program worth 1 billion 420 million CFA francs, he said.
This amount was ”financed by the consolidated investment budget of the State of Senegal, and by ASER through the Rural Electrification Fee Agency,” he continued.
He specified that this consolidated State investment budget is intended to ”electrify 90 villages including seven villages in the commune of Dialakoto (…)”.
Jean Michel Sène welcomed the commissioning of this electrical network which is part of the State’s desire to correct the disparities between regions in the field of rural electrification.
”We are initially working to balance this disparity which exists between regions in terms of electrification. Our first objective is to work in villages where the rate of access to electricity is low to bring them closer to the national average,” he explained.
He recalled that the rate of access to electricity remains low in the Tambacounda region.
”At the national level, the rural electrification rate is around 65%, and the Tambacounda region has a rural electrification rate of around 18%. So, you see the disparity that exists compared to the national level,” he said.
He reported that 594 villages have been integrated into two rural electrification projects led by ASER.
According to him, out of the 2,037 villages in the Tambacounda region, ”there are only 386 villages which are electrified”. ”At the ASER level, we have two projects in which we have integrated many villages of Tambacounda, because we are trying to prioritize the villages of Tambacounda. We have integrated 594 villages in the Tambacounda region,” he said.
»There are other actors like Senelec, PUMA, PUDC and even OMVS who intervene in the Tambacounda region. So, when all these projects come to an end, we will be at 67%. This means that there are still efforts to be made, because there will remain 723 villages to be integrated into projects,” he said.
Jean Michel Sène also affirmed his firm desire to ensure that infrastructure delivery deadlines are respected as part of the execution of projects.
“It is not enough just to integrate villages, but we must work to ensure that deadlines are met, this is work that will be done within ASER in perfect collaboration with the companies carrying out the contracts” ‘, he said.
ABD/ASG/AB/ADL
