Prime Minister Patrick Achi has commissioned the Mé drinking water plant in the sub-prefecture of Brofodoumé, in Abidjan, Ivory Coast. The plant, which has been under construction since 2018, supplies 240,000 m3 of drinking water a day to more than 2 million people in Abidjan, particularly in the councils of Cocody, Abobo and Youpougon.
The supply of drinking water is a little more stable in the Abidjan district of Ivory Coast. The Mé drinking water plant, located in the Brofodoumé sub-division, 19 km from Abidjan, came into service on 16 June 2023. The plant was launched at a ceremony presided over by Ivorian Prime Minister Patrick Achi.
The commissioning of the Mé water treatment plant comes more than two years after the deadline initially set by the Ivorian Ministry of Water, Sanitation and Hygiene, which was July 2021.
Drinking water for more than 2 million people in Abidjan
The Ivorian authorities have not given any reasons for this major delay in the water project, which is being implemented by the French company Veolia in collaboration with PFO Africa, an Ivorian construction and public works company. More emphasis was placed on the objective of the project. “The Mé drinking water treatment plant, with a capacity of 240,000 m3 per day, will make a major contribution to improving the supply of drinking water to a number of councils in the north of Abidjan, in particular Cocody, Abobo and Youpougon, as well as to the east,” says Bouaké Fofana, the Ivorian Minister for Water, Sanitation and Hygiene.
In all, more than 2 million additional people in Ivory Coast’s economic capital are supplied with drinking water from the Mé drinking water plant. The water treated at the plant is pumped from the river La Mé, via an intake built on a one-hectare site. The drinking water is transported via a 1,400-diameter pipeline over a length of 28 km to two water towers, each with a capacity of 5,000 m³. As a reminder, by 2019, the supply of drinking water in the city of Abidjan had already reached 640,000 m3, compared with 350,000 m3 per day in 2011.
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The Mé drinking water project required an investment of 212 billion CFA francs (around 323.2 million euros), provided by the State of Ivory Coast and its partners such as the West African Development Bank (BOAD). In 2019, the joint development finance institution of the States of the West African Economic and Monetary Union (WAEMU) granted a loan of 20 billion CFA francs (30.4 million euros) to the government of this member country.
Inès Magoum
