Minister Minette Libom Li Likeng on December 1st 2021 defended her draft budgetary allocation with emphasis on increasing the Postal presence of Campost and provide a conducive environment for young digital startups
Before the Finance and Budget Committee of the National Assembly on December 1st 2021, appeared the Minister of Posts and Telecommunications, Minette Libom Li Likeng to defend the 2022 budget allocation for her ministerial department. The amount which stands at 16 billion162 million FCFA
as compared to 21 billion 496 million Fcfa of 2021, experienced a decrease of slightly over 5 billion Fcfa.
According to the Minister, one of the purpose for which this money will be used will be to reinforce the Cameroon postal services through the densification and improvement of the postal national coverage in a bid to make it a key actor in the digital economy of Cameroon. For the realisation of this project, the sum of 1 billion 320 million 613 thousand francs is assigned to serve in multiplying post offices, purchase of equipment and improve on its services. Another key objective outlined in her list of priorities is the opening of the Cameroon Digital Innovation Centre that has already been built. This centre she says will provide a conducive and adequate environment and ecosystem for young startups to transform their already existing ideas to digital enterprises.
To however obtain a hitch free ecosystem, 11 billion 225 million 429 thousand Fcfa was allocated for its National Development. Amongst the projects featuring within this budget is the construction of transnational links to Nigeria, Congo, Gabon, Equatorial Guinea, Chad and Central African Republic, the acceleration of the digital transformation of Cameroon, the high speed optical fiber telecommunications Network in Central Africa.
However, amongst these projects are newly conceived ones that have also been aligned to be realised. Some of such projects are the establishment of digital cities in the towns of Yaounde and Douala, the organisation of the digital week and exhibition faire, the upgrading of the Campost data centre just to name a few.
These plans do not in anyway sideline existing projects as the Minister mentioned that the coming year will continue with the consolidation of the already existing ones such as extending the digital coverage and connection as well as reinforce the notion of cybersecurity by following up the ICT Holiday Camps, preparing the AFCON 2021 competitions come January and February 2022, the rehabilitation of telecommunications infrastructure in disaster stricken areas of Cameroon namely; South West, North West and Far North, and the National Campaign to Promote the Culture of Cybersecurity and Raise Awareness on the Responsible use of Social Media.
The defense session however saw a mix of approximately ten (10) questions followed by very satisfactory answers.
