Fibre deployment: Cameroon seeks AfDB extension of Backbone project in Central Africa

The Central Africa Backbone (CAB) project is dedicated to the implementation of a broadband telecommunications network through fibre optics in Central Africa.

The 8th session of the National Steering Committee of them held 30 December 2019 in Yaoundé, the political capital of Cameroon, it seems the country is seeking from the African Development Bank (ADB) the extension of the project.

In principle, this is the last session of the CAB steering committee that has just been held in Yaoundé.

Speaker "on the eve of the expiry of the loan agreement signed with the African Development Bank, which is scheduled to end on 31 December 2019",

said Cameroonian Minister of Posts and Telecommunications, Minette Libom Li Likeng, at the opening of the proceedings.

The extension request

"A request for the extension of the CAB was submitted by the Cameroonian government to the African Development Bank, However, Cameroon's telecommunications chief revealed. It turns out that the requested extension could go until at least 2021. By the way, Minette Libom Li Likeng gives indications " , in order to finalise the various ongoing projects, the procurement plan for the period 2020 -2021, submitted on 30 September 2019, received a favourable opinion from this institution on 26 December 2019 ".

It should be noted that the CAB project only started in 2018 and in particular in 2019, and thus began in 2016 with its regional and national components. This is with the start of the installation of fibre optics in the southern region of Cameroon in order to connect the Congo and in the eastern region with regard to the connection with the Central African Republic.

The Cameroonian minister in charge of telecommunications also explained the financial scope of the commitments, "at the end of 2019, of the 52 project activities, 22 are contracted for 27 signed contracts (...). The amount of the commitments amounts to FCFA 11.9 billion, which represents an expected commitment rate of 39.20%. Financially speaking, 4.6 billion FCFA has been disbursed, which represents a disbursement rate of 15.47%, compared to 3.7% in 2018'.

africa