Cameroon’s government – Minpostel aligns itself with the position of Orange Cameroon and MTN, according to which the prices charged in the country are among the lowest in Africa and the sub-region.

The Minister of Posts and Telecommunications (Minpostel) is far from ruling out any further reduction in the rates of calls and internet packages in the country, an issue at the heart of consumer demands as part of the “Airplane Mode” operation, launched nearly 10 days ago.  She highlights that … “It should be noted that the costs of electronic communications in Cameroon are among the best in Africa and the sub-region. However, consumers are not sufficiently aware of the offers and behaviours to adopt in the use of these offers”. Through this excerpt from her statement at the end of the meeting held under her leadership on 27 April with mobile operators, in the presence of officials of the Telecommunications Regulatory Agency , she clearly stood out for these operators to maintain their tariffs.

Minette Libom Li Likeng is certainly aligned with the position of the main mobile operators, which is supported by a recent study of the pan-African Jeune Afrique, which ranks Cameroon as the 5th cheapest country in terms of costs of calls and data, but she instructs the regulator to accelerate the reorganization of the electronic communications market, “in order to structure the costs of the wholesale market and that of the retail market, with a view to effectively orienting the rates to the real costs. The aim of these adjustments, which are to take place in the medium term, is, according to the Commission, “to stimulate competition between operators and to lead to more competitive tariffs for consumers“.

In an interview granted last weekend to the national station of CRTV, the Director of Institutional and Regulatory Affairs of Orange Cameroon explains, regarding the comparison made by consumers with France, that “there was a big confusion on social networks, because the information and comparative tables that circulated presented on the one hand a post-paid package, that is, under invoice and promotional, and on the other hand, prepaid packages permanent Cameroon. In all transparency, I would like to invite listeners to go to the websites of French operators to compare offers of the same nature and they will see that the Cameroonian offers are less expensive than those of France”.

In detail, concerning monthly offers, for example, this senior official of Orange Cameroon emphasised  that “while in France, we are at 874 CFA francs per Giga Byte, in Cameroon, we are at 333 CFA francs per Giga Byte. In Cameroon, a Giga Byte costs you 333 Fcfa (you can check at #145#, with Giga Data from Orange Cameroon, for 10,000 per month, you get 30 Giga; which costs you 333 Fcfa per Giga Byte). Regarding the offers on the day, while in France, for 1 GB of internet you have to pay 5 euros, or 3278F, in Cameroon, 1 Giga Bytes for the day is 500 Fcfa (check on the websites of companies), “said Alain Blaise Batongué.

Regarding consumer grievances, it was agreed that mechanisms for the reimbursement of unused data credit will be put in place so that it is systematically returned in case of network unavailability. “The implementation of this mechanism will take effect within a maximum of two weeks. The consumer will be systematically informed of the upload and download speed corresponding to the subscribed data package. The consumer will have at his disposal a comparative tool of the tariffs of the offers, of the coverage and of the performance of the network for each operator”, the minister details.