Once distressed and listed for privatization, the management of the state-owned telecoms giant ventured into mobile telephony and internet provision. Today, the future appears bright once again for the company

After a long spell of precariousness due to flawed management by previous managers, Cameroon’s giant telecoms company, CAMTEL, is once again on its feet and firmly so.

The state-run company that was long earmarked for privatization alongside other distressed national outfits, is now picking up the pieces, and getting on track for yet another boom.

The secret behind this magical turn-around in the fortunes of Camtel is not hard to find: The resort to wireless, broad band technology (mobile telephony), the provision of internet services, and the launching of the optic fibre backbone that not only covers the entire national territory but extends to neighbouring Chad.

There is also an ongoing project to connect Cameroon and Brazil in South America by optic fibre. Of course, All of these is thanks to the managerial clairvoyance and business acumen of the General Manager of Camtel, David Nkoto Emane.

It should be recalled that following the advent of mobile telephone in Cameroon in the mid 1990s, the craze by the public for the new, more modern and convenient handy sets rendered the fixed phone (CAMTEL’s sole product at the time) obsolete, redundant and out of place. And with the attendant loss of a greater part of its customer base, Camtel’s fortunes plummeted drastically this, with obvious consequences.

Faced with the situation, government had no option other than to list Camtel for privatization in 1999.

But after potential buyers failed to seduce government with attractive buy-off bids, the government gave the management of Camtel the go ahead to venture into the provision of more modern and fashionable products, if only to better its precarious financial situation.

Today with its two major products, CT phone and broadband internet, Camtel is experiencing a boom. The management of the company has rekindled hope in the workers and the government about the company’s future.

What is more, thanks to win-win accords signed with Asian partners, notably the Chinese telecoms giants Huawei, CAMTEL is today making it big with its new products, and their coverage of the national territory is getting almost complete with the advent of the optic fibre backbone that not only runs from Ambam in the extreme South region, to Kousseri in the Far North but also extends to Chad.

And even though a former finance minister, Essimi Menye Lazare, announced that a new privatization strategy is being planned for CAMTEL, it is believed that with the company’s growing fortunes, government would not want to give it out anymore.

Besides, since privatization is aimed at transferring at least 51% of the company’s stakes to a private operator, government is getting more and more reluctant to lease out a potentially lucrative and vibrant sector.

Fortunately too, the government is about to grant Camtel license to operate full-scale 4G mobile telephony using the GSM network. This, if exploited, will trigger the company’s rise to the skies, especially as there is still enormous market space for mobile telephone in Cameroon. Studies show that barely less than 20% of the over 22 million Cameroonians are using mobile phones.

With current telecoms services revenue growing at a favourable rate of 13.8%, it is projected that fiscal revenue could get to over 1.9 billion dollars by 2017. With this, Cameroon would feature among the fastest growing telecoms markets across Africa and the Middle East, economic analysts say.

But the analyst also contend that for this to happen, CAMTEL must inject huge financial investments, and government, for her part, must give Camtel much-needed support to permit her to compete favorably with foreign competitors notably MTN, Orange and recently Nextell.

Launching the optic fibre backbone several years ago at Ambam in the South Region, Camtel’s GM David Nkoto Emane said the project is perfectly in line with President Paul Biya’s greater ambitions policy.

Commentators at the event noted that David Nkoto Emane was right given the numerous achievements he has recorded in barely a few years at the helm of Camtel.

Yet, many others still believe that with Nkoto Emane, “The best is still to come”.