The project costs cost Cameroon some FCFA 15.527 Billion to take possession of the Batoke-Limbe West African cable System installation from MTN-Dubai.

The Minister of Posts and Telecommunications, Jean Pierre Biyiti Bi Essam, has called on CAMTEL to exercise objectivity, transparency and non-discrimination in granting access to the West African Cable System,WACS for all market players requesting the right to use it.

This would facilitate a widespread access to internet while enabling Cameroon’s emergence by 2035, he explained.

The minister was speaking in Batoke on 22 July, 2015, as he officially launched the operations of the WACS sub-marine cable landing station in Batoke. The WACS is coming after the SAT 3 in Bepanda-Douala which the Minister said was virtually saturated. Jean Pierre Biyiti bi Essam explained that Government had to pay FCFA 15.5 billion to acquire the WACS installation from a local mobile phone operator who initiated the deal.

Mr Biyiti Bi Essam quoted a recent study conducted by the World Bank on 120 countries showing that an increase by 10 per cent in internet penetration is often accompanied by a corresponding increase by 1.3 percent Gross Domestic Product. This statistics reflects the role of Information and Communication Technologies in improving the functioning of markets, reducing transaction costs, and increasing productivity both in public and private sectors.

The WACS is only part of Cameroon’s digital ambitions as government intends to lay 20,000 kilometres of optical fiber cable, to link up the entire national territory and build optical metro rings in all the 10 regional capitals of the country and cities hosting State Universities. Authorities of CAMTEL and MTN were amid the hundreds of people who turned out to witness the event at Batoke-Limbe in the South West Region.