Congo: the CAB’s steering committee sets a budget of $ 23.4 million to complete the ICT projects initiated in 2020
March 25th 2021
The coronavirus pandemic that occurred in 2020 severely hampered the finalization of various telecom infrastructures on which the Congo relies to initiate its digital transformation. For the new year, the country intends to make up for lost time.
During its first session of 2021, held Tuesday March 23 in Brazzaville, the Congolese steering committee of the Central Africa Backbone (CAB) project set its budget at 13 billion FCFA (23.4 million USD) for the 2021 fiscal year. The money will be used for the continuation of several projects, in particular the completion of construction works of the Congo-Cameroon and Congo-RCA fiber optic interconnection network, then the continuation of studies which will promote the construction of the national data center.
“In 2020, it was planned to spend 15 billion FCFA. In view of the health situation linked to the coronavirus, we have revised our spending downwards, 6 billion FCFA. With the budget that has just been adopted, we hope to finalize the work stopped, ” said Michel Ngakala, the coordinator of the CAB project, whose comments were reported by adiac-congo.com .
The ICT projects that the Congo wants to complete in 2021 will strengthen the high-speed connectivity that the country has been striving to develop for many years under the CAB project. In 2020, the country succeeded in interconnecting by optical fiber in Gabon.
Léon Juste Ibombo, the Congolese Minister of Posts, Telecommunications and the Digital Economy, believes that once these various projects are completed, “ we will no longer need to take international digital routes to collaborate between brother states. Digital exchanges will sharply increase. The digital divide between our border areas will be reduced and populations will benefit from easier access to the digital world, more efficient and less expensive ”.
Back