AP&T Ministerial order fixes the rules guiding the sector with the aim of optimising service delivery.

Government, through the Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications, has put in place rules guiding the operation of Cameroon’s postal networks with the view of halting anarchy inherent of the sector. Public and private sectors as well as individuals are flouting the December 29, 2006 decree regulating the postal sector. The 12-article document signed on August 5, 2010 by the P&T Minister, Jean-Pierre Biyiti bi Essam, specifies the procedure for interested actors in the sector to operate in legality, control measures and sanctions.

Talking to CT yesterday after the publication of the Ministerial order, the Director of Standards and Control of Postal Activities in the P&T Ministry, Abakar Abadam, said the decision seeks to instil order in the sector, which will benefit both the population and the State. “It allows us to identify actors in the sector, how they are operating, as well as to know the weight of the sector in the economy of the country”, he said. The efforts, he added, are in line with others undertaken since the 1970s to liberalise the postal sector in the country and which the Cameroon Postal Services (CAMPOST) today manages. Curiously, there are companies today that distribute their mails and bills as well as newspapers without passing through the post office and even going beyond the required distance. According to the law, operators could either be in internal public network, internal private network, independent public and private network operation whose distance should not exceed 1, 000 metres, among others. The Ministerial order stipulates that any person, physical or moral, willing to operate in the sector must deposit at the Postal Regulation Agency a four-copy preliminary file composed of a document of declaration furnished by the Postal Regulatory Agency and which contains information on the applicant. It must also contain a receipt of a payment of FCFA 200, 000 at the Postal Regulation Agency as well as a technical file which shows the desired type of postal service, the description of the business site, description of the nature and characteristics of the network, its implantation plan and calendar and the complete address of the applicant. The file, the order specifies, would be scrutinised by the Postal Regulation Agency, at most 30 days from the date of deposit, after which the applicant would receive a declaration receipt signed by the Minister of P&T.

Mr Abakar Abadam said the Ministerial order is like a text of application of the 2006 law and that the Ministry will carryout sensitisation campaigns to better drill actors on what they are called upon to do. Defaulters of this order, according to the Ministerial order, could be given 15 days to either abide or face the wrath of the law which could range from material seizure to blocking the structure housing the material. Those who have been operating in the sector have, by the new order, been given three months, from the date of signature of the Ministerial order, to comply with the reorganisation norms.