Telecommunications experts from Africa are meeting in Douala to build capacities in the management and functioning of access and universal service fund on the continent.
Speaking at the opening ceremony yesterday February 7, the General Manager of the Telecommunications Regulatory Board, TRB, Jean-Louis Beh Mengue disclosed that they have been ensuring the efficient management of limited resources like numbers and frequencies. “In TRB”, he explained, “We are aware of the numerous challenges ahead. These have to do with the promotion of the development of electronic communications, especially by covering the rural areas not included in operators’ terms of reference, reorganizing the frequency spectrum and reducing the coverage deficiency in the national territory through electronic communication means likely to be subsidized, the final aim being to ensure the efficient financing and management of the Special Fund for Telecommunications.”The workshop, according to Jean-Louis Beh Mengue, was an opportunity for participants to be conversant with the objectives and functioning of the Universal Access Fund. The workshop facilitator, Dr. Ekwow Spio-Garbrah, said his firm has for example conducted the Commonwealth African Rural Connectivity, COMARCI Initiative, and helped in the creation in 2007 of the African Universal Service and Access Fund Association (USAFA). He noted that as a partner in international development, it has been assisting in building capacities in the management of access and universal service fund in Africa.
Telecommunications development and especially the mobile telephony has been one of the major developments of the Cameroonian economy in the last ten years. In the early 2000, a phone was a luxury and communicating over long distances, a real challenge. Today, with the liberalization, the telecommunications industry has witnessed a boom, characterized by an increase in supply of goods and services in telecommunications. The volume of accumulated investments by operators exceeded FCFA 750 billion by December 2009.
Organized by the Commonwealth Telecommunications Organization (CTO) and Cameroon’s Telecommunications Regulatory Agency (TRB), the workshop is attended by experts in telecommunications regulatory structures, operators of businesses and material service as well as members of agencies or management committee of the Universal Service Fund from Malawi, Chad, Uganda and Cameroon. Joseph Elongo, the Economic Adviser to the Littoral Governor’s Office, presided over the opening ceremony.
