Cameroon Resorts To IBM To Strangle Corruption

Cameroon Resorts To IBM To Strangle Corruption

By Ntaryike Divine Jr. in Douala

11/04/ 2011

Cameroon's Ministry of Finance has resorted to IBM’s mainframe and data storage technologies to better master the country’s corruption-soaked civil servants’ payroll processes.  A 31 March news release from IBM’s Sub-Saharan Africa Growth Markets Unit says the z10 Business Class Mainframe will provide the ministry with a 200 percent increase in performance, while scaling down operating costs by 30 percent.

“The modernization of Cameroon’s central IT systems is an important part of the national agenda of the country,” said Laurent Onguene, Director of the Cameroon National Center for IT Development, CENADI, at the Ministry of Finance; which signed the deal with IBM.  The new system is expected to go operational by the end of April.  Officials at IBM and the Cameroon government are not revealing the overall cost of the equipment, but IT experts estimate the country is paying between US$100,000 and US$150,000.

Cameroon's acquisition of the devise coincides with an ongoing government recruitment of 25,000 new workers in a country with unemployment rates kissing 70 percent.  Current statistics indicate the country counts over 200,000 civil servants, but the government lacks mastery of exact numbers on its payroll.

Last year, Finance Minister Essimi Menye announced the unmasking of 15,000 fake government workers unlawfully milking state coffers.  In most cases, staff lied about their rank; delayed retirement or were collecting salaries for deceased workers.  In February, the country’s National Anti-corruption Commission revealed that between 1998 and 2004, corruption cost the state US$3.75million.

Elsewhere, Transparency International says Cameroon is perceived as one of the most corrupt countries in the world having topped global corruption charts for two consecutive years beginning 2000.

The advent of the IBM z10 Business Class Mainframe thus heralds bad news for corruption racket masterminds especially at the Ministry of Finance, ranked Cameroon's corruption bedrock by local watchdogs.  It will help enforce security of the payroll system, improve the efficiency of processes such as generating pay slips, drive messaging applications based on IBM Lotus Notes and Lotus Domino software and also increase connectivity between different government departments.

“For  the  Cameroon  Ministry  of  Finance  it was important to implement a platform  based  on  open  source  software.  IBM System z running on Linux provides the Ministry with an open platform to help standardize the use of ICT and increase levels of connectivity between government departments” said Bernard Beyokol, General Director of CFAO Technologies, an IBM partner in Cameroon.

Onguene says the system will act as a central processing system to manage massive amounts of payroll transactions.  Many companies and organizations are turning to the mainframe to handle these kinds of demands while also creating efficiencies in energy consumption and operating costs.  As a small and compact system, the mainframe also has advantages over sprawling distributed server farms which some organizations implemented in recent years.

 “IBM  mainframe  is  a  proven  technology  that  provides  the  levels  of reliability, security and performance needed for government systems,” Laurent Onguene added.

Last month, Senegal announced it was installing the IBM mainframe to modernize its import and export processes.  IBM officials say Cameroon and Senegal are queuing up behind a growing number of organizations and companies in growth markets opting for IBM mainframe such as the First National Bank of Namibia, Comepay in Russia, Kazakh Rail, HeiTech Padu in Malaysia, China Internet Network Information Center, Korea's BC Card and Korea's Dongbu Insurance.

“Not only does the mainframe provide a secure and powerful IT platform, but it also helps companies and organizations respond to rapid growth in mobile computing and pave the way for smart computing systems,” said Taiwo Otiti, Country General Manager, IBM West Africa.