Earlier today, Cameroon presented a digital platform for dematerializing business surveys. The platform was presented to companies in Douala during a workshop to popularize the system. Chairing the workshop, Joseph Tedou, director general of the National Institute for Statistics (INS) called for companies’ commitment for the digital platform to become fully operational.

In a recent press release, the Ministry of Finance invited business leaders to adapt to this new information-gathering procedure, which replaces the questionnaires that companies used to receive every quarter. Above all, companies have much to gain from this new tool. Starting with the rationalization of working hours.

Before the digital platform, the survey process entailed the Ministry of Finance, the INS, the Ministry of Economy and the Central Bank BEAC sending questionnaires to business leaders. This will change now. According to Joseph Tedou, information gathering will no longer be tiresome as the information needed by the above-mentioned institutions is aggregated in a single questionnaire. 

In a recent release, Finance Minister Louis Paul Motaze touted the advantages of the digital platform. According to the government official, it will "reduce the time needed to collect economic and financial data useful for monitoring and analyzing companies’ financial and economic situation.”  

In addition to helping save time, this innovation will also cut costs, as the old questionnaires required staff to be sent out to companies. Above all, the government is keen to create a "structured and dynamic business survey database."

Michel Ange Nga