Minister says SIGIPES II will enable biometric verification of state workers.

The minister made the declaration in Yaounde yesterday Monday March 27. This was during the 6^th session of the joint inter-ministerial committee in charge of assisting the service provider, monitoring and supervising the implementation of the new SIGIPES project.

According to Minister Le, the project now entering its effective execution phase, will give room for a more digitally coordinated management of state workers geared towards highly improving the quality of public service delivered.

“We want this project to be quickly done so that the state of Cameroon can have this platform getting functional. It will enable the country to manage its resources and control workers’ presence using biometric systems as well as the electronic management of documents,” Minister Le said.

“We want to go beyond what was previewed for this program because it is a very important tool. It is vital to know if, Mr Le, for instance, has been at his post of duty or not so we can know when to dish out some punishment. We must work to enable the state to achieve its objectives,” the minister continued.

The project to introduce the new digital state workers’ management system, SIGIPES II, was launched in June 2021.

The system was brought in to bridge gaps found in the first SIGIPES including the physical counting operation which revealed multiple challenges one of the biggest among them, being the abandonment of duty posts by workers.

The 6^th session of the inter-ministerial committee in charge of the project came after the signing of the contract and the putting in place of the teams selected for the execution of the highly-cherished platform.

In a statement Monday, Public Service boss, Joseph Le stated that a successful introduction of the system will not only facilitate the fast-tracking of workers’ effectiveness which has been one of the biggest challenges but will breathe a huge quantity of fresh air into the Cameroonian public service.

“We all know that this has to do with a very important project for the state of Cameroon which is going to permit the amelioration of the management of personnel. It will enable us to better master our services,” Minister Le said in part.

“So consequently, the mass salariat and budget and other key areas will be easily managed with the coming in of this system. That is why we have a lot of hope not only for this session but also for the SIGIPES project in general,” he concluded.

Claims for delay unfounded

Minister Joseph Le also debunked claims of delays in the introduction of the new SIGIPES system.

The Minister made the statement whilst clarifying what he said were unfounded reports claiming the ongoing project has been on and uncompleted for over 10 years and counting.

“It is important I make some clarifications based on what I saw on the news his morning. It was stated that this SIGIPES II project has been there for 10years. That is not true. We just started this project. This is a completely new project totally different from what was done before now,” Minister Le said.

“I spoke of the signing phase, the installation of working teams and others. We now want to carry out an evaluation of what has been done so far. So, one and a half years and not 10. There should be no confusion about what was done in the past. There is a clear demarcation line between the two,” he emphasised.

Despite the clarifications on the timeline, the minister however emphasised the need for fastening works in the project to ensure the rapid completion of works on the project.

The SIGIPES project will cost the sum of over five billion FCFA. It is being executed by Dutch company, SIMAC and Cameroonian structure, Afreetech Cameroon.