ART Director accused of waiving MTN, Orange debts

The website 237online and weekly benchmarks revealed January 21, 2015, new sections of the report conducted by Consupe on the management of the regulator of the telecommunications sector by Jean Louis Beh Mengue, its Director General, since its creation in 1999.

It came out based on this report that ART, through its DG, has erred in many ways, making the state lose about 20 billion Cfa francs. The Consupe considered for example, the management of monetary penalties of 4,140,440,000 Cfa francs and 523,220,000 francs Cfa imposed on Orange and MTN Cameroon which has caused several losses.


Unknown to the Board of Directors, the Consupe indicated that Jean Louis Beh Mengue, ART Director, had taken a number of initiatives with heavy consequences.


The report revealed that while the procedures for recovery of these receivables were underway by the competent departments of ART, Jean Louis Beh Mengue, "in violation of the regulations for the recovery of the claims of the State, addressed a correspondence asking the Orange operator to pay only 1,250,000,000 CFA francs on the 4,140,440,000 FCfa of imposed penalties, and invest the rest, or 2,890,440,000 FCfa, for the development of its telephone network; and indicated to MTN to pay nothing on the 523,220,000 FCfa of penalties due, and invest said sum for the development of its telephone network.

Later asked about it by the investigators of Consupe, the DG of ART explained that his act "has legal financial basis, functional and decisional autonomy enjoyed by the Agency by the decree which created it, and in section 36.1 of the Act of December 21, 2010 governing electronic communications in Cameroon".


Mr. Beh Mengué also noted that "this pragmatic action had the advantage to ensure a direct and immediate sector development, to turn back on the inertia inhibitory and conservative, and likely to inspire regulatory powers that, as we know, often remain in phase with the practical trends with regard to the telecommunications sector.