(Business in Cameroon) - The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Minrex) revealed that Ivorian company Impact Palmarès R&D SAS will manage its electronic visa service for 10 years, extendable, through a data center in Yaoundé. Groundbreaking for the construction of the future Digital Transformation Center of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Minrex) took place on April 16, in Yaoundé.

The center will be built through a public-private partnership by Impact Palmarès R&D SAS "for funding, design, and standardization of consular services in Cameroon for 10 renewable years," Patrice Koe Jr., Minrex's director of communication, documentation, and diplomatic archives, told Cameroon Tribune.

According to Koe Jr., building a data center for visa services is part of a project to standardize and secure Cameroon's consular services, including the IT system component and construction of the Digital Transformation Center. Although criticized by many users for bugs, Minrex boasts the performance of the e-visa platform in service since 2023. Patrice Koe Jr. revealed that between April 30, 2023, and March 30, 2024, Cameroon welcomed 157,688 people registered on this platform.

The partnership with Impact Palmarès R&D SAS, the government has not disclosed the amount, was signed in 2022. "Since then, several concrete achievements have been made in implementing this important project. These include setting up a digital platform for managing Cameroon's consular services in general and the flow of incoming and outgoing visitors to the national territory in particular, as well as equipping and operating 44 diplomatic and consular posts (...).Deployment of equipment at 19 of the 25 border crossings within the first perimeter," explained Minrex's communication director.