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Senegal's ambitions under the 2025 Digital Agenda are compromised by the lack of a steering instrument. According to the Chairman of the Organization of Information and Communication Technology Professionals (Optic), Mr. Antoine Ngom, this situation preoccupies the actors.
As part of the Digital Agenda 2025 (SN2025), the Senegal aims to increase the contribution of the digital sector to the economy by 10%. But the Organization of Information and Communication Technology Professionals (Optic) remains skeptical about the chances of achieving this goal. At a press conference yesterday, Mr. Antoine Ngom, President of Optic, sounds the alarm. "The Sn2025 was adopted at the end of 2016. We are in July 2018 and the steering and monitoring committee is still not set up." As a consequence of this absence, Ngom notes, studies are being launched as part of implementation of the strategy without real visibility of the actors. "These actions are undertaken in a dispersed and uncoordinated way," he says. The situation is worrying the digital players who warn about the urgency to rectify the situation. "We have to break with the past where we have developed several guidance documents that could not be implemented because of the lack of steering and monitoring instruments," says Ngom.
Digital Financing
A few weeks ago, in presiding the opening ceremony of the Digital Fair, President Macky Sall announced that the Entrepreneurship Delegation (Der) would devote 1 billion CFA francs to financing digital companies. This fund seems somewhat insufficient for Optic. "The digital sector generates very significant financial resources. We reasonably believe that it is possible for the state to mobilize many more resources to support the development of the digital economy. This fund of 1 billion can be validly revised upward considering all that generates the sector to allow to have more impact, pleads Mr Ngom. In addition, Optic notes that this fund is dedicated only to start-ups, these innovative digital companies. "We must also support digital companies that no longer correspond to the category of start-ups. These companies also have significant financing needs with innovative projects, "says Ngom.
At this level, the President of Optic draws attention to the positioning of the Der in the financing of the sector. "The existing system should be supplemented by providing start-up funds upstream of the incubators. The Der who intends to invest on the subject has a space to occupy, different from the existing incubators it must support, "says Ngom. He explains that the CTIC which is the main incubator in Senegal does not receive any subsidy, since the Regulatory Authority of Telecommunications and Posts (Artp) has not respected its commitments in this area. "If the Der has the means to intervene, and she has them, her intervention should be to support and strengthen the dissipation of existing incubators. Ctic suffers enormously from the lack of public support, "says Ngom. He goes on to add that the Der can position itself by setting up upstream seed funds and acceleration funds for the most mature companies.
The press conference also served as a framework for Tic professionals. to draw attention to the exorbitant price of frequencies. According to Antoine Ngom, they are ten times more expensive in Senegal than in the whole sub-region. A situation that does not promote the development of Internet Service Providers (Fai), with high interconnection and colocation costs. "The Fai have entered the commercial phase since March 2018, but there are still significant barriers to entry," says Ngom.
Collective Agreement
Optic expects to update the convention in the digital sector. To do this, she works with the International Labor Office (Bit) and the Ministry of Labor to update this agreement which dates from 1956. According to Antoine Ngom, the process of setting up a sectoral collective agreement will make it possible to of a classification of trades and jobs in the digital
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