By Thibaud C. NAGNONHOU, A/R Ouémé-Plateau,

The Minister of Digital and Digitization, Aurélie Adam Soulé Zoumarou, worked, in the afternoon of this Monday, before the Budget Committee of the Parliament, to defend the draft budget of her department for the management 2021. It is amounted to approximately FCfa 9.7 billion, down from the credits allocated in 2020.

The digital and digitization sector will benefit from fewer resources in 2021 compared to 2020. The appropriations allocated for the 2021 budget year of this ministry amount to the sum of 9,696,089,000 F Cfa against 13,731 CFAF 409,000 for 2020 management. This corresponds to a decrease of 29%.

The Minister of Digital and Digitization, Aurélie Adam Soulé Zoumarou, was on Monday before the National Representation to present the main lines of this draft budget as well as the priorities of her department next year. These priorities are in line with the main orientations of the Government's Action Program (Pag) and are part of a dynamic of completion and continuation of the actions undertaken with a view to establishing a real digital economy in Benin. "It is a budget that we are going to use to implement projects in our sector, the main priorities of which will be the redeployment of digital infrastructures to bring broadband and very high speed to the populations", reveals the Minister during the press briefing following his budget presentation.

According to her, the focus will also be placed in 2021 on a certain number of priority projects, in particular the commissioning of digital terrestrial television (DTT), the continuation of actions for the digitization of public administration and dematerialization by e- service, as well as everything related to the development of digital ecosystem skills, the development of digital skills and the development of digital security. The Minister announces several other new actions in 2021 aimed at providing even more skills to populations and further facilitating their access to digital uses. Minister Aurélie Adam Soulé Zoumarou says she is particularly satisfied with the strong interest of deputies in the digital sector. "The deputies appreciated the efforts of the government, which does not skimp on the means, the method and the rigor so that our country rises to the rank of the nations that count when it comes to digital technology", indicates the Minister of Digital and Digitization. According to her, the deputies congratulated the government for the titanic work that it is doing, but they did not fail to make recommendations concerning the distribution of initiatives throughout the national territory, the need to also have around of the various projects in the sector of initiatives to reinforce learning. The ministerial authority says he has reassured the deputies with regard to all these concerns on which the government is already working.

Tangible achievements

The achievements of 2020 at the level of the Ministry of Digital and Digitalization are numerous. These include, among other things, the extension of high and very high speed connectivity infrastructures on the national territory; the development of digital uses and skills; the commissioning of digital terrestrial television (DTT); the continued digitization of administrative procedures, and the digital transformation of public administration; the promotion of the digital transformation of companies and the promotion of open government through the use of digital tools; without forgetting the strengthening of digital security.

Better still, in 2020 the Ministry continued the construction of Community Digital Points (Pnc) to allow the populations of the municipalities crossed by the optical fiber to benefit from this infrastructure; the construction of new multimedia rooms in training places: about thirty digital rooms are operational today at all levels of education. Also, the ministry has contributed to the implementation of the e-learning platform which has enabled public universities to ensure the continuity of courses and to validate the 2019-2020 academic year in the context of the crisis. health of Covid-19; the setting up of the Benin Education and Research Network (Rber) which in its first phase covers ten university sites and public research centers in Benin. One of the flagship actions of the year 2020 is the launch of the National Public Services Portal "service-public.bj" which provides access to information on more than 370 public services online and to obtain more 70 state benefits without having to travel, and many more acquired.