The General Manager of State-run telecommunications firm Cameroon Telecommunications (CAMTEL), Judith Yah Sunday Achidi, has frowned at repeated vandalism that often disrupts the company’s network and also impacts service delivery from third party Mobile Network Operators (MNOs).
Addressing the company’s workers at a banquet to commemorate the 139 International Labour Day in Yaounde on Thursday, May 1, 2025, Judith Yah said the company, which she described as the country’s heritage, is under attack, urging workers to be on guard.
She cited nighttime shoveling of fiber optics, deliberate destruction of equipment as some acts of sabotage, which undermine the company’s integrity. These acts, she insinuated are sometimes perpetrated with the complicity “of some we had trusted”, Judith Yah said maintaining that the telco is not an open window to all kinds of looting.
“Every CAMTEL employee must become a monitoring agent, a human sensor, a living alarm,” the General Manager urged. “If you see [any act of vandalism or sabotage], you report. If you doubt, you investigate. If you hear, you report. Because Cameroon’s digital sovereignty begins with securing its telecom lines,” Judith Yah said.
When vandals sabotage CAMTEL’s infrastructure, Judith Yah said, it not only the company that suffers as service delivery is disrupted with significant national impact especially when it involves essential services like the internet and phone lines.
“Every cable torn down, every node sabotaged, is not just a cost: it’s an area disconnected, a school without internet, a paralyzed business…”, the CAMTEL General Manager said.
Honoring engagements with workers
Celebrated under the theme: “Social Dialogue and Decent Work: For a Peaceful Cameroon”, the General Manager said the 2025 Labour Day theme reflects CAMTEL’s approach – a company which she said talks to and gives a listening ear to its employees. “A company where the rights, duties and dignity of workers are consistently defended”, she said.
The GM said CAMTEL honored its commitments in the previous year – paying retirement benefits to the last franc, up to and including 2024. The company also reinitiated back pay for advancements “because respecting one’s work also requires recognising their career paths,” Judith Yah said.
CAMTEL is working on strengthening its staff and services with the hiring of 75 engineers, 25 satellite engineers to reconnect it to the skies, 25 integration engineers to harmonise its networks, and 25 developers to code the future of the company’s platforms and applications.
“These are not just recruitments. These are human capital investments in CAMTEL’s digital growth,” the GM said.
