Digital Week Cameroon: The NSIF at the forefront of digital transformation
The Director General of the National Social Insurance Fund (NSIF) gave a captivating presentation on the theme "Digital transformation: the case of the NSIF" on the 18th of October 2023 in Yaounde.
The NSIF attended the Digital Week Cameroon, a significant event on the digital revolution, which has been taking place since the 16th of October at the Hilton Hotel in Yaoundé. The event brings together key players and industry experts, entrepreneurs, and new technology enthusiasts to discuss digital trends and innovations. On the 18th of October, during the fourth session of the day on the critical role of collaboration between government institutions, communities, and businesses in their technological needs and the challenges they face through citizens, Noël Alain Olivier MEKULU MVONDO AKAME, Director General of the NSIF captivated the audience by presenting the progress made by the institution in the field of digital transformation.
This presentation was an opportunity to show the great efforts made by the NSIF to adapt to new technologies and the growing needs of clients. During his presentation, the Director General of the NSIF highlighted the different stages of digital transformation within the NSIF and gave an exhibition on the innovations achieved, such as the payment of pensions, the identification by QR Code, and facial recognition of the beneficiaries of social benefits via the Sapelli Aïna application. He pointed out that so far, the institution is 93% digitised and will increase to 100% in 2024. According to Noël Alain Olivier MEKULU MVONDO AKAME: “insured persons and employers can, to date, have the full panoply of the NSIF services online, without the need to move”. He added, “They can therefore pay their social contributions, collect their pensions and family allowances by bank transfer or mobile payment via Orange Money or MTN Mobile Money...”.
He also highlighted two key indicators of the organization. The first is digitization, which has made it possible to reduce the burden on our clients both in the number of parts to be inserted in their files and in the time taken to access our services. As regards the compilation of pension payment files, the NSIF has increased from 15 to 3 documents to facilitate access to services. Considering the NSIF reaction time, it has gone from 166 days to almost immediate payment of a pension to date. He stated, "When a pensioner comes at the NSIF with all these 3 documents, he has his/her pension immediately if the employer is up to date with the institution.” Moreover, digitalisation allows the reduction of operating loads. At the NSIF, for example, this process helped to raise operating spending in 2017 from 17.40 billion CFA francs to nearly 2.5 billion CFA francs.
The second element on which the DG shared the NSIF experience relates to the "cameroonisation" of the institution's system that contributed to the success of digitisation. “At the NSIF, we took the gamble of developing our applications ourselves. In fact, our engineers designed 80% of our applications in-house. It didn’t cost the budget anything, saving us billions,” he concluded.
The presentation of the institution’s Top Manager aroused a great deal of interest among the participants of this session of Digital Week Cameroon. During the question-and-answer session, they welcomed the NSIF initiatives, recognizing their positive impact on the Cameroonian economy and society.
Therefore, the NSIF plays a crucial role in the digital transformation of the country. Through its participation in Digital Week Cameroon, the NSIF demonstrated its leadership and commitment to innovation.
