Bruno Nabagné Kone: Overview of 2014 and Plans for 2015

Interview with Bruno Nabagné Kone, Minister of Post and ICT of Côte d’Ivoire and Government Spokesman

We would like you to give a brief summary of 2014. What did you focus on? What have you achieved?

I would say that 2014 was the year where the National Plan allowed us to consolidate the achievements we foresaw in 2011 and 2012. 2011 was the year of implementation. 2012 allowed us to start up the majority of the State’s projects. Notably, the project to address the loss of reconciliation for which there was dialogue with the opposition as well as practical projects that involved establishing infrastructure in 2014. This meant we were able to start having profits in all these project areas. 2014 was really the year where there was a loss of security, however it was completely re-established across the entire country. Beforehand, we had virtually no experience of such an incident where there had been a loss of security. In 2014 we pursued a request for dialogue with the opposing parties that allowed us to have a more settled environment.

In 2014 we started to deliver to the population, with the first achievements notably being the motorway in the north, the Henri Konan Bedié Bridge, the Bouaflé Bridge. Other projects are still on-going, notably the Jacqueville bridge, the Grand Bassam motorway, so you can see we are still at the construction stage but we are a country which, in 2014, showed it was capable of rising from the difficulties it faced. 2014 was also the year when Côte d’Ivoire became amongst the top ten of the most reformist countries in the world. Within this framework there are many laws, measures and rules that were implemented in 2014 so we featured as one of the most reformist countries in the world.

So in which framework?

There are five orders that are put in place each year by the Bretton Woods institutions that allowed Côte d’Ivoire to be amongst the most reformist countries in the world. 2014 also saw the confirmation of significantly high growth rates that we had already seen in 2012 and 2013, with a growth rate of about 10%. At the beginning of 2014, the plan was to distribute the wealth, to put in place things based on the promises made by Alassane Ouattara, the Head of State, in such a way that more and more of the Ivorian population could benefit from the results and profits of the growth generated by the National Plan. Therefore, the whole government works to that end.

Where are we at now in 2015? It’s a special year as it’s the year of the elections but before these elections the year will involve lots of work. What are your main priorities for this year?

The main priorities are to organise the elections without incident. It will practically be the first time in Côte d’Ivoire since reaching independence. Since 1990 when we experienced the first open democratic elections, there has systematically been incidents, especially during the presidential elections. Therefore, it’s the government wish to make 2015 an exception; that we may organize open, transparent and peaceful elections that will allow us to re-elect president Ouattara in order to continue the work which was started four years ago now. Also, the priority of 2015 will be to continue working on security as it’s a project on which we must never relent, given that it is imposed to us by the situation of impoverishment onslaught by the previous crisis, which Côte d’Ivoire experienced. Up to 48% of our population was classed as poor. Evidently in such a context, many of the acts that were passed did not allow the rest of the population to live and work in complete security. We are aware of this and the plan will continue with the disarmament, immobilisation and reassertion of former combatants.

With regards to the economy, we are going to continue on the work that we started over two years ago, and ensure that our country continues to attract foreign investments and that we have the best possible business environment. Every week we see investors knocking at our door who come and establish themselves, thus creating new jobs, work throughout the country is becoming a reality, projects are created, and we are inclined to think that this will continue in 2015. Many projects are being restarted: new highways, notably the Grand Bassam highway where work will continue, the Jacqueville bridge will be inaugurated in the next weeks, work on the 4th bridge in Abidjan will start, and maybe even a 5th bridge. We will pursue working on the highway to the north from Yamoussoukro to Bouaké, etc. Other highways are planned throughout the country, notably the roadway Boundiali-Tengrela, others routes in the west, etc. Work on the universities of Man, Bondoukou and San Pedro will be built. There are numerous plans all of which are a priority. Similarly, we are going to continue working on the health system especially in rural areas, to give the population access to neighbourhood healthcare centres. Also, we want to allow the more deprived areas to have educational establishments – primary schools, secondary schools, etc., and to ensure that the population has access to drinking water as well as ensure that all villages with more than 500 inhabitants have access to electricity, as part of the Head of State’s ambitions. So, we are going to continue this gargantuan task with the Ivorian population’s interest at heart. The projects are numerous, and they are all of the highest priority.

Despite the good results obtained over the last 3 years, with a growth of 10% and an infrastructure that has restored Côte d’Ivoire once again- the region is not seen in a good light, not just in the United States but elsewhere. We see neighbouring countries with Ebola and terrorism. You’re on the inside and you know what it’s like. What have you got to say about this?

It’s a real difficulty that has to be faced, however, satisfaction comes from the fact that the whole of Africa is experiencing economic growth. For 3 years in a row, there has been nearly 5% growth in Africa and 6-7% growth in our West African region. This shows work has been done, investments have been made, there has been a production of wealth and we equally hope that after that there will be wealth redistribution. It’s true that it’s a challenge that we previously tried to control. This challenge is essentially security related. Unfortunately everyone knows about the fight against terrorism in our region. Côte d’Ivoire wasn’t directly affected but obviously it is an important country within the sub-region. Nigeria is one of the countries we are worried about; particularly our Head of State is greatly involved in attempts and search for solutions for a sub-regional plan. There are lots of meetings and discussions in place. There is even a multi-country commitment to fight against terrorism. We are sure this will put all of the sub-regions at an acceptable level security.

The question of Ebola will certainly know better news in 2015. And since all the indicators are positive, we see that there was a strong threat, and that alarmist theories from three or four months ago didn’t luckily happen, and today we do not see the 100,000 cases of sick people as was predicted. On the contrary, we have had fewer and fewer new cases of contamination so everything indicates that within the next few months the illness will be completely eradicated. It’s true that these issues present real difficulties for our country and we must confront them. If we hadn’t had these difficulties our economic growth would have been even bigger. I think it’s how you view things, I view it as the glass is half full not half empty and it’s true that there are real potential opportunities in this West African region and in other regions of our continent. Despite all of the curses that you described, there is still a way to create wealth and to ensure the population lives in better conditions.

There is the other aspect that Côte d’Ivoire has benefited from a very strong economic growth and this growth has a certain political viewpoint with respect to developing infrastructure – it is normally the public sector. It has struggled moving into the private sector. Businesses seem to be growing in the same way and at the same rate. This completely changes the population and private businesses. How do you think the government can achieve this?

I think you’re wrong in asserting that the majority of the growth is done by the government. An important portion of it is achieved by the government, but next to infrastructures, there is the private sector that is strongly developing. Côte d’Ivoire continues to produce even more cacao, and that points to the private sector. Côte d’Ivoire very honourably continues to rank high on cotton production. We are the third largest African producer. We barely reached 100,000 tonnes during the crisis and today we are at 450,000 tonnes of cotton, so we are on track for quickly recovering the position of being the main African producer for years to come. Palm oil production continues to be significant in Côte d’Ivoire. We are first in Africa and second in the world. There are a lot of producers experiencing a high growth. Fruit and vegetable production and so on are on the increase. So there is the private sector mixed with the output from factories and industry. We have industrial areas and in the New Year we are going to build a new industrial zone roughly 30km from Abidjan to meet the significant demand for industrial land. All this indicates there’s a real economy that is in the process of being put in place. An economy comes from private initiatives that accompany the achievements made by the State in every area.

In terms of telecommunications, tell us about your Ministry. Are there lots of plans, what is the current strategy towards operators? Are you going to regroup and re-focus your operators? What’s your strategy?

To answer your question precisely, our strategy is to develop the Internet and to ensure that telecommunications contribute to wealth creation in Côte d’Ivoire. Therefore, it is essential that the population have easy access to the Internet. That’s why we’re working on the infrastructure and on access to equipment. We’re working on content and training all people who are going to assist us technically during this process and we are also working on the regulatory environment.

In Abidjan, we have focused on the state’s e-governance project, with an ambition to start this year the portal for all administrative procedures, at first informational, then secondly provide e-services that will allow interaction with the citizens. Those also allow us to provide electronic ways to request birth certificates, copies of diplomas, etc.

With regards to the mobile phone sector, it should be known that up until now we have had seven operators. Out of the seven we consider that 3 work relatively well and that 4 have major difficulties. The 4 with major difficulties pose problems of coordination within the sector and as those 4 experience major difficulties, they struggle to pay their licence fees and they struggle to pay the interconnection fees. Each time they send calls to the other operators, they have difficulties. They owe taxes to the Ivorian State, exhausting the requirements and specifications that impose a certain number of obligations that they don’t always conform to.

Therefore, today 4 operators occupy roughly 50% of the spectrum in relation to about 5% of the market. Therefore, this poses a real technical problem that means unfortunately the 3 main ones who occupy 80% of the market are saturated. So we have an obligation, on these terms, to find a solution to implement and reduce the Ivorian mobile telephone market to 4 operators or even 3. The 3 operators will be the ones who currently fully respect the obligations and the 4th one could be an union made up of the 4 remaining operators which are experiencing great difficulties. In the hypothesis that we’re not able to implement this plan, we’ll return to a 3-operator market with the possibility of making a 4th licence available at a given time.

Can you do it in a different way? Or is it good if the business market is open to other operators?

This is clearly a mistake. You can see just by looking around you. Fewer countries have seven operators including countries that have higher penetration rates or more subscribers than Côte d’Ivoire. France has 500 million mobile phone subscribers and it has just been two years since a 4th operator has been authorised. So in a market like ours where there are more mobile phone subscribers and fewer operators, there’s no reason why we should have seven operators.

What are the big projects and procedures? The overview showed that the telecoms sector benefited in general in 2014.

The results from our point of view are satisfactory. We have continued to grow our mobile telephone sector, we are at 21 million today and we have strongly improved the quality of service – it was one of the weaknesses at the beginning of 2014. We have continued with all the infrastructure projects, notably the National Network of Fibre Optics which is still being built. We have launched the CDMA network as a priority to allow administration to connect. So there are remote areas that aren’t open to classic networks. Today we want to work with more comfort and efficiency – we’re continuing to help administration staff connect in areas that today aren’t covered by the classic networks. So for us this is real satisfaction.

In Abidjan, we have focused on the state’s e-governance project, with an ambition to start this year the portal for all administrative procedures, at first informational, then secondly provide e-services that will allow interaction with the citizens. Those also allow us to provide electronic ways to request birth certificates, copies of diplomas, etc. We’re making progress on all those questions, and 2015 will allow us to show real and practical results on all those projects, with the main objectives being, contributing to value creation, improving the citizens life conditions et more efficiency in the government’s work. For us, that’s a real satisfaction.

What would you say to any foreign investor interested in the economic growth of Côte d’Ivoire?

We can say that currently Côte d’Ivoire has rich potential. Côte d’Ivoire is one of the first producers of cacao in the world (40% of world production), it is currently the first African producer of palm oil, main African producer of natural rubber in the world, first African producer of mahogany, first African exporter of fruit and so on. Côte d’Ivoire is also year over year increasing in mining productions; it’s 18 tons of gold production in 2014, iron in abundance in the west of the country; manganese, etc.

Therefore, it’s a country with great potential that still remains to be exploited. Obviously Côte d’Ivoire appeals as a place to exploit all of these potential things under the best conditions possible. It’s a young country whereby 73% of the population is under 35 years. So it is a country with a great future. The youth are increasingly receiving better training, and today Côte d’Ivoire has a responsible political power which has vision, a Head of State which has real experience as he managed international affairs before taking up his role. He was the IMF Director for several years and as such knows what it takes to manage a country. There is also a ministerial team that is committed and motivated to create an environment that is favourable for investment and the development of the country. We call on anyone who wants to assist us, and especially those who want to invest and earn money, to come and invest, because there is a lot of potential for that here.