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Cameroon's eVisa portal plagued by glitches

By , Freelance Investigative Journalist
Cameroon , 05 Sep 2023
Cameroon's eVisa portal is beset by errors.
Cameroon's eVisa portal is beset by errors.

Cameroon's eVisa system, which went live on April 30, has proven technically flawed and inaccessible from a number of countries, frustrating users who want to travel.

Felix Mbayu, Minister Delegate for External Relations, recently confirmed the outage but did not elaborate. He simply mentioned "some disturbances in accessing the eVisa platform in some countries."

Mbayu stated that competent service providers had been notified and were doing extensive investigations to determine potential difficulties.

The government claims that facilitating access to Cameroon is a primary priority, which is why the online visa portal was established.

According to foreign affairs officials, the portal processed 12,719 regular visa applications in its first month of operation. However, a few weeks after its launch, numerous applicants experienced system difficulties.

The complaints ranged from error messages, inability to make online payments, receipts generated without bar codes, to credit cards being debited many times without the matching service being given.

Impact Palmarès R&D SAS, an Ivorian security and biometric solutions firm that is Cameroon's technical partner on the eVisa project, did not immediately reply to comments on the glitches.

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