Digital platforms in Cameroon highlight the ambivalent dynamics of promises of modernization alongside structural tensions characteristic of postcolonial societies. On the surface, platform infrastructures aim to digitize administrative processes, simplify interactions between citizens and the state and enhance transparency in public financial management. But these initiatives have also hailed the reconfiguration of power relations, social control mechanisms and technological dependencies. The Harmony project, led by Cameroon’s Directorate General of Taxation (Direction Générale des Impôts), represents an attempt by the state to address citizens’ widespread distrust of public institutions. This distrust, rooted in repeated policy failures and corruption scandals, is now being addressed through digital transformation initiatives such as the digitization of payments in the delivery of public services (healthcare, education, transportation, etc.) aimed at eliminating human abuses at service counters by automating tasks and financial flows.

However, behind the apparent ‘modernization’, the project relies on international infrastructures and support from the German KfW Development Bank, the Revenue Development Foundation and the European Union. This persisting dependence on foreign actors raises questions about technological sovereignty and the marginalization of local knowledge and expertise in developing critical infrastructures. While the Cameroonian state aspires to position Harmony as a vehicle of trust and efficiency, this external dependency also undermines its legitimacy by embedding fiscal reforms into global dynamics of economic and technical control. The platform, through tools such as the Unique Identification Number (Numéro d’Identification Unique; NIU), redefines administrative practices and reshapes the relationship between the state and citizens. By centralizing and digitizing information, Harmony enhances mechanisms of citizen surveillance and traceability, creating a digital governance system where access to public services increasingly relies on digital identification.

This transformation is not neutral. It, in fact, reproduces structural inequalities by requiring taxpayers and civil servants to acquire new digital capabilities, often perceived as additional constraints. Moreover, the digitization of services does not eliminate infrastructural malfunctions. Frequent breakdowns and the suboptimal usability of the Harmony platform reflect the limitations of digital transitions, which—far from simplifying interactions—often complicate procedures further. These challenges fuel a latent critique that digitization does not solve structural governance issues but shifts them to a virtual space where opacity and digital exclusion persist. Civil servants, who once wielded symbolic power at physical service counters, are now relegated to technical support roles in the virtual realm, a shift that may be perceived as professional downgrading. This reconfiguration of power spaces raises questions about the redistribution of responsibilities and the balance between human oversight and automation. Thus, while the Harmony platform presents itself as an infrastructure for modernization and anti-corruption, it also reflects deep tensions between technological sovereignty, international dependencies and the transformation of social relations. It raises questions around the feasibility of building true infrastructures of trust in a context where technocratic logic takes precedence over fundamental political and social considerations.