Earlier this week (Oct. 19) in Cameroon, president Paul Biya ordered the deferment of the collection, by digital means, of custom duties and taxes on imported phones and other electronic devices. A new automated system for the collection had been scheduled to go operational on Oct. 15.

But the move sparked widespread outrage, especially online with the hashtag #EndPhoneTax, in a country where manifestation of dissent can easily spiral into violence. The pressure was enough to push the government to halt the tax collection system which would have undoubtedly shifted the burden of payment from the importer to the end user.

It is important to note the customs duties and taxes on phones, which stand at 33% of their factory price, as well as a 200 CFA francs (36 cents) tax on app download, have not been scrapped. The levies have merely been suspended over the lack of an appropriate collection mechanism. The Biya government remains keen on recapturing this tax revenue.  It says the government has been missing out on about $21.5 million annually to irregular customs clearance and phone smuggling.

It is not only in Cameroon where citizens have been pushing back at attempts to raise tax revecnue through one of the few successful and growing industry sectors on the continent.

Source: Quartz Africa

Cameroon’s President Paul Biya has requested the suspension of a new tax regime that would have compelled consumers to pay a levy equivalent to 33 percent of the cost of any imported phone or tablet purchased from mid-October as import duty. Citing the official statement, Investir au Cameroun reports that the President’s decision will force the government to rethink the method of collection of the new tax, which was supposed to rely on a new online platform developed by data management firm Arintech.

Introduced by the 2019 finance bill, the duty would have reportedly been collected by the country’s mobile operators via deductions from consumers’ call credit, using IMEI numbers to identify taxable devices.

The country’s association of mobile operators (AOTMC) had urged a rethink of this process, highlighting a number of technical problems with Arintech’s new online platform. It is proposing an alternative method of collection that would, among its other benefits, better inform and protect consumers.

According to Investir au Cameroun, the 2019 finance bill also stipulates an additional measure to increase tax receipts from imported products, consisting of a fixed duty of XAF 200 (approximately EUR 0.30) for taxable mobile applications once downloaded onto a consumer device.

Source: Telecompaper

MTN Cameroon has entered into a two-year partnership agreement with the country’s National Employment Fund (NEF) to source and employ local human resources for its operations.

The partnership seeks to scale up employment as well as improve the quality of human resources in the country. It will be implemented through NEF’s three core programmes: Employment Program for Graduate Citizens, Youth Employment Retirement Programme and Support Programme for the Return of Cameroonian Immigrants.

Between 2019 and 2020, the telecommunications operator trained 200 trainees and job seekers over a period of three to six months as part of a youth internship programme.

The NEF’s main responsibility will be to regularly provide MTN Cameroon with its database of job seekers which the telco will consider for its recruitment operations.

“For our future recruitments, the database of job seekers of the National Employment Fund will be made available to MTN Cameroon and the National Employment Fund will accompany us in the shortlisting and selection of the most relevant local profiles… All these services will be provided free of charge,” said MTN Cameroon CEO Stephen Blewett.

He added that the company remains eager to make use of local talent and will continue to offer employees “a pleasant work environment where they can develop and grow while providing customers with products and services”.

“Our belief is that, we can continue to provide Cameroonians with quality products and services, thanks to the expertise of local talent,” Blewett noted, adding that it is MTN’s own contribution to fast-track the development of Cameroon’s digital economy ecosystem.

The agreement was signed by Blewett and Camille Mouté à Bidias, General Manager of the NEF in the economic capital Douala on 8 October.

Source: ITWEB.Africa

With about half a million young women and a quarter of a million young men according to research, armed with the capacity to grow food, make goods, and provide services to others in Cameroon, several challenges pose as factors responsible for impeding the impact of their activities.

A study shows, these factors comprise of unemployment, poverty and underemployment, despite agriculture being a major source of labour and accounting for almost three-quarters (70%) of Cameroon’s workforce, (International Labour Office (ILO), 2014). A recent study carried out by Djomo Raoul under the IFAD funded IITA-CARE project, explored the contributions of young female grain farmers in rural Cameroon to the local economy.

While Cameroon’s agribusiness practice operates in a market economy way. Findings from the study, show that young female maize farmer-marketers pay more for farm labour than their male counterparts. An indication of their impact on the rural economy, unlike their rice farmer-marketers who, pay less than their male counterparts for labour, and a larger share of the women market their rice for higher prices than their male counterparts.

Although the female maize farmers pay more for labour, which is better for the local economy, it also means lower returns for them, unlike the male maize farmers who also have access to a credit facility. According to the study, when farm labour is paid a living wage, more of non-farm labour can also earn a living wage, as earnings are spent and earned and otherwise cycled through the local economy.

Where farm labour goes unpaid, fewer people can afford to purchase goods and services from others, so less money cycles through the local economy. Thus, those who pay for farm labour contribute more to their local rural economy than those who do not.

According to Djomo Raoul, in cases where farm labour goes unpaid, fewer people can afford to purchase goods and services from others, so less money circulates through the local economy. Making farmers who pay for labour, contributors to the local economy in the Far North Region, North Region and the West Region parts of Cameroon where the study was carried out, than those who do not.

The study also showed maize and rice production, and marketing in Northern and Western Cameroon contributing to higher standards of living among locals, raising local food security and promoting development in rural communities, where nearly half the population lives.

Findings from the study, reveal that the challenge of rural un- and underemployment, especially among young women, can be solved in part if more young Cameroonians choose agribusiness entrepreneurship. Young women can also be as productive, and successful as young men, especially at producing and marketing grains like maize and rice, if policymakers can establish enabling environments through gender-positive policies.

Source: Modern Ghana

The 9th edition of the Cameroon government exhibition forum dubbed “Sago” kicked off in the capital city Yaoundé on Tuesday to promote public actions towards development and stimulate citizens’ participation in public affairs.

The fair saw the participation of all government structures and partners and a large number of companies, according to Emmanuel Rene Sadi, minister of communication and government spokesman who officially opened the fair.

“Sago’s objective is to let people know about what the government is doing and to also let our fellow citizens know exactly what we, the government, offer opportunities of investment,” Sadi told reporters at the start of the fair.

“There are so many things that we are doing in this country, which are not known by fellow citizens. An initiative like this needs to be sustained,” he added.

During the week-long event, different ministerial departments will organise conferences where they explain their actions to the public.

The fair, taking place in strict respect of COVID-19 barrier measures, will enable development partners to understand the real needs of the population in order to redirect their support, Sadi said.

Source: Xinhaunet

Cameroon will build a $3 billion hydro-power plant as part of an ambitious plan to make the central African nation an exporter of electricity by 2035.

The 810-megawatt Grand Eweng project on the Sanaga River, a joint venture between the government and the U.S.-based energy company Hydromine Inc., is the fifth hydro-project on the river.

The new installation will start generating power by 2028 and capacity will increase to over 1 gigawatt several years after that, according to Lucas Briger, vice president of development and operations at the New York-based project developer.

“The Grand Eweng was initially intended to supply the aluminum sector,” Briger said in an interview. Rising demand in the nation of 25 million people has since positioned the project to supply the general public.

Cameroon, which currently has about 1.5 gigawatts of installed power, could see demand grow to 3 gigawatts by 2035, according to its Energy Ministry.

President Paul Biya’s government has pledged to generate 25% of its electricity from renewable sources by 2035, with a plan to export power to neighbors such as Chad, the Central African Republic and Nigeria. Small hydro- and solar-power sources accounted for just 4.5% of Cameroon’s installed capacity in 2019, according to BloombergNEF data.

A draft law meant to draw investment to the renewable energy sector is still being worked on, said Valerie Nkue, a director at the Energy Ministry.

The company plans to announce equity co-shareholders by the end of the year, Briger said, with the expectation the project would be financed 20-25% from equity and as much as 80% from debt.

Single Offtaker

While the government of Cameroon hasn’t so far committed to invest, the monopoly utility ENEO will be the sole buyer of the power. The additional output will likely be sold to companies like Alucam, an aluminum smelter that has lacked electricity to meet its production capacity of 100,000 tons a year. A World Bank-supported interconnection project, once completed, will also allow Cameroon to sell energy to Chad, which has one of the lowest electrification rates in the world.

The Grand Eweng dam would follow the 420-megawatt Nachtigal project, which also harnesses the Sanaga River, and to which the Bank provided $784.5 million of financing in 2018.

“The Nachtigal project provides a template on how financially a project can be developed in a way that acceptable to all parties involved,” said Briger.

Hydro-power has been a cheap, reliable source of renewable energy around the world for decades but the large-scale infrastructure projects have come under fire for the environmental damage they cause to rivers and the ecosystems they support.

The Sanaga River basin “is an important source of life for Cameroon’s flora and fauna,” said Sakah Mathias, the managing director of Sanys Global Consulting, a Yaounde-based consultancy that does sustainability studies. “The construction of five dams along the river is a serious threat,” he said.

Briger said the project complies with international and Cameroon environmental standards.

The plant could allow the country to “fully eliminate its polluting thermal power capacity,” he said.

Source:  Bloomberg.com

Short of viable planes, Camair-Co is under some form of CPDM pressure after ministers’ road accident in the Far North Region of French Cameroun.

The three French Cameroun members of government were forced to travel by road for want of available Camair-Co aircraft and ended up in a river. The accident puts the national carrier’s management in a bind, reported Africa Intelligence.

Yaounde says the economies of its troubled English-speaking western regions are collapsing as a result of the country’s four-year separatist conflict.  Officials say the ongoing fighting has made tax revenues in the English-speaking Northwest region drop from $800,000 annually to just $1,000 last year. The lack of government funds has had devastating effects on the region. 

Fotso Dominique, the most senior government economic official in the English-speaking Northwest region, says separatist fighters have succeeded in chasing customs and tax officials from almost all crossing points along the border with Nigeria.

Speaking on Cameroon state television, Dominique said there has been a 90% drop in imports of building materials, drugs, vehicles, electronics and basic commodities from Nigeria.  This, he says, while civilians have been deprived of basic supplies and state coffers left with huge shortfalls.

“Before 2016, the customs duty collection was more than 200 million Francs [$ 363,000] in Donga Mantung and about 150 million [$ 273,000] from Menchum Division giving us a total of about 305 million [$552,000] per annum. As we talk, Donga Mantung last year collected less than 500,000 [$ 900] and nothing was collected from the Menchum area,” he said.

Cameroon’s government this month reported that the country’s second largest employer — the Cameroon Development Corporation — had abandoned most of its banana, palm oil, and rubber plantations.  It owes as much as a year’s worth of backpay to 6,000 of its 22,000 workers.

The Palm Oil Company PAMOL and other agro industrial companies say they are now heavily in debt.

Microfinance institutions that power the economies of Cameroon’s English-speaking regions say they are unable to recover $50 million in loans. 

Merchants have either escaped to safer areas in the French-speaking regions or can not repay loans because their businesses are closed due to the fighting.

The separatists have said on social media that their intention is to ruin Cameroon government state coffers. Fighters say they want to make the English-speaking regions ungovernable until they obtain their independence. 

Residents and businesspeople say anyone who disobeys the fighters’ calls for a lockdown or is seen paying taxes is subject to retribution. 

Businessman Protus Awnaga says he almost lost his life for disobeying instructions from fighters not to go on a business trip on the week a lockdown was imposed.

“That is the most awful moment I have ever had in my life. Face to face with gunmen like this. And they ordered us out of the car. We saw our things being burnt, but we were even thankful to God because they should have burnt us with the car. It is terrible. It is deplorable,” he said.

Economist Tasoh Gerald says the consequences of the crisis weighs on the government but it is civilians who are caught in the fighting who suffer most. They include people whose businesses were either torched by separatists for disobeying their instructions to not pay taxes or those whose property was burnt by the military, which accused them of supporting the fighters.

“It has discouraged investments in this region. A fall in investments implies a rise in unemployment and a general fall in the standards of living. Also, most of the councils in these regions find it difficult to settle their debts and pay their workers,” he said. “Another consequence is the near collapse of the tourism sector. Most of the recreational areas and tourist sites are abandoned. Most of those in the working age group have migrated to other regions leaving behind the old and the young in the villages. This high migration implies less farm labor and consequently a fall in agricultural productivity in these regions.” 

The suffering has not deterred neither the government nor the fighters. Both have maintained their positions for the past four years. The separatists are asking for the creation of a breakaway English-speaking state while the government maintains that Cameroon cannot be divided. 

The United Nations says the conflict has killed more than three thousand people and displaced more than 500,000. Fifty thousand others are asylum seekers in neighboring Nigeria.

Source: VOA