(Business in Cameroon) - In Cameroon, the end-of-year celebrations are mostly associated with the highest peak of consumption of chicken meat. During this period, local poultry farmers, in collaboration with public authorities, organize special markets where chicken unit is sold at a promotional price of 2,500 FCFA.

This year however, some suspicious business owners have decided to cut the benefits of local poultry farmers for the upcoming celebrations, by fraudulently importing chicken parts despite that these imports have been prohibited since 2006 in order to sustain local production which at the time was crippled by massive imports.

Kyé-Ossi in the South at the border of Equatorial Guinea and Gabon (two countries where frozen poultry is still a norm) seems to be the gateway to these imports. According to Cameroon’s Poultry Inter-profession, between April and November 2015, 25 tons of imported chicken parts were seized by agents from the Fraud repression department of Ministry of commerce and from the Cameroonian police.