(Business in Cameroon) - Finance Minister Louis Paul Motazé (photo) announced, in a release issued on August 27, 2021, the launch of a new digital platform to facilitate the payment of tax and customs duties. Baptized System of Aggregation of Payment Methods of the State of Cameroon (SYAMPE), the new platform "allows Cameroonians access to their notices of assessment and customs declaration online. It offers taxpayers several national and international payment methods," Minister Motaze says.  

Apart from facilitating the tax and customs duties reporting and payment procedures, SYAMPE will constitute a database allowing effective monitoring of taxpayers’ activities. "(…) SYAMPE will help us centralize tax and non-tax earning information, monitor tax inflows as well as present real-time stats on taxpayers’  filing status," the Finance Minister stresses.

The launch of this new platform falls in line with a process initiated years ago to dematerialize and secure State revenues. For Cameroon, securing State tax and customs revenues, which have been on a rising trend for years now, has become a must given the drop in oil revenues caused by decreasing prices in international markets while the public expenditures have been rising due to large infrastructure projects and growing security spendings.

So, one of the measures taken to secure its revenues includes that issued in early 2021, forbidding cash settlement of any kind of tax and customs duties. They should be exclusively settled through mobile money wallets or via bank transfers. With SYAMPE, the government is adding additional payment means.

BRM