(Business in Cameroon) - On December 30, 2020, the Minister of Finance Louis Paul Motaze signed a circular detailing measures for the implementation of the 2021 finance law. One of the main measures contained in the circular concerned the securitization of public revenue collection.

In that regard, the circular prescribes that tax and duties should be paid in cash but via bank transfers and the electronic payment methods available in the taxation system. It also prescribes the “generalization of tax management computerization in divisional tax centers.”

It then set digital payments as the compulsory tax and duties payment means for large companies falling under the large businesses tax center.

The circular exceptionally authorizes the payment of taxes and duties in cash only at bank counters instead of to tax employees, who have often been involved in cases of public fund misappropriation.

Moreover, the circular also introduces electronic notification and receipts, therefore suppressing manual receipts that favor “various frauds.”  In 2017, the Minister of Finance had to sanction no less than 137 employees of his administration. They were mainly accused of issuing fake receipts and misappropriating revenues generated. The agents (generally deployed in government revenue collection centers) used to forge documents attesting that the revenues collected had been paid into government coffers, even though there were no traces of these funds in the Treasury's books.

"The methods of implementation of this reform will be defined by a specific text from the Minister of Finance," the circular states.

Sylvain Andzongo