(Business in Cameroon) - Economic operators in Cameroon can now heave a sigh of relief, and for a good reason. In separate notes addressed on December 17, 2019, to the Director-General of Taxes, the Director-General of Customs, the Inspector General of Administrative and Budgetary Services and his colleague of the financial policy, Cameroon’s Minister of Finance (Minfi) Louis Paul Motazé (photo), prescribes the “rationalization of interventions in companies under the control services of the Ministry of Finance.”
“I am regularly approached by the business community, which denounces the recurrence of interventions and overlapping controls of the department's services, a state of affairs that poses serious risks to the business climate and the productivity of companies,” the minister says in the correspondence.
Better still, Louis Paul Motaze immediately ordered the inspectors general in charge of the services of the financial policy and the administrative and budgetary services within his ministerial department to suspend all controls in progress within companies.
To the Director-General of Customs and Taxation, the Minister of Finance prescribes the implementation of joint controls on companies, in order to limit what often amounts to harassment of economic operators.
In case of difficulties for these administrations to organise joint controls, due to the particular nature of these controls or “legal constraints,” Louis Paul Motaze instructs the mutualisation of information with the other services of his ministerial department, “under the coordination of the Secretary-General (...), in order to prevent overlapping procedures.”
The decision taken on December 17, 2019, meets the aspirations of local economic operators. The latter had constantly complained about the multiplication and overlapping of due diligence by various specialized services of the Ministry of Finance. A situation that generally sets the stage for corruption.
BRM