(Business in Cameroon) - The Cameroonian Minister of Finance, Alamine Ousmane Mey, has just officially commissioned at the Douala Port, in the economic capital of the country, two new scanners for import-export goods inspection.

The arrival of the equipment should, starting from this year, help in increasing the collection of customs duties revenues, which are forecast to drop due to the Economic Partnership Agreements (EPA) coming into force between Cameroon and the countries in the European Union, on 4 August.

This increase in duties revenues planned by the Ministry of Finance is even more possible as the new scanners, we learned, will first be used to implement systematic container inspections, as opposed to the random or targeted scanning done with the old equipment.

Finally, with their specifications, the scanners which have just been commissioned at the Douala Port can thoroughly scan containers, with no possibility to cheat on the type of goods. “Now, we can see everything. Importers will not be able to declare water bottles instead of wines as was seen in the past”, a Customs officer explained.

Nevertheless, some economic operators already fear that this new equipment, part of the supply chain in the Douala Port, would further extend the time spent by the goods in this port. This despite the assurances from the public authorities, who claim these scanners have a working capacity of 150 containers per hour.

BRM