When politics & taxes clash over unregistered phones!.

Although the debts are just some 44 percent of Gross Domestic Product, GDP, well below the ceiling of the 70 percent set by the CEMAC zone, “weak liquidity, rising debt-service costs and domestic payment arrears” remain a hurdle. 

In such a dire financial situation and given that tax revenue typically funds over half of Cameroon's total national budget, every nook and cranny of the country is being combed to raise funds. 

One of the areas targeted is the importation of mobile phones and other telecommunications gadgets, where the government estimated some 25 billion FCFA has not been collected from 700,000 mobile phones in use up to March ending this year.

How will the taxes, levied at 33.33 percent, be collected from 700,000 users throughout the country? How does a user know the telephone he or she owns is smuggled?

Should sellers of such phones not be those to go after, rather than members of the public, who are not capable to identify a mobile phone in numerous shops across the country?

The customs administration passed the bulk to the owners of the 700,000 unregistered phone owners and tasked them to regularise their situation or be blocked from the end of May 25, 2026.

On the surface, it was a simple administrative requirement for owners to comply, given the importance of activities they use phones to perform. 

But beneath was where social, political and legal schisms that the ruling class did not consider before rushing the decision.

On a second thought, given the public’s criticism, the Director General of the Telecommunications Regulatory Board, ART, Prof. Philemon Zoo Zame, convened a fire brigade meeting at which the obstacles that no one had truly anticipated were put on the table.

It emerged from the meeting that no government service has the technical ability to implement the blockage, citing a lack of software, infrastructure upgrades and budget to undertake the service.

Only private companies like MTN Cameroon and Orange Cameroun, on the other hand, possess the necessary technical capabilities.

However, both companies have refused to act without the protection of a clear legal framework.

They are citing the risk of possible litigation by their subscribers for infringements on their right to communication and commercial repercussions.

And above all: if 700,000 subscribers were to lose their network overnight, in this Android generation, where smartphones are business, social and educational tools for payment and access to services, it could be an invitation for social chaos.

That is why the planned mass blocking of undeclared mobile phones, scheduled for May 25, 2026, was put in the cooler. 

But did the government forget so soon that an identical attempt failed in 2020, amid a wave of national outrage?   

Article 6 of the 2023 Finance Law, revived the idea to go out for smuggled phones. Three years later, the recommendation is the same: suspension. The fundamental problem of collecting revenue from all telephone imports remains.

The government wants to exercise digital tax control over millions of devices and nobody should grind an axe over that. 

But how does it have to entirely dependent on private operators to implement its decision, without first resolving the tricky issues of legal liability or modernise its own public infrastructure to carry out such implementation?

At a time the digital economy has become an engine that leapfrogs traditional development barriers, reduces poverty, drives job creation for a young demographic and integrates local businesses into global value chains, is a 33.3 percent tax on a telephone not too heavy? In neighbouring Gabon, for example, it is 10 percent!

Smuggling of telephones is nurtured by corruption. According to the 2024 report on the fight against corruption, issued by the National Anti-Corruption Commission, CONAC, Cameroon lost 114.03 billion FCFA to corruption. It is an ongoing vicious trend, which extends to all sectors, including importation of phones.

The government has obviously just suspended the blockage of unregistered phones. It has failed to hold individuals liable for tax default in the domain. There is no question that it needs the taxes, but it should not create more problems in an attempt to settle one.

Given the political and social risks involved in tackling individuals whose duty is not to verify the import situation of phones, and the government’s quest to collect taxes, customs, officials of the Ministry of Trade, known to raid markets for goods that do not conform with legal requirements, should rather reinforce control at points of entry into the country and in shops where the phones are sold.

In two attempts, the government has failed to compel individuals to pay taxes on smuggled phones bought from shops. 

A third attempt would still just ridicule Yaounde, given the political and social ramification to provoke spontaneous protests.

This article was first published in The Guardian Post Edition No:3804 of Monday June 01, 2026