Gov’t loses over 577 billion FCFA to illegal gold export in five years.

The figures were made public by Ministry of Mines, Industry and Technological Development, MINMIDT. It is contained in a summary table of illegal gold exports between 2021 and 2025 published on the ministry’s official Facebook page last July 24, 2026.

The comparative table of official exports and those carried out through smuggling revealed a huge discrepancy between the volumes of gold and the estimated revenue. 

Going by the data, about 44.3 tonnes of gold were fraudulently exported abroad to the international market over the last five years, representing an estimated 2 trillion FCFA in revenue. 

Embarrassingly, data released by Customs and the National Mining Company, SONAMINES, show an official export of 147kg declared by Customs and 1.89 tonnes declared by both Customs and SONAMINES for the purposes of the single tax and export tax. This corresponds to cumulative tax losses estimated at 577.51 billion FCFA over the five-year period. 

The data equally showed rising contrast between amount of legal gold export declared by Customs and the total foreign export per year. The legal exports declared by customs took a steady fall from 73kg in 2021 to 47.9kg in 2022, 22.3kg in 2023, 3.8kg in 2024 and zero declared in 2025. 

It also showed that the difference in tonnage between total declaration in the country and total export found on the market took an increase before witnessing a drop. 

The ministry reveals a difference of 5.52 tonnes valued at 177.52 billion FCFA in 2021, 4.77 tonnes valued at 169.91 billion FCFA in 2022, 14.45 valued at 543.82 billion FCFA in 2023, 11.55 tonnes valued at 534.97 billion FCFA in 2024 and finally 8.01 tonnes valued at 514.96 billion FCFA in 2025.

In addition, the tax loss incurred over the period stood at 52.81 billion FCFA in 2021, 50.55 billion FCFA in 2022, 161.79 billion FCFA in 2023, 159.15 billion FCFA in 2024 and 153.2 billion FCFA in 2025. This gives 577.51 billion FCFA lost in revenue within the period. 

Meanwhile, the ministry observed that export tax collected of 36kg on a declared quantity of 720kg, bringing the total legal exports from Customs plus SONAMINES declarations to 742.3kg for 2023. 

In 2024, it observed that export tax collected 32kg on a declared quantity of 640.62kg, bringing the total legal exports through Customs and SONAMINES declarations to 644.42kg.

The statistics aligns with the 2023 report of the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative, EITI, which revealed a discrepancy between the amount of gold declared and the amount exported from Cameroon.

Gov’t to curb smuggling of gold

To tackle the smuggling of gold out of the country, government, during a press conference in Yaounde last July 15, announced the introduction of measures aimed addressing the discrepancies in the gold mining subsector. 

Government announced the launching of tax and customs recovery operations geared towards recovering the sums owed to the State by the gold operators concerned who evaded taxes during the 2023 to 2025 financial years.

The domestic recovery, the mines minister said during the presser, will be conducted by a joint team of customs, taxation and SONAMINES agents as from August 1,2026. 

The joint team, he specified, will recover lost revenue in the form of taxes and duties resulting from under-declared amounts and failure to declare, leading to non-collection or insufficient collection from mining companies by SONAMINES in the past. 

This article was first published in The Guardian Post Edition No:3862 of Wednesday July 29, 2026