Custom authorities examine new measures of commercial control

By Rachel Ntube Rachel Ngwese in Y’de

It has been a very busy week in Yaoundé for custom authorities of the sub region who for five days have been concerting with the assistance of the international custom community to examine new measures of commercial control in a bid to ensure the respect of custom regulations, facilitate trade and securitize the collect of government revenue. The workshop comes at a time when the custom administration within the sub region is facing several challenges resulting from the increasing level of global exchange and the multiplication of regulatory instruments resulting from cooperation accords and free trade agreements with other countries. Especially, the recent signing of the economic partnership agreement by the Cameroon government will only make things worse for the custom units if adequate measures are not put in place to reinforce their capacities and ensure favorable commercial conditions for all trade partners within the sub region. For this reason, the foreign experts from the United States, Indian and Japan at the workshop came with several instruments and strategies to help custom administrations ameliorate the quality of its service delivery and improve upon the collect of government revenue.

                This involve principally to acquaint the authorities of the sub region with the new control system put in place by the world customs organization known as the follow up control system considered as a structured examination mechanism of pertinent commercial systems of enterprises to ensure an effective control of trade activities. According to this new system, a maximum of 20 percent of goods is required to be controlled physically at frontiers, ports and airports and the rest of the control to be done in aposteriori by audit units. According to the Cameroon customs director general Edwin FongodNuvaga this new system of control remains an indispensible instrument to follow up commercial activities of enterprises, ensure legitimate trade and the effective collection of government revenue.