BY SIMON NDIVE KALLA
In line with the commemoration of the International Customs Day celebrated every January 26, the Director General of Customs organised an awareness sensitisation programme and sent delegation teams from the National Anti-Corruption Commission, CONAC, on Friday January 17, 2025 to South West Customs head quarter in Bota, Limbe, to drill actors in the Customs Clearance Chain to work in synergy to put an end to unethical practices.
In his intervention, Gilbert Christian Onana, the head of the CONAC team said the campaign is being carried out within the frame work of the International Anti-Corruption Day. He urged the Customs actors in the Clearance Chain to continue with the same spirit to mitigate corruption. He invited them to work in legal framework governing. Henceforth, disciplinary measures will be reactivated to sanction those who violate the law of Customs procedure.
Onana stressed on the fact that there is a toll-free number 8044 to report any forms of unethical practices for investigations. “It’s of utmost importance that each and every one of us gets awareness that Custom duties that the Government collects are used to build schools, hospitals and roads”, he said.
He sensitised them on measures that Customs administration has put in place so as to harmonise Customs procedures to make things easy for users.
Speaking at the awareness meeting, the South West Chief of Customs, Mongue Nyamsi Daniel, welcomed the team from CONAC and urged his collaborators to actively take part in the meeting and sensitise their peers of the Clearance Chain. He said the awareness meeting is very timely as they are gearing towards the commemoration of the event. Mongue Nyamsi said the campaign is being carried out within the frame work of the International World Customs Day.
On his part, Vicent Nkengfua, Senior Customs Inspector and head of the sensitisation campaign team in the fight against corruption said CONAC’s initiatives are taken to eradicate corruption and all similar offenses within administration areas.
He explained that Cameroon’s 2023 Anti-Corruption Status Report actually states that CONAC received several denunciations on practices such as: scam of goods transporters on the highways; abuse of office among others, illegal detention of packages; request for higher sums of money than those provided for by the regulations; illegal confiscation and arbitrary detention of goods, fraudulent sale of vehicles in port areas etc. “Such practices not only tarnish the image of the Directorate General of Customs among users, but they also compromise the efforts of public authorities for the development of our country”, Nkengfua said. He added that the financial loss incurred by the State of Cameroon in 2023 due to corruption is estimated at FCFA 114,035,922,502.
“The meeting is therefore an opportunity to put in place mechanisms to avoid the deviations observed in the Customs Sector”, he said.
Nkengfua furthered that, “Cameroon’s 2023 Anti-Corruption Status Report states that fifty-seven staff from the Directorate General of Customs received various sanctions ranging from warnings to suspension of pay, for acts of corruption and breaches of professional ethics.”