1, November 2020
CPDM Crime Syndicate: Biya’s strange and short-lived phone tax law 0
In October, the government of Cameroon announced a strange new tax as part of its 2019 finance law. The new law states that Customs clearance fees must be paid for mobile phones and tablets shipped into the country, that this clearance fee is 33% of the cost of whatever phone or tablet shipped into the country.
While import duties are standard fare all over the world, Cameroon’s phone tax differs in two interesting ways. The first and most important distinction is that it allows phone dealers to pass the import duty to the person who buys the device.
The second is that in order to collect the clearance fee, your mobile network provider is authorized to make deductions from your airtime account.
While the new tax appeared strange and unreasonable to Cameroonians and foreign observers, the country’s ministers thought it was innovative.
According to a joint statement of ministers on September 29, “apart from being a means of ensuring a more secure Customs revenue collection process, this innovative method of customs clearance payment is also aimed at enhancing the security of mobile communications in Cameroon.”
The mechanics of Cameroon’s phone tax
The specifics of the new law shows that whenever anyone buys a phone in Cameroon and connects to any network, the network determines if that is the phone’s first ever connection. It does this by detecting the unique IMEI number of every phone.
If the network determines that no clearance fees were made for that particular device, the user of the device gets a message telling them the tax amount owed. You can choose to pay off the tax amount in full or in installments that will be deducted from your airtime.
Another part of the new regulation asks your mobile network to charge you a fee when you download apps. For every app you download, the network deducts a fee of 200 CFA Francs(36 cents).
Declining revenues from phone imports driving new taxes
Despite how absurd the new taxes are, the major reason behind it is the drop in revenue in customs revenue. According to one government communique, “less than 100 million CFA Francs are collected per month out of the approximately 2 billion collected in the 2000s.”
According to the government’s calculations, nearly 4 million telephones are imported into Cameroon per year. For them, that represents a potential of 13 billion FCFA in revenue per year.
By collecting less than 100 million CFA, the government says it is facing a shortfall of nearly 12 billion per year.
How do you solve a revenue shortfall this large? If you’re the Cameroonian government, the answer is to multiply revenues by 2500% within one year.
Unrealistic revenue projections and timelines like this explain the introduction and implementation, on October 15, of the phone tax.
Cameroonians ask government to #EndPhoneTax
When the phone tax went into law on October 15, Cameroonians pushed back. Using the hashtag, #EndPhoneTax, people took to Twitter to show their displeasure.
From October 14, several thousand tweets were posted with the hashtag and some point, #EndPhoneTax was on the list of trending topics on Twitter. Facebook wasn’t left out, as people also pushed back against a policy many considered to be wicked and ill thought out.
Interestingly, it coincided with protests in Nigeria, Congo as well as Namibia from issues ranging from police brutality to gender based violence.
All four countries used social media to press home their positions as well as help the international community understand what they want from their government.In Cameroon, the government has been forced to listen.
Cameroon suspends phone tax
On October 21, following days of online protests, the government of Cameroon said it will be suspending its unpopular phone tax. The country’s President, Paul Biya told Prime Minister Joseph Dion Ngute to suspend the tax and look into alternative ways of increasing customs revenue.
The President reportedly asked for a more comprehensive plan which he will review. But it is still worth noting that if the government remains wedded to the dream that it will raise customs revenue 2500% in one year, then more absurd policies will be introduced.
For now, Cameroonians will be secure in the knowledge that they have won this round and will be encouraged to push back against bad policies in the future.
Source: Techcabal.com
1, November 2020
Southern Cameroon Crisis: Italian Federation For Human Rights makes urgent appeal following the Kumba massacre 0
On October 24, masked armed men killed at least 7 innocent school children and left many wounded in their classrooms in Kumba, in the Anglophone region of Cameroon.
This astonishing crime is not the first in a region where there are concrete risks of a genocide, as the international community is apparently unwilling to take concrete measures. In February 2019, about 12 children and a pregnant woman were massacred in cold blood in Ngarbur.
The Cameroon government initially put the blame on the ‘separatists’ groups; only after pressure from the international community, it acknowledged that the killing had been done by government forces.
Regarding this recent case (the Kumba Massacre), the Cameroon government is accusing the leadership of the Ambazonian self-determination forces for the atrocities, notwithstanding the fact
that the Cameroon government has not provided any proofs and similar accusations in the recent past have always been proved to be fake.
The Ambazonian leadership claims the Kumba Massacre was done by Cameroon government militias. In this situation, trustable international investigations are necessary. We believe that actions should have been taken earlier by the international community to avoid such a heinous crime. As many innocent lives have already been lost, we should aim to putting a permanent end to the conflict.
It is certain that with the ruthlessness of the Cameroon government, the resolve of Southern Cameroons self-determination forces and the nonchalant behavior of the international community, the war will continue, and more massacres and atrocities will take place.
If we really don’t want this to happen again, we should consistently act to favor a peaceful solution. The Cameroon government had and has the primary responsibility to end this war it started. The so-called separatists would have no one to fight if Cameroon calls a ceasefire and accepts negotiations as the separatists have done.
The crisis in the Cameroons has been ongoing since 2016, when lawyers from Anglophone Cameroon were brutalized by government military and security operatives during a peaceful protest in Bamenda, Buea and other cities.
Southern Cameroons leaders in exile in Nigeria were abducted and illegally transferred to Cameroon and subjected to trial in military courts in a foreign language, against international law.
They are today serving life sentences, despite a Nigerian High Court judgement asking for their release. The ongoing conflict in Cameroon may amount to acts of genocide. Some experts already call it as genocide.
This claim should not be underestimated by the international community.
Mr Paul Biya, who has been in power as President of Cameroon since 1982, thanks to wide-scale fraud in elections, violent repression and imposed changes in the Constitution, declared war on the 30th of November 2017 on the people of former British Southern Cameroons.
While the government of Cameroon claims that the conflict in Cameroon is an internal matter, the leadership of Southern Cameroons is of the opinion that it is an international dispute.
We believe that a conflict between two countries that came together in 1961 under the auspices of the United Nations cannot be the internal affair of one of the countries.
We therefore believe that it is the responsibility of the international community to create a framework for both sides to be heard in order to put an end to the conflict between them.
Bringing the two sides to the negotiating table is necessary, but till now the efforts have all failed because Cameroon was and is still unwilling to commit to any genuine, internationally mediated dialogue.
We are suggesting that the international community should use any possible leverage to intervene in this conflict. The lives of people, including children, in the English-speaking part of Cameroon matter. Children have not been protected and have missed out of school for four years.
It is clear to us that Cameroon, which is a member of the Commonwealth of Nations, has violated all Commonwealth principles and disrespected Commonwealth of Nations values. The people of Southern Cameroons should be given a platform by the African Union, the European Union, and the United Nations to put forth their claims.
We would like to suggest some key points for an urgent commitment by the international community:
An investigation on all the atrocities that have taken place in Southern Cameroons since 2016 should be carried out by independent observers, which should include the African Bar Association and the African Forum for Restorative Justice;
Cameroon should immediately call a ceasefire and an end to the war it declared;
Economic, financial and other sanctions should be placed on Cameroon to force it to accept peaceful negotiations;
Travel restrictions should be imposed on certain Cameroonian state officials whose names are attached to this document;
The UN should send peacekeepers into the Southern Cameroons;
The people of the Southern Cameroons should be given the opportunity at the UN to present their claims;
The rights to self-determination of the people of Southern Cameroons should be respected and their will ascertained through a fair, UN-organized referendum. First signatories
First signatories
Prof. Antonio Stango, President of Italian Federation for Human Rights (FIDU)
Prof. DJ Omale, President of African Forum for Restorative Justice
Sergio D’Elia, Secretary-General of Hands Off Cain (International League of Parliamentarians and Citizens for the abolition of the death penalty worldwide)