Creation of the REP-FISCOD Network for the promotion of fiscal, financial and customs knowledge

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Are we facing the latest scene of plundering of the people? The issue of issuing the national identity card has turned into the umpteenth act of Cameroon’s economic and financial tragedy. Some even see it as a scene following the previous ones which were the CANgate, COVIDgate, Glencoregate scandals, none of which gave rise to the opening of a judicial investigation or the initiation of a parliamentary inquiry.

A real problem, a false solution: choosing the worst

To solve the problem of issuing the National Identity Card in Cameroon, the solution would have been to look for the causes and remedies for the fact that at the moment, the CNI cards are established and piled up in the Police Stations. It is therefore not in the establishment of a system involving a foreign “service provider” that the “CNI struggle” will be resolved.

Rather, it was important that an organizational audit be carried out to understand and provide solutions to the dysfunctions of the current system, an audit that would not cost more than…200 million F over the ten regions by resorting to endogenous and domestic expertise. This was the way to an administrative resolution of this very annoying failure of the State.

Instead of this simple and pragmatic solution, the regime has chosen the worst. The provisions of Ordinance No. 2024/001 of June 20, 2024 taken by the President of the Republic in modification of the 2024 Budget had the real reason to give a legal guise to what turns out to be an operation with suspicious and questionable financial foundations.

In its provisions relating to stamps on National Cards and national passports, Article 37 (ter) relating to the distribution of these tax revenues produced by the issuance of these documents, beyond their absolutely aberrant price, 10,000 FCFA for the identity card and 110,000 FCFA for passports, this law reveals a leonine sharing in favor of the so-called service provider, an indication or clue of collusion in an operation to extort money from citizens for the benefit of a nebula or would be associated certain administrations and foreign predators.

This operation establishes a life annuity that will promote the unjust enrichment of these “service providers” who are real vultures and scavengers of the carcasses they see in our countries with the complicity of some of our fellow citizens. Judge for yourself by the figures set out in Article 37 (ter): The revenue from the issuance of identity documents and passports is distributed as follows:

-for the stamp duty of 10,000 FCFA on the CNI, the administration (project owner) only receives 10%, while the “service provider” receives 90%.

-for the stamp duty of 110,000 F on passport, the administration (contracting authority) receives 6.36%, the Public Treasury receives 6.36% and while the service provider receives 82.40%. Into what hell is this governing order plunging these people who have nevertheless given them everything, time, their trust, their submission? Are we not bordering by such ignominy, the betrayal of the people who have every right to rise up and say NO?

In the business practice in which we have been immersed for over forty years, the remuneration of “providers” whose type of activities range from brokerage to technical assistance and is in the range of 2 to 10%. The suspicious generosity observed here which attributes from 82 to 90% of the value of the stamp as a premium for the provider can only feed serious suspicions or even be proof of kickbacks.

Before estimating the cost of this operation for our country, we cannot fail to note the unacceptable fact of seeing populations being subjected to what is in reality an excessive additional tax to have a national identity card when, like the birth certificate, it is one of the symbols of gratification of nationality. Using this bias to devote the enrichment of some is simply immoral. This practice is in total contradiction with what is observed in most other countries where, as in Gabon, the CNI is obtained and free of charge.

Should the People be robbed to this extent?

With this new law, citizens are under the thumb of a leonine sharing as reported above in favor of a “service provider” who is in reality only the tree that hides the forest of a systemic predation in a configuration of criminal coaction. The criminal nature comes out crudely when we make an assessment of what the actors of this tragedy will pocket.

By retaining the low hypothesis of an annual production of 2 million national identity cards to which would be added 10 thousand passports, the jackpot that will be received by this or these “service providers” is, according to our estimates, estimated at 500 billion F in 10 years, or the straight line cost of a four-lane Yaoundé – Ngaoundéré highway. In the model put in place, the Cameroonian administration is reduced to the rank of simple collector of tax revenues to feed the colossal profits of these so-called “service providers” and their local connections.

The aggravating factor here is that the technology used by this or these service providers is basic and similar to the manufacture of laminated business cards obtained from the secretariats of our neighborhoods at 100 CFA each. This technology can be provided by young Cameroonians trained in software engineering and computer graphics. In addition, the cost of the technostructure necessary for its deployment in ten regions of the country cannot exceed 5 billion CFA francs. We thus find ourselves in a situation where an investment of 5 billion CFA francs will allow our populations to be robbed of 1,000 billion CFA francs in 20 years… Is there anything worse???

Exposing False Bragging

The Ordinance is the score written by the President of the Republic. The orchestration was provided by the National Assembly which voted for this law, it whose mission is to ensure that the interests of the People are safe. This whole process questions what remains of the values ​​and republican ethics in our country.

The boasting of the promise to produce the CNI in 48 hours is in reality the fig leaf that wants to hide what could be only a crime if this infernal machine is not stopped by the one who still has the power and authority, who we want to believe has been deceived. Let us touch wood that this interpellation reaches his ears and that he spares our people this new form of modern slavery.

Célestin Bedzigui

Local elected official

President of the PAL – Liberal Alliance Party.