Digital application to fight smuggling in Cameroon

Cameroonian company AmlaMetrics will create a digital application with the aim of detecting smuggled or counterfeit products on behalf of the Ministry of Commerce. This is the subject of an agreement signed by the two parties on 19 February 2016 in capital of the country Yaoundé.

According to AmlaMetrics explanations, this application will ensure the traceability of products in the Cameroonian market, from a server installed in the Ministry of Trade. We learn that barcodes and vignettes will be pre-registered on this server for all products that are legally brought into the Cameroonian market.

In this way, even using a mobile telephone, each consumer can easily verify the authenticity of a product found on the market. By the same mechanism, Ministry of Trade controllers can easily identify whether a given product has been fraudulently brought into the Cameroonian market or if it is counterfeit.

We learn that this new device, whose first results are expected within three months (from now till May 2016), will initially be operational in the wine and spirits sector, where the rate of smuggling and counterfeit often reaches up to 60% of marketed products, according to the Ministry of Trade.
FCfa 225 billion of losses each year.

Moreover, locally produced or imported wines and spirits have been subject to obligatory stamping since June 2012, which should facilitate registration of these products in the server created by AmlaMetrics. But after the wines, this smuggled and fake digital tracking mechanism will be applied to other products such as school manuals, vegetable oils, cosmetic products or even household gas.

It should be noted that in a report presented during its general assembly held in Douala on 29 August 2014, the Chamber of Commerce, Industry, Mines and Crafts (CCIMA), revealed that smuggling, counterfeit and illicit commerce in Cameroon results in losses of FCfa 225 billion annually. According to this consular Chamber these losses are sub-divided as follows: an average of FCfa 70 billion in lost tax revenues and FCfa 185 billion in lost revenues to the companies whose products are smuggled, faked or the object of unlawful trade. The same source also added that around 200 jobs are eliminated each year because of these different scourges.