Price variation in cement, telephone, water, electricity sectors

The cement, telecommunication, water and electricity sectors are currently facing price regulation challenge due to varying prices by retailers.

The company, Medcem Cameroon SA, for instance, has put in the Cameroon markets its product in the past few days from its cement factory based in Douala.

The product is sold at FCFA 4700 for a bag in Yaounde outlets. It is the same price as the bag of CPJ Cimencam which has just reduced its rates. It is slightly below the prices of Dangote Cement and Cimaf found in the city's points of sale at FCFA 4800.

Generally, cement prices have not changed much, despite the fact that Cameroon now has four dealers in the local market.

Consumers still cannot keep up with the price maintenance despite competition. In the quest for greater understanding about the structure of these tariffs, the silence of operators on the factory price does not help much. The alarm was pulled, a few days ago, during a consultation between the operators of the building materials industry and Trade Minister Luc Magloire Atangana Mbarga.

The latter has also not failed to denounce what is obvious for some consumers: an agreement between producers on cement prices. Until the results of the study are published, misunderstandings about the prices of cement remain.

The cement sector is not facing this difficulty alone because among the segment of mobile telephony divided among three operators (MTN, Orange and Nexttel), the issue of prices remains a major concern for subscribers. Fifteen years after the opening of this market in Cameroon, prices of telephone calls have decreased (from about FCFA 500 to 100 less than a minute). But for subscribers, operators can do better. The goal is to provide FCFA 10 for 5 minute.

Currently, subscribers are entitled to a series of promotional offers on prices with packages or super-bonus, including credit refills of FCFA 200 entitling to FCFA 2000 or FCFA 500 for FCFA 5000, to be consumed within a specific time and in codes. In this rain of offers, it is difficult to say exactly how much it costs for a minute of communication.

Nevertheless, for the sake of traceability, subscribers now receive details of their communication: call duration, cost and remaining balance. It is a desired requirement by the regulator to resolve the misunderstanding by subscribers on billing their calls.

Call box

For the cement market operators, those in the telephony sector brandish the different production costs to justify such prices they apply. For the price of a cement in particular, refute any price manipulation, take into account production costs (inputs, energy, taxes, etc.) to fix their ex-factory price, operators said.

At the electricity sector, a new fee schedule was published in 2012 with a precise segmentation of tariffs by the slice, uses and customer categories.

Yet complaints of 'salted' energy bills have not stopped. Between consumption with or without VAT, there are many who do not understand how the kilovolt calculation mechanism works. It is also the same with water bills, it is more consumed in quantities and amounts (sometimes triple between two months) which are the subject of grievances between suppliers and their customers.

Nonetheless, there are regulators; the Agency for Regulating the Electricity Sector (Arsel) and the Telecommunications Regulatory Agency (TRA) whose role is to ensure the application of rates to consumers and sincere sanction in derivatives.

At Arsel, there is a Court which rules on conciliation if challenged. "Statistically, 85% of files presented in our jurisdiction are treated to the satisfaction of the parties which are Eneo and customers," confided Kedi Jean Pierre, executive director of the Arsel, in an interview with Cameroon Tribune in June.

However, the action of regulatory agencies, price control brigades and consumer advocacy groups are still without real impact for most consumers.