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Council revenue generation: Maximizing other sources.

The Coronavirus or COVID-19 pandemic has left the Cameroonian economy in dire straits as well as local governments’ ability to generate income. Revenue collection has become difficult because cash flow has also dwindled.

The Prime Minister, Head of Government, Chief Dr. Joseph Dion Ngute, on April 30, 2020, in announcing government measures to cushion the impact of COVID-19 on the people, listed a number of decisions that affect local governments’ level of revenue generation. These include exemption from payment of discharge tax and park fee for taxis, commercial motorcycles, as well as axle tax-all for the second semester of 2020. He said the measures could be extended to apply to the remaining part of 2020. The PM also announced exemption from payment of discharge tax and market levies, etc-also for the second semester of 2020. These measures are intended to benefit especially small-scale foodstuff dealers such as the “buyam-sellam”, Dion Ngute noted. Tough as the measures are, local governments (councils, sub divisional councils and other councils in rural areas) have other sources of local income generation to turn to in order to make up for what still trickles in from the Ministry of Finance and the Special Councils Support Fund for Mutual Assistance, FEICOM. For example, the December 15, 2009 Act on Local Government Taxes makes provision for four main sources of local government revenue generation. These are council taxes and levies, council additional tax, and other sources recognized by law and determined by councils themselves. Council taxes and levies, for example, are collected from the issue of business licenses, tax on buildings, tax on games of chance and entertainment, dues on changes made to buildings, vehicle tax and logging royalties. On the other hand, council additional tax is sourced from personal incomes,, company tax and Value Added Tax, VAT.

Council taxes and levies are mainly collected from local development tax. Councilors are free to approve the collection of revenue from activities like slaughter of livestock, livestock farming, possession of firearms, hygiene and sanitation, impoundment, market tolls and building permits. They can also raise funds from temporary occupation of public road, parking, use of public parking lots, quays, stadiums, advertising, sale of council stamps, road degradation, livestock transhumance, transport of quarry products, and recovered items.

Culled from Cameroon Tribune.