If you have not heard about the phone tax by now, then you really need to question your activities on social media. I had planned to write about it last week to inform people about the tax but there was so much information and controversy flying over the matter that I decided to take my time and get every bit of information I could before I write anything down for you guys. .
Many of you must know by now that the government, in the finance law that was submitted and voted by parliament plans to directly tax the consumers, a 33% import tax on telephones. This is basically unheard of, as nowhere in the world are consumers asked to pay a tax that is normally borne by importers. So this article is meant to answer a number of questions, and also to expose some of the shady and incoherent matters behind the tax.
------------------------------------- WHY THE TAX?
According to the Cameroon customs, it is estimated that about 4 million phones are imported into Cameroon each year. And while the customs used to collect about 2 billion in revenue from phone taxes every month in the early 2000s, these days it is collecting only about 100 million a month. Because of this, the customs are losing about 12 billion every year to unpaid taxes on smartphones. So it is essentially to get back this lost money that they want to tax phone users. Basically, they are punishing us for their own incompetence.
------------------------ HOW WILL THE TAX BE COLLECTED?
Every phone has an IMEI number. Generally, when you connect your SIM to a phone, your Telco provider can tell what phone brand and model you are using. So, the tax authorities are asking that any phone seller who has paid taxes on the phones they have in their shop and have proof of it, should register ALL the IMEIs of of the phones they have in their possession onto an online platform that is built and managed by a shady company called ARINTECH.
If they sell a phone that has not been taxed, once the user connects his SIM to the phone for the first time, he will receive an SMS notifying him that he has to pay taxes on that phone, and of the amount he has to pay.
--------------------- HOW WILL THE USER PAY THE TAX?
This is another source of problems. According to the law, the phone owner will pay using his phone credit. The phone owner can either put credit and pay all at once, or he can pay progressively according to a payment plan.
But there is a problem here. According to CEMAC laws phone credit is not an accepted legal tender. This means that phone credit cannot be considered as money. Credit is a product that we have paid for. We cannot use a product to pay for another service. That is trade by barter. So, from a legal point of view, that law cannot go into effect.
--------------------------- WHAT HAPPENS IF YOU DON’T PAY THE TAX?
Your phone number will be blocked.
------------------------- WHAT ABOUT PHONES THAT TAKE TWO SIMS AND THUS TWO IMEI NUMBERS? WOULD IT BE TAXED TWICE?
Enhen! This is actually a hugely controversial issue. The CEO of ARINTECH says that dual SIM phones will be known via “triangulation.” This is actually absurd and technically impossible.
Triangulation is a means of locating a cell phone signal with the use of three nearby cell phone towers. How is a location tool going to determine dual SIM phones? As it turns out, the triangulation that the CEO of ARINTECH is talking about has to do with his platform integrating into that of the Telcos, and piggybacking on their system in order to use triangulation to determine the dual SIM phones
First of all, ARINTECH never had a prior discussion with the Telcos to this effect. How was the platform going to go into effect when a vital part of its operability was not going to go into effect? This makes no sense.
Also, the idea of this version of "triangulation" has been pronounced non-functional by many techies on Twitter. Autant de questions qu'on se pose.
---------------------- HOW WILL THE VALUE OF A PHONE BE DETERMINED?
Well, here is where the problem lies. According to the law, the phones will be priced at factory price, and not at market value. This means that if we take the example of a Samsung S8+ which costs 150,000frs today at Avenue Kennedy, you will not be paying 33% of 150K, but rather 33% of 400,000frs which is the price at which it was sold straight from the factory when the phone was released in 2018.
The shady part of this is that this law does not consider gifts. It sees every “new” phone which connects for the first time to the mobile network as an untaxed phone.
------------------ AND WHAT ABOUT THE PLATFORM? DOES IT REALLY WORK?
According to a lot of tech engineers on Twitter, many have serious doubts. First of all, the CEO Of ARINTECH is a man who doesn’t have any proven background in tech and was unable to explain, whilst on CRTV, how exactly the platform works.
Secondly, tech experts like Rebecca Enonchong have explained that such a platform requires a heavy amount of work just to set up the online infrastructure, and there is a serious preoccupation on data management. The CEO of ARINTECH, Mr. Paul Zambo has failed to inform and to reassure Twitter users what kind of data will be stored on the system and how that will be managed.
---------------------------- IS THE NEW SYSTEM CORRUPTION FREE?
Absolutely not! Any person importing large amounts of phones can still go directly to the person putting data into the platform and bribe this person to register his phones as cheaper models, and thus pay far less than he would have in taxes.
Also, phone sellers could sell untaxed phones to users and claim that they paid a tax already. This means that the user will now have to be running to the tax office to meet someone to fix the “problem.” Again, money will have to change hands before
Finally, numerous apps exist on the web which mimic IMEI numbers. So you can buy a new phone and swap the IMEI of your old phone onto it, and still not pay the tax.
---------------------------- WHO IS THE CEO OF ARINTECH?
Paul Zambo is the man behind the project. As of now I have not gotten any information on whether he proposed the project directly or if he was solicited by the Ministry of Telecoms. Whatever the case, this project was never part of a public tender as there are no public records available.
What we know for sure is Paul Zambo is a man with a very dubious past business life. Twitter users did some background check on the man and it came to notice that Mr zambo has operated a string of businesses which closed after two or three years of existence.
-LABOTHERA Ltd -Universal Regenerator -Fly Finance Lease Limited -Air Corporation Ltd -Fly London Airways
ARINTECH has no proven work in the field of tech, and does not even have a website!
We all know that his shadow was cast under the sun of the PB HEV laptop scandal. He was a panelist at a January 2018 conference at the P&T school in Yaounde. During the conference, he praised the initiative and lauded the quality of the laptops.
------------------------ HOW MUCH IS PAUL ZAMBO MAKING FROM THIS?
According to Investir au Cameroon, Paul Zambo turned down 300 million offered to him for his platform by the government. Instead, he will be taking 1.65% of all the transactions that pass through the platform. Seeing that the customs are trying to recuperate at least 12 billion in unpaid taxes every year, you can begin to calculate.
- Wandji Wilfred.
P.S - you all owe me a drink after this. you guys should MoMo me.