(Business in Cameroon) – The Urban Community of Yaoundé (CUY) has announced the results of an international tender launched in June 2024 for the recruitment of companies responsible for waste collection in the city. Out of the four lots offered in the contract, the company Hygiene and Sanitation of Cameroon (Hysacam) won three, securing a contract worth over CFA45 billion. The tender for the fourth lot was declared unsuccessful.
This contract is awarded amidst an ongoing waste management crisis in the capital, which has been persisting for years. To address this crisis, the CUY had to open up the market to competition, which had previously been dominated by Hysacam for many years. However, the arrival of the company Thychlof Sarl did not significantly improve the situation. Factors contributing to the ongoing waste issues include population growth, which leads to more waste, the lack of discipline among citizens, and, most importantly, the insufficient financial resources allocated to waste collection. This last factor hinders the effectiveness of waste management policies in Cameroon, often resulting in unpaid debts owed by the state to service providers. To date, the public treasury has covered 85% of the bill, with local municipalities and urban communities responsible for the remaining 15%.
In an effort to generate more funds for this activity, the government introduced a special excise duty on waste collection in the 2019 finance law. However, the collection of this tax, which is usually not disbursed to the municipalities and urban communities on time, has yet to guarantee efficient waste management in Cameroonian cities. For example, according to the Directorate General of Customs in the Ministry of Finance, Cameroon collected a total of CFA60.6 billion from this tax over the three-year period from 2020 to 2022, with CFA12.5 billion in 2020, CFA15.8 billion in 2021, and CFA32.2 billion in 2022.
However, when compared to the needs of decentralized local governments (CTDs), the amount collected over this three-year period is insufficient to cover waste collection for a single budget year. According to a decree issued by the Prime Minister on July 24, 2023, which sets the terms for collecting, centralizing, distributing, and disbursing the tax proceeds, 17.5% of the annual amount should be allocated to each of the two Urban Communities of Yaoundé and Douala.
Given that the CFA60.6 billion collected from 2020 to 2022 represents the total amount for a single year, the Urban Communities of Douala and Yaoundé would each receive CFA10.6 billion. However, according to a 2016 study by the World Bank, cited by Jean-Pierre Ymele, the CEO of Hysacam, Yaoundé alone required a minimum of CFA15 billion per year for waste collection. With the rapid population growth observed in the capital, this amount is likely to be higher in 2024.
