The premises of a medium-size tax payers office (MTO) has been inaugurated in Limbe, capital of Fako Division in the South West Region. The office is equipped with the state-of-the-art computers, outfitted with ergonomic chairs and staffed with qualified personnel to apply the new vision of taxation in Cameroon.

The Minister of Finance, Alamine Ousmane Mey, commissioned the Limbe MTO structure on 10 March, 2015 after it was created on June 24, 2014. He urged the personnel of the centre with Madam Brigitte Kubri as head, to use the modern and conducive structure to be more productive and professional in collecting revenue for the State.

The MTOs are a novelty in the Ministry of Finance aiming at segmenting the tax-paying population, enlarging the tax base and better-administering tax policies. The Limbe office structure was recently renovated and is one of the seven specialised centres in the country after Yaounde, Douala and Bafoussam.

Its portfolio includes some 569 medium-size taxpayers from all six administrative Divisions of the South West Region who make a turn-over ranging between FCFA 50 million and FCFA 3 billion.

While inaugurating the Limbe tax centre, Alamine Ousmane Mey explained that it was one of the structures to help the taxation department in the Ministry of Finance to raise the earmarked FCFA 1,400 billion in taxes for government coffers this year.

Welcoming the Minister of Finance on behalf of the Limbe population, the Government Delegate to the Limbe City Council, Andrew Motanga Monjimba, lamented that for the past three years no franc from the taxes paid by the local oil refinery company (SONARA) has been received in the host City Council.

He said he was sure that SONARA had been paying such taxes regularly but that “the difficulty was getting the money from Yaounde to Limbe”.

In response, the Minister promised to follow-up the matter with immediate attention.