It takes an average of ten days instead of 19 as it was before, to clear goods from the Douala seaport which today remains Cameroon's main gateway. This reduction according to authorities of the port is relatively significant but from every indication, a lot remains to be done to better the situation.
The slow process in clearing goods from the Douala port is often attributed to the various departments involved in the multifaceted activity. The trouble indeed is that the slow process carries with it lots and lots of undesirable effects on importers and exporters and on the economy of the nation as a whole.
The reduction so to say seems to be said on paper than done on the field, for cases still abound where goods spend up to three months at the port to get cleared because of the complicated procedure to go through. However, this situation cannot only be blamed on port administration. Importers and exporters as well as the structures at the port all have a say. Many business people import goods pending the acquisition of the necessary resources to get them cleared when they do arrive at the warehouse. Port authorities have on several occasions been obliged to clear such goods and put them on the market on auction sell in order to provide space for other incoming goods.
If one were to go by the recent declaration of the General Manager of the One-Stop Shop for external trade, then there is every reason to be hopeful under normal clearing situation. He told pressmen at a press conference that 15 of the 36 procedural requirements have been treated and rendered easier. Isidore Bayiha told pressmen the 16 are already operational. This, of course is already a step forward but the process has to be accelerated considering that the country is undergoing several development projects and has to import quite a lot of equipment from abroad. The recent squabble that ensued at one of the clearing offices where people were forced to raise their voices against what they considered as slow treatment of files should quickly become a thing of the past.
In effect, the whole show seems to be accentuated by human beings themselves, for, how can one explain the persistence of such a situation in spite of the computerisation work that has been undertaken at the port. Cases abound where people find themselves in long queues after going through the normal process as required by the regulation. That said, from every indication, the structures of the Douala port in are equally a problem. Bigger ships transporting goods from Europe are forced to stop over in Cotonou and those from Asia in Pointe-Noire to get some of the goods transferred to smaller ships that can anchor at the Douala port. This, of course cannot be good news for business people who are forced to wait pondering on the complex and complicated procedure that will go through when the goods finally arrive in Douala.
The launching of the project to dematerialise services at the port as a strategy to ensure that few people get in contact with authorities at the port during clearance is a big step ahead. In effect, the more things go through several hands, the more there is room for corruption and unnecessary delays. As the service dematerialisation process gets implemented, it is important to intensify education and sensitisation of port users. This is also an important part of the whole gamut to quicken clearance at the port and save users from trouble and unnecessary time wastage.
