Russia-Ukraine War : The Toll On Cameroon!

As countries, especially developing ones, gnash their teeth in the rather raging upheavals between East European giants; Russia and Ukraine, Cameroon may beat its chest to be one among the few resilient economies, but the weight of the war is fast weighing down the national economy.

As a matter of fact, since the inception of the war in Ukraine on February 24, 2022, price hikes have been noted globally on key commodities exported by both Ukraine and Russia, such as wheat, fuel and fertilizer. The government of Cameroon has been working tooth and nail to cushion the effects of the war notably with subventions on the import of the highconsumer goods likewise looking for alternatives where possible. This therefore explains why the inflation rate, though rising to 4.6 per cent in the first quarter of 2022, however remained far below that of other countries within and without the African continent.

That Cameroon’s economy is still staying afloat is no doubt thanks to what authorities say is the relevance of the Head of State’s instructed panoply of accompanying and consumer support measures notably: Exemption from fiscal and customs taxes on the import of almost all consumer products, suspension of the Pre-shipment Conformity Assessment Programme (PECAE), reduction in the cost of freight to be integrated into the customs value, suspension of the port weighing fee, suspension of the withholding tax on the purchase of a number of products as well as subventions on petroleum products.

However, the question on almost every lip is for how long will the country maintain the somewhat resilience in the midst of an all-encompassing war like this Russia-Ukraine skirmishes which came on the heels of the devastating Covid-19 pandemic, coupled...