West & Central Africa: Customs officials brainstorm on use of IT dev’t to protect society.

The forum is being attended by members of the World Customs Organisation, WCO, Regional Working Group on IT Development for West and Central Africa, WCA Region.

The Yaounde gathering has been placed under the theme: “Information Systems for Customs service that protect the society through its vigilance and commitment”.

Cameroon’s Customs Director General, Edwin Fongod Nuvaga, opened the session in the presence of other WCO officials.

He said despite the digital divide between the five WCO zones, the efforts made in recent years to boost cooperation amongst WCO administrations in West and Central Africa have been positive and deserve due recognition. 

Fongod cited measures such as streamlining administrative procedures, digitizing customs procedures, the expansion of territorial and periodic networks in less developed countries, information sharing, and the modernization of goods in transit between member states. 

Despite the progress, he emphasised that there is still significant room for improvement, which explains the holding of the 9th session of the working group in Yaoundé. 

“The creation of the Regional Working Group on IT Development is a concrete expression of the renewed commitment to further modernize customs in the West and Central African region,” he said.

He said the theme will inspire customs administrations to legitimately aspire for the effective protection of society.

While noting that the agenda of the session combines the challenges of modernizing and digitizing customs in the region, notably through an examination of the progress made in deploying IT systems for the region’s customs authorities, Fongod insisted that the participants will examine issues related to revenue security and the fight against fraud, through the use of IT tools to monitor trade flows, the enhancement of traceability in customs operations, the sharing of customs intelligence among member states, and protection of platforms.

“The digital revolution is no longer an option; it is an urgent necessity. Today’s customs must be smart, connected, resilient, and service-oriented,” he told participants. 

Fongod added that: “It must combine technological performance with operational efficiency to fulfill its sovereign duties of revenue collection, trade facilitation, and protecting society against the many threats posed by fraud, smuggling, illicit trafficking, and other such activities with greater rigor and speed”.

Enter Representative of WCO Secretary General 

Speaking to the press, the representative of the Secretary General of WCO, Pangob Tetanga Gatien, said the working group on IT development is very important as it occupies a very critical point of the modernization strategy of WCO. 

He then mentioned that the meeting provides an opportunity for sharing of best practices, tools, initiatives and guidelines with the WCA region. 

“We aim that we have the opportunity to share the best practices in the region to address the challenges the region is facing regarding the IT development and we hope we have a very good recommendation at the end of this meeting,” Pangob noted.

Quizzed on the challenges facing the customs administrations in the region, he avowed that they face a plethora of challenges such as fraud, security, inter-operability, and interconnectivity challenges.

“You know the development level is not the same in the region, so we have these even resources challenges. So we're trying to meet like this to see how we can try to address them the best way possible in the smartest way possible following the WCO principles, guidelines, and tools,” Pangob added.

This article was first published in The Guardian Post Edition No:3755 of Thursday April 09, 2026