Yaounde: Gov't drills procurement officials on legal timber law.

Focus was to strengthen compliance with a 2020 joint ministerial order by the ministries of forestry, public works and public contracts. 

Officials said the workshop is part of government efforts to combat rampant illegal logging in the country's forestry sector.

It brought together heads of public contracts services from ministries and public administrations across the country. 

It focused on Joint Order No. 0162/MINFOF/MINTP/MINMAP of 15 December 2020, which sets out the conditions under which legally sourced wood must be used in public procurement.

The workshop was presided by Technical Adviser No.1 at MINFOF, Ngono Tsimi Landry, on behalf of Minister Jules Doret Ndongo. 

In his opening address, Ngono Tsimi pointed to statistics from MINFOF and research by the Centre for International Forestry Research, CIFOR, showing that the public sector consumes a considerable volume of timber each year through infrastructure and construction contracts, with much of that wood traced to illegal origins.

He told participants that despite the order having been signed in December 2020, its implementation has been uneven across the public sector. 

Ngono Tsimi said the workshop was the latest in a national rollout of sensitisation events that began with a national launch in Yaounde on September 10, 2025, followed by a series of regional workshops held between October 2025 and January 2026.

“This is the continuation of a process aimed at combating illegal logging and promoting the domestic market for wood from legal sources. The use of legally sourced wood in public procurement sends a clear signal of the State’s determination to maximise tax revenues and consolidate the forestry sector as one of the levers of economic growth,” Ngono Tsimi underscored.

He highlighted a range of measures the government has introduced to make legally sourced timber more accessible and traceable across the country. 

These, he said, include a sustained campaign against illegal logging, the operationalisation of SIGIF2, the second-generation Forestry Information Management System which tracks the legality and traceability of timber, and the expansion of the Domestic Timber Market through new sites established across Cameroon.

Ngono Tsimi closed the opening session by urging all participants to fully embrace the text and ensure that legal timber in public procurement becomes an operational reality rather than a policy aspiration. 

On his part, the Director of Promotion and Transformation of Forestry Products at MINFOF, Dr Tadoum Martin, said the scale of the problem made government action unavoidable.

“The public sector consumes approximately 13,000 cubic metres of wood per year. The supply used is of dubious origin, which means there is not only a loss of tax revenues for the state, but also an impact on the forest in terms of deforestation and degradation,” Dr Tadoum said.

He added that the joint order was therefore a significant government measure designed to ensure that all wood used in the execution of public contracts comes from legal, traceable sources. 

The order was signed by three cabinet ministers; the Minister of Forestry and Wildlife, the Minister of Public Works, and the Minister Delegate in charge of Public Contracts.

Ignorance of law not an excuse

A Research Officer from the Ministry of Public Contracts, Doh Ferdinand, said many of those responsible for awarding public contracts were simply unaware that the joint order existed, making today’s workshop a legal as much as a technical exercise.

“Ignorance of the law is not an excuse. We are here to sensitise and inform the chiefs of services in ministries concerning the award of contracts, so that they take care to use legal wood in the execution of those contracts. The Cameroon government has signed many international conventions and has been working hard to manage its forests,” Doh stated.

He made it clear that the workshop was not the end of the road. He said officials would move beyond sensitisation to ensure that the order is actively implemented in contract execution across all ministries. 

This article was first published in The Guardian Post Edition No:3763 of Friday April 17, 2026