Why taxing mobile phones contradicts digital progress

Across Africa, nations that have achieved significant digital strides have done so by lowering barriers to technology access. Cameroun’s recent decision to tax mobile phones at 33.33% of their declared value—ranging from 1,670 FCFA for basic models to 135,000 FCFA for premium smartphones—directly contradicts this proven strategy. This levy applies simply for the right to use a device within the country, transforming a tool of empowerment into a financial burden.

Shance Lion, an economic analyst, warns: «Where countries have succeeded in digital transition, they first ensured maximum citizen connectivity, reduced technology costs, and made digital tools a driver of inclusion and economic competitiveness. Cameroun, however, ties this inclusion to a tax. In a country where average incomes often struggle to absorb such surcharges, this decision is far from neutral—it’s organized digital exclusion.»

From rhetoric to reality: a policy that works against itself

The government’s stated goals—digital transformation, economic innovation, connectivity—are undermined by this concrete action. Mobile phones are no longer a luxury; they are the lifeline for millions:

• Students attending online courses
• Traders processing Mobile Money transactions
• Farmers checking market prices
• Artisans connecting with clients via WhatsApp
• Informal workers accessing public services digitally

By taxing this essential tool, the state is effectively charging entry to the very digital economy it claims to build.

A tax without alternatives

What makes this measure particularly indefensible is Cameroun’s industrial vacuum. The country has no local phone manufacturing or assembly plants—no alternative to imported devices. Citizens are left with no choice but to pay the tax on imported goods, with no domestic production to protect or stimulate. This isn’t industrial policy; it’s fiscal extraction from a population already struggling with basic access.

When a state taxes imports to nurture local industry, the logic, while debatable, is at least coherent. When it taxes imports with no industry, no vision, and no alternative, it doesn’t protect anything—it simply drains resources from its people.

The slippery slope of digital taxation

This raises a critical question: if phones are taxed today, what’s next? Laptops? Office equipment? If a basic, widely used tool like a smartphone can be taxed at 33.33%, there’s no guarantee that other essential digital devices won’t face the same fate tomorrow. Each new tax widens the digital divide, separating those who can afford connectivity from those who cannot.

A nation choosing exclusion over progress

A connected citizen is a productive one. A connected population is the backbone of a competitive economy. This isn’t ideology—it’s documented fact in every report on African digital development. By making mobile phones more expensive, Cameroun is making itself less competitive. And if laptops follow, the country is effectively surrendering its digital future.

Digital inclusion isn’t achieved by erecting financial barriers. It’s built by removing them. Cameroun’s phone tax doesn’t just contradict its digital goals—it actively sabotages them, pushing the nation further away from the future it claims to want.