The activity has grown almost into a profession engaging more jobless graduates and experts.

Many skilled suppliers in Douala, such as companies or consulting firms no more want to become experts in the tax system. Due to the complex nature of the tax system, most hire a middleman or a consultancy firm with know-how to handle financial matters.

Such experts grow richer exercising the essential functions of exploring and creating channels to facilitate transactions and market exchange opportunities for business establishments. Douala is home to as many intermediaries as there are enterprises in the city. Entrepreneurs laud their role as being much more competent in tax declaration than are entrepreneurs; their specialist knowledge makes them a key asset.

Serge Olivier Atchu Yudom, Management Consultant for Green Ventures Management, says: “We trust people who specialise in a field that is unfamiliar to us, who have experience, and who are referred by trusted acquaintances. When I am faced with the desire to make a deal, but fear being cheated, I seek out a mutually-respected third party as intermediary to assist in the transaction. Without some source of trusted assistance, the deal will not be made. In order to reduce the risk of the transaction and intake of an employee just for tax declaration, the entrepreneur is obliged to look for a trusted intermediary.”

However, businessmen face pressures to either declare taxes or clear their goods from the port themselves or through middlemen. John Kimbi, a middleman in Douala, explains that they succeed by lowering the barriers to action such as time wastage and the stress of waiting in an office for a long time. Though smart retailers avoid middlemen in paying taxes and go directly for a lesser cost, middlemen remain important because they reduce employee and staff costs. In practice, a middleman interprets, translates, catches errors, and in many other ways facilitates the transaction and saves time.

In the streets of Douala’s commercial heartbeat, Akwa, are mostly middlemen who are university graduates and talented young people from local professional schools. Kimbi says the activity has grown almost into a profession engaging more jobless graduates and experts who now run specific offices. He disclosed that each transaction could cost between FCFA 1,000 to several millions.