Cameroon cracks down on gold mining over $3.5bn revenue loss from under-reporting

Cameroon's government announced on Wednesday a crackdown on its gold mining sector after discovering that under-reporting of production by private operators has cost the state about 2,000 billion CFA francs (approximately $3.5 billion) in lost tax revenue over the past five years. Acting mining minister Fuh Calistus Gentry said the main issue is not missing state-owned gold but the under-reporting of output by certain private firms. In response, authorities will step up controls at mining sites, introduce minimum gold delivery thresholds, improve monitoring of ore-recovery stages, and strengthen production traceability. The campaign also targets unlicensed operators—more than 200 companies are known to be mining without authorization, with 137 cases already referred to the competent courts—and will crack down on the misuse of exploration permits, which are meant only for prospecting, not extraction. Cameroon hopes to leverage its mineral wealth—iron, diamonds, gold and cobalt—to drive economic growth under a new mining code adopted in 2023, and the tighter oversight aims to recover lost revenue and boost transparency in the sector.

SOURCE: https://www.channelstv.com/2026/07/16/cameroon-cracks-down-on-under-reported-gold-production/