The Director-General of the Hydrocarbon Price Stabilisation Fund carried out a working visit to the Sombo site yesterday.

A domestic gas cylinder is unloaded from a lorry and then weighed on an approved set of scales to verify its weight in the presence of a witness and ensure that households pay the correct price for the correct quantities. This is the procedure that will now be carried out on samples from every gas consignment at the four checkpoints set up by the Hydrocarbon Price Stabilisation Fund (HPSF) across the country. The aim is to combat the disappearance of domestic gas cylinders, which are found in neighbouring countries, as well as the reduction in the quantities contained in these cylinders. This results in a loss of income for households. Yesterday, in Sombo, in the Nyong-et-Kéllé department of the Central Region, the Director-General of the HPSF, Okie Johnson Ndoh, visited the checkpoint set up by the public body under his charge.

This monitoring structure, which has been operational since 1 September and whose managers were officially appointed yesterday, aims to verify the compliance of collections, and to track the routes and movements of products released for consumption between the Cameroonian Petroleum Depots Company (SCDP) and the supply points operated by marketers. It aims to prevent fraud and misappropriation occurring on major roads, by ensuring consistency between marketers’ declarations and the reality observed on the ground.

The establishment of these checkpoints also stems from revenue losses for the HPSF estimated at five billion CFA francs between 2023 and 2025. With demand for domestic gas rising by 15 per cent each year, this has led to an increase in annual subsidies of between 25 and 30 billion F. The peak was reached in 2024 at 69 billion F. Consequently, subsidies now account for 80 to 85 per cent of the public body’s expenditure.

In his address, the Director-General of the HPSF noted that the establishment of checkpoints serves a dual purpose: to reduce fraud and to ensure that the public has access to domestic gas at a price of 6,500 F, in terms of both quantity and quality, in order to ease the tensions observed recently. “With Sombo, we will reduce fraud. Strengthened controls will ensure a transparent and secure supply throughout the country,” he said. “In Sombo, there are three other checkpoints in the towns of Nkongsamba in the Littoral region, Abong-Mbang in the east and Tonga in the west.”