BANK OF CENTRAL Yáounde, 8th of April 2021 AFRICAN STATES The Governor For the attention of Credit Institutions and Economic Agents of CEMAC
Circular Letter n° 003/GR/2021
Relating to the clearance of files on transfers ordered by CEMAC Economic Agents abroad
The Instruction n° 007/GR/2019 of 10 June 2019 specifying the conditions and modalities of declaration, domiciliation and payment of imports of goods and services defines in its Article 20, the discharge as the fact of gathering the various documents necessary for the closing of an import file domiciled with a Credit Institution. It sets, in its Article 21, the deadlines for the discharge of direct debit import files at three (03) months for goods and related services and one (01) month for services, as from their settlement date.
This Circular Letter reminds us of the documents required for the discharge of an import domiciliation file (1), specifies the procedures for the discharge of transfer files submitted to the Central Bank (2) and presents the procedures to be followed for the discharge of transfer files financed by the liquidity cushion of Credit Institutions intended to meet the current needs of the customers (3). It contains various provisions relating to the discharge of transfer files (4) and includes the provisions relating to the penalties for failure to discharge a domiciliation import file (5).
1- Documents for the discharge of the direct debit file of the import
For the purposes of discharging the import direct debit file, the importing economic agent shall provide the Credit Institution with the following documents as and when they become available, within the prescribed time limits:
For goods:
- the final invoice, expense report, debit note, or any other supporting document;
- the accounting statement issued by the customs administration or the one in lieu thereof;
- the receipt for payment of customs duties and taxes due, related to the import;
- the transport document, in particular the bill of lading, air waybill, consignment note or any document in lieu thereof.
For services:
- the final invoice, the debit note, the expense note, the fee note or any other supporting document;
- any document justifying the effective implementation of the service import, in particular the provisional or final acceptance report, the study report.
The documents listed above must also be submitted in the case of a service related to the importation of goods.
If the import relates to a work-for-hire service involving the import of equipment necessary for the performance of the service, the importer shall provide, in addition to the discharge documents for the service, the discharge documents for the import of the equipment.
In addition to the documents supporting the import, the direct debit credit institution must be able to provide, at any time, the documents attesting to its effective settlement, namely:
- SWIFT MT103 or MT 202 messages;
- MT900 debit notification;
- the MT940/950 account statement showing the debit on the account held with the correspondent.