Nsimalen airport staff charge travelers FCFA 50.000 for negative covid test

By Hans Ngala

Ever since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic and the demand by airlines that all travelers present a negative PCR test 24 hours before travel, some staff at the Nsimalen International Airport in Yaounde have taken advantage of this and are demanding FCFA 50.000 on the spot from travelers for a favorable result.

This author was exploited at the same airport in February this year while traveling out of Cameroon.
We had been asked to go to the multi-purpose sports complex in Yaounde for our free COVID-19 tests. We were told the results would be ready in 72 hours but the code I was given did not work on the morning I was to travel. I logged on to the website we were given but the results would not show.
I couldn’t afford to miss my flight which was in 2 hours that day, hence I was told I would be issued with another COVID-19 result – a fake one of course. I was given a number to effect a Mobile Money payment to which I did and the lady who works at the airport then worked up the fake COVID-19 result.
I insisted that I had done my COVID test at Palais des Sports but no one cared to listen. All I was told was that if I did not have an airport-issued COVID test result that was negative, I would not board my plane.
I had to cough up the whopping sum of FCFA 50.000 on the spot.

A lot of people are going through this at the hands of airport officials and it is not clear whether it is just network issues at the level of the COVID testing site at the official testing centre or if this is a carefully planned scheme by the workers at this centre so that travellers find themselves obliged to pay the FCFA 50.000 rather than miss their flights.