Companies entering francophone West and Central Africa often hear that OHADA gives them one legal system across 17 countries. For company law, commercial contracts, security interests, accounting, arbitration and insolvency, that is broadly true. OHADA’s Uniform Acts apply directly in every member state, from Senegal to the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
None of those Uniform Acts covers the environment.
What stays national
Environmental impact assessments, the permits that follow them and the inspections that check them all come from each country’s own environmental code and agency. In Senegal that is the Directorate of Environment and Classified Establishments (DEEC); in Côte d’Ivoire, the National Environment Agency (ANDE); in Cameroon, the environment ministry (MINEPDED). Thresholds, timelines, fees and who may prepare the study differ from one country to the next.
Many of these codes keep a system inherited from French law: classified installations (installations classées). Facilities are sorted by the risk they pose, and each class carries its own authorisation, conditions and inspection regime. Two similar sites can fall into different classes in neighbouring countries.
Five things to read in a permit
- The conditions, including those in the annexes. The obligations that cause trouble are rarely on the first page.
- The monitoring it requires: what you measure, how often and against which limits.
- The reporting: what goes to the regulator, in what format and by when.
- How long it lasts, and what renewal requires.
- What happens when the operator or owner changes. Some permits transfer with notice; others need a new approval.
Read the original
Permits and the regulator’s letters are in French. A summary translation will miss the condition that matters. Have the original read by someone who knows how that regulator applies it.
What the inspector checks
The inspector will not ask about your articles of association. They will ask for your monitoring records, your waste manifests and evidence that you did what the permit said. That file needs to exist before the visit, not after.
Harmonised business law makes it easier to set up a company. It does not tell you what the regulator will check when they arrive.