Customs administration reform depends on the extent to which senior officers are able to ensure that new procedures are effectively implemented. An ethnography of the job of Senior Customs Officer in Cameroon reveals how they exercise their authority in a context where the official administrative apparatus is powerless to regulate everything. These officers exert a non-coercive authority based on both the legal sharing-out of internal funds and an ideology of elitism. They thus find themselves locked into the paradoxical situation of having to reconcile their role of fund-sharers and compliance with good governance principles.