If all the clarity is not brought to it by the one who is the supreme authorizing officer, the Head of State, history will retain that on the pretext or on the occasion of the CHAN-CAN, it was committed biggest continuous economic crime, spread over several years, unpunished, against our country. Some believe they can hide this shameful fact by brandishing the name of President Biya at auction like a smoke curtain so that the people can see nothing.
These thurifarians are trying to swallow the crude lie that these infrastructures are a gift made by President Biya to the youth. Of gift or gift to youth there is none. What must however be highlighted is the fact that it is the stability of the country of which each Cameroonian is the guarantor that reassures the money lenders and that it is the taxes that we pay and the mortgaged future of our children that will allow the colossal debts thus contracted by the country to be paid to procure these infrastructures.
To make it easier for him to understand, the people must know that this is a project which will swallow up around 1000 billion F, which is roughly enough to build a six-lane highway between Douala and Yaoundé. To make the importance of the problem even more comprehensible, nowadays, Cameroon’s annual budget is 4,000 billion F; the total cost of this project therefore represents approximately 25% of such a budget.
The agitation of the average citizen will be even greater when he learns that the work on the Olembe site had given rise to a contract of 163 billion F signed between the Italian company PICINNI, project manager and the State of Cameroon, contracting authority. At the time when this contract is terminated by the Cameroonian party, the Italian project manager declares to have already carried out 90% of the work. The cost of completing the 10% of the work to be carried out should therefore come out more or less at 16-20 billion F, an amount that we reasonably expected to see the State seek, after obviously an audit had made it possible to determine. ” Evaluate the work done and validate the amount of funds needed to complete the work.
The population’s agitation is therefore justified to learn that without an audit, in total opacity, the Minister in charge is authorized by the Head of State to contract with the British bank Standard Chartered and the Public Investment Bank. BPI France has a debt of 55 billion F at a commercial interest rate of 7%. Such an approach reveals two serious anomalies. The first is that in the absence of an audit and having in possession only the information provided by the project manager, the amount of the loan thus envisaged represents 300% of the amount that would have been necessary to complete the 10 % of work remaining according to Piccini’s assessment.
The second anomaly is that the financing formula chosen is absolutely inappropriate both for the profile of the client, which is the state of Cameroon, and for the interest rate applied. The best financing formula would undoubtedly have been a 1 or 2% concessional loan from one of our partners within the framework of multi or bilateral cooperation. An average formula would have been the issuance of 10-year Treasury bills at a rate of 3-4%. The worst formula is the one that was adopted, namely a commercial loan at 7-8%, even though during the IMF review last October, Cameroon had made a commitment to no longer borrow at a commercial rate.
To stifle the questions about these anomalies and divert attention from the suspicion of the extent of corruption which is rampant throughout the organization of this CHAN-CAN, some people reduce and event to a hagiography of the President of the Republic. The Truth is less brilliant. CHAN -CAN may turn out to be the biggest economic crime ever committed in Cameroon, a crime made possible by the establishment of a “Task Force” at the level of the General Secretariat of the Presidency of the Republic. By setting up this TASK FORCE, President Biya was undoubtedly referring to the time when he was himself SG / PRC, when in 1972, a demonstration of the same nature although of different magnitude had taken place. Obviously, he will have the wrong time, but also… people.
Coming back to the system put in place to support the “Task Force”, there were two measures authorized by the Head of State, each of these measures having facilitated or fueled the drifts with respect to the principles governing financial governance. healthy state.
The first of these measures is the introduction of “private agreement” in the award of 50 contracts out of 60; this decision will have had the effect of neutralizing the mechanism allowing for a structure, the outcome of the tendering procedure between competitors to guarantee the best quality of service at the best price.
The second of these measures is the establishment of a “one-stop-shop where it is the same agent who upstream, awards the contracts, and who, downstream orders the payment of the accounts, without systematically obtaining the visa of the supervisor. ‘delegated work is not acquired.
The cumulative effect of these two measures was to encourage the explosion of overcharging with the example of loading 10 tons of Sa-naga sand paid at 70,000 F at Monatele and billed at 700,000 F fifty km further on at Olembe.
Such excesses of predatory bulimia and corruption could not have been perpetrated and perpetuated without taking the interest of those who validated the quotes justifying the award of contracts by mutual agreement, and above all, those same who authorized the payment of accounts for work – allegedly sometimes – carried out.
The example of President Ahidjo in 1972
And yet, in the school of history, the current regime must learn how this type of situation should be handled. When, after the CAN of 1972 which had given rise to the construction of the two large Om-nisports stadiums Yaoundé and Douala without the slightest false note at the site level, rumors had spread about fraudulent ticketing operations, President Ahidjo had immediately ordered the opening of a judicial police investigation. The subsequent report having established a practice of double ticketing, the case had been referred to justice.
There followed a straightforward condemnation of senior officials of the Organizing Committee, including Kouam Samuel, one of the most prominent billionaires of the time, Ekoko Alfred, a senior financial executive. This rigorous treatment ordered by the President of the Republic had the double advantage of reminding everyone of the absolute imperative of respecting the requirements of sound financial management and above all of carrying out a catharsis which relieved the Cameroonian people of T humiliation to have been eliminated from the competition in the semi-finals by the Congo led by “Mbono Sorcier”.
There is therefore an opportunity here to wonder about the reasons why President Biya does not politically draw a lesson from the practice of his illustrious predecessor and mentor, he who at the time was already Secretary General of the Presidency of the Republic. and which thus occupied the function on which converge today all the doubts and the suspicions of a calamitous management of the financial aspect of the mission of the Task Force set up by itself.
The most disturbing fact is to see the President of the Republic refrain from commissioning a financial audit carried out by a Cabinet with internationally recognized expertise, the conclusions of which alone would shed light on the possible responsibilities of the bad practices recorded in this project in its previous phases, but above all would provide information on the financial needs necessary for its completion.
The expected speech of the President: a right of the people
The President of the Republic is certainly aware that his posture of tolerance and even benevolence towards certain clerks in his entourage raises questions. Wanting to push through by mobilizing money or believing that you can pass the storm by remaining silent could turn out to be a major political mistake in the medium term. What a significant section of public opinion is expecting from him is to see him carry out this independent audit, the restitution of which must ABSOLUTELY be public. It is a republican demand for transparency in relation to which all of these times, we cannot remain passive, because our passivity could lead generations to come to wonder what kind of citizens we will have been.
If the President of the Republic does not show his desire to promote transparency in this matter, he could be credited with being the objective ally of those over whom there are strong suspicions of corruption. Some Heads of State like Moboutou Sesse Seko missed their entry into history in this way.
Whole legions of citizens sickened by a certain tolerance or a certain practice of prevarication, nepotism and corruption, will be able on the said day to rise and say No. And in this movement, they will precipitate those who least expect it into hell to be denied for posterity the republican virtue!
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