Biya authorizes CONAC to release names of corrupt officials

President Biya has ordered the National Anti-Corruption Commission (CONAC), to release the one-year overdue report on the state of corruption in Cameroon which usually carries the names of officials indicted for embezzlement of state funds.

Earlier this month, Rev. Dieudonne Massi Gams, Chairman of the commission which is placed under the direct supervision of the presidency, sent out invitations and programs for the official presentation ceremony of the report which exposes embezzlers investigated in 2013, scheduled for November 25 this year.

Copies of the report will be handed out to officials of the Special Criminal Court, SCC, the Supreme Court and the National Agency for Financial Investigations during the event.

Going by the official program of the ceremony, copies of the long-awaited report will equally be given out to the President of the Senate, the Speaker of the National Assembly, the Prime Minister, the Chairman of the Economic and Social Council, the National Commission for Human Rights and Freedom, members of the diplomatic community and several other government officials. Political leaders and other stakeholders of the civil society will also receive copies of the report.

As a reminder, the anti-corruption commission sent out invitations in December last year for the presentation of the report but later postponed it.

A junior staff of CONAC told The Cameroon Journal then, that first-time postponement of the publication was caused by the presidency’s delay to okay it. The source hinted it was the first time the presidency demanded to read through the report before it is made public.

The commission Chair, Rev. Gams refuted the statement, but without giving a specific date, said the report will be published “any moment from now. No one is editing it. We shall publish just the information we investigated and nothing else. My hands are not tied.” He said.

It has now taken eleven months for “any moment from now” to come through. A good number of government officials, like the Minister of Special Duties, Paul Atanga Nji, and former Public Works Minister, Bernard Messenge Avom, have been purportedly grilled and earmarked for grilling following the publication in a CONAC report, of their alleged involvement in embezzlement of public funds.