Assembly staff scams Cavaye, recruits brothers

A worker of the National Assembly, Roger Noel Francis Angoni, is currently being detained at the Gendarmerie Brigade in the Melen neighbourhood in Yaounde for allegedly forging the signature of the Speaker of the National Assembly, Hon. Cavaye Yeguie Djibril.

Angoni, who was recruited in 2011, worked at the Department of General Administration at the Ngoa-Ekele Glass House. Sources at the Lower House of Parliament told The Post that the Angoni scam was uncovered last week when the authorities discovered that he had processed his documents for integration into the public service.

His file, The Post learnt, stirred a lot of curiosity among officials of the National Assembly, given that it had Cavaye’s visa.

According to some senior workers in the House, it is difficult to be integrated into the public service, let alone a new recruit. It was on this basis that Angoni’s file raised a lot of eyebrows. It had the signature and the stamp of the Speaker on it.

The Post was told that, even with the signature of the Speaker; officials at the National Assembly suspected the file and decided to investigate.

It was reported that when it was brought to the Speaker, he could not remember ever signing such a file.

The situation raised more anxiety and Angoni was summoned to the Speaker’s cabinet where he was grilled by Cavaye’s close collaborators. After further investigations, the officials discovered that the young man, who is in his late 20s, recruited two of his brothers and a nephew using the Speaker’s forged signature and stamp.

A source at the Department of General Administration told The Post that, before the racket was uncovered, the people were at the verge of receiving their first salaries.

After carrying out a search in his office, officials discovered sheets of papers on Angoni’s table on which he systematically practised signing the Speaker’s signature. While Angoni was arrested and taken to the Gendarmerie Brigade for questioning, the three people whom he had recruited were simply fired.

It is alleged that he has maintained sealed lips in detention preferring not to disclose other members of the “fraud fraternity” at the National Assembly.

Before his recruitment as a contract worker at the National Assembly, Angoni worked at the Yaounde City Council where the current Secretary General of the Glass House had worked as the Deputy Government Delegate. Many workers at the National Assembly, whom The Post quizzed, said the Angoni case is not an isolated one. Going by them, there is a strong group of racketeers made up of some of the Speaker’s unscrupulous collaborators who are actually recruiting and promoting workers at the National Assembly at their whims and caprices.

Observers have questioned the criteria used for recruiting workers at the National Assembly. The Post learnt that it is mostly based on the recommendation of some powerful MPs, who would normally bring in their family members. Another ill said to be fouling the air in the House is the use of fake certificates which impostors used to be recruited into positions they do not deserve.

In December 2013, one former worker of the National Assembly, HamadouOumate, wrote an open letter to the Speaker, denouncing the reign of fake certificates in the house. The letter cited the names of many people who have never seen the four walls of a secondary school but are today calling the shots as senior officials.

Many observers hold that Parliamentary administration is wallowing in mediocrity because excellence, decorum and meritocracy have been slaughtered in the shrine of personal interest by people of very elastic morals in the house.