Cameroon’s Minister of Public Service and Administrative Reform Joseph Le said on Wednesday a national physical headcount of civil servants has identified 7,622 fictitious workers on the state payroll, a fraud which had been plaguing the economy for years.

“It is almost four years since the state has been trying to get clarification from these personnel. Since the investigation has come to an end, it is high time that the repressive measures should be implemented,” Le told reporters at a media briefing in the capital, Yaoundé.

“We have already sacked 493 personnel but the process is just beginning,” he added.

The ghost workers were mostly state employees who had either left to go and work for other organizations or simply left the country to work overseas.

The minister also cited the cases of 315 civil servants who had died but were still on the payroll of the state with family relations receiving their salaries.

Prosecutions could follow, but for the moment the priority was to get stolen money repaid, Le said.

So far, the government has recovered 30 billion CFA francs (about 55.86 million U.S. dollars), Le said.

Source: Xinhuanet

Governor Adolphe Lele L’Afrique of the North West region has confirmed the combat casualties recorded by Cameroon government security agents in Lassin in Bui Division on Monday May 24.

In a statement read on state radio and television, the Francophone governor stated that

“At about 2:00 am (local time), one of the leaders of the armed separatist groups, General No Pity attacked the gendarmerie brigade at Lassin in Bui, North-West region, killing four gendarmes and taking away weapons.”

This new attack adds to the list of dead soldiers in Southern Cameroons in 2021.

In January, three gendarmes, one policeman and two civilians were killed in an attack on a checkpoint in Matazem, a small town in the Western region, located some few miles from Bamenda the chief city in the North West region.

In March, five members of the security forces and four civilians were killed in the locality of Galim.

The War in Ambazonia has already claimed at least 40 000 lives, almost all of them civilian children, men and women, murdered by Cameroun troops in a series of targeted killings, organized massacres, and killings by fire in over 400 villages burnt down to ashes across Ambazonia. Over half a million people have been forcibly displaced as refugees living in various countries and especially in refugee camps in Nigeria.Over another half a million people have become IDPs hiding in forests, caves and hills due to forced displacement. Additionally, over 1.5 million people are facing a humanitarian disaster.

Republique du Cameroun uses not only arson and the destruction of food, livestock, and crops in the fields as weapons of war. It also uses rape. Rape of Ambazonian women and girls by Cameroun troops is systematic and widespread. This agonizing situation is compounded by the fact that a high percentage of Cameroun troops are HIV positive and also has other STDs. When they rape they infect the women and girls. This appears to be part of the genocide agenda of Cameroun. Reports are now emerging of scores of school girls raped, impregnated and infected by Republique du Cameroun’s troops. This poses a nightmare not only of the HIV and STD infections but also of rampant teenage pregnancies. Cameroun troops have burnt down health facilities and killed health workers in rural and semi-urban areas. Accessing health facilities or health practitioners is a huge challenge for rural and semi-urban folks.

By Fon Lawrence

As Cameroon government army soldiers battled Ambazonia Restoration Forces over the past four years, dozens of soldiers are now refusing to fight and their cases have opened a rare window into the much respected Cameroon military, once one of the strongest in Sub Saharan Africa but now struggling to combat an ill-equip Southern Cameroons Self Defense Force of not even 2000 fighters.

Cameroon Concord News undercover reporter in the South West shared a conversation today with Cameroon government army soldiers who are petrified of their next assignment. Military commanders have told the soldiers that they will be deployed to Lebialem, Manyu, and Ndian constituencies in the South West over the next few days.

Five of the soldiers (names withheld) said they have lost weight from sleepless nights and disproportionate thoughts over the last few days. Three of the men were visibly troubled after being told that they would be assigned to patrol the dangerous landscapes of Akwaya in Manyu over the next four months. One of the soldiers said, “My son is six, and my daughter is two, and there is a good chance I’ll never see them again. I don’t want to go there as two of my colleagues were brutally murdered by ruthless Amba boys in 2019”.

The young soldiers would either go to the warfront or face the military courts for sedition and rebellion. One of them said that many of his colleagues were bribing superiors to evade being posted to the treacherous jungles of the Southern Cameroons. A corporal, who has been assigned to Lebialem Division told Cameroon Concord News that “Tomorrow, I will faint and pretend that I am unwell as I have no money to bribe my way out of this. If I am declared medically unfit, they will not send me to an early grave. Even within the military, we all know that we cannot win this war, but we must fight because our bosses are making money from it.”

The prevailing situation deep within the Cameroon government military as painted for us by a 25-year-old soldier is even more pathetic. He said he has been around Buea to learn how to say some few words in English and pidgin as being a Francophone in Akwaya Sub Division will be a death sentence on his head. He furthered that he now knows how to say good morning, which may help him stay alive.

Since 2016, Southern Cameroons pro-independence fighters have been engaged in a fierce war against the government of Cameroun. The conflict has claimed over 40,000 civilian lives and more than 2000 Cameroon government soldiers.

The regime in Yaoundé, led by 88-year-old octogenarian, Paul Biya has ignored all calls for inclusive dialogue despite wise counseling from the international community and experts to negotiate with the pro-independence movements and forces.

At the time of filing this report, 13 Cameroon government army soldiers were on drip at the Regional hospital in Buea pretending to be very ill but at night they will be in the bars drinking beer. A soldier from the South Region pretended that he had collapsed by putting his tongue outside faking illness when his name was called that he had been deployed to Eyumojock.

Some of the Francophone army soldiers have two national identities-one bearing Manyu names to hide their Francophoneness. Another soldier successfully got himself out of the Manyu and Lebialem deployment by producing a fake death certificate and funeral programme of his mother who our sources hinted passed away nine years ago.

By Asu Vere Eyere with Intelligence Files

Cameroon Intelligence Report has been reliably informed that the Ministry of Defense is secretly upping the Biya regime estimate on the number of Cameroon government soldiers deployed to Southern Cameroons who were killed by Ambazonia Restoration Forces.

Military officials in Yaoundé recently opined that Amba fighters in all the divisions in Southern Cameroons were linked to the deaths of hundreds of Cameroon government troops.

“That means all Cameroon military combat fatalities in the North West and South West has been attributable to the Ambazonia Interim Government” our source added.

“Ever since the separatists launched what they call Big Rubbergun, our command centers assessed that at least 247 army soldier deaths in the North West alone were from improvised explosive devices,” a senior military officer said in an email to the Minister for Defense.

CIR’s Yaoundé city reporter has gained access to the new report which has to be independently assessed. We understand the new assessment will be given to President Biya but will not be reported to the press.

Most of the deaths occurred during Cameroon government military operations in the rural areas in Southern Cameroons.

By Chi Prudence Asong with files from Rita Akana in Yaoundé

A mother of three young children is trying to raise money to send her husband’s body back to Cameroon after he was killed earlier this month in a car crash in Arnprior, Ont.

Franck Nana Ngassa, 32, died in hospital after rolling his car near Baskin Drive West on May 13, according to Ontario Provincial Police.

“He was a good father,” said Josie Pichette, his wife. “His kids loved him so much. Everybody, anybody that met him, loved him. He just had one of those personalities.”

The family is trying to raise about $19,000 to send Nana Ngassa’s body home to his central African homeland, so that his family can bury him according to local customs. 

Pichette said she’d discussed with her husband his strong desire to be buried in Cameroon if anything were to happen. 

“All of his ancestors are buried in the same place,” she said. “And that’s where he needs to go.”

‘I couldn’t breathe’

The two met in a grocery store in 2013. 

Pichette said Nana Ngassa, a software engineer who moved to Canada to study at the University of Ottawa and Algonquin College, won her over with his bubbly personality and landed her phone number.

They were married nine months later.

A lover of cars, Nana Ngassa had bought one of his dream models, a E550 Mercedes-Benz, two months before the May 13 crash. 

He had purchased the specific make and model for its safety features, Pichette said, but with that car in the shop, he’d taken a loaner out for a spin after she had gone to bed. 

Pichette awoke to police knocking on her door at 1 a.m.

“I couldn’t breathe. I really could not breathe,” she said.

Pichette said it’s been difficult for their three children, Isaac, 6, Ethan, 3 and 11-month-old Makeba, who keep asking where their father is and calling his phone.

She said she’s been warmed by the Arnprior community’s outreach following her husband’s death, hearing from people she wasn’t aware knew Nana Ngassa. 

That love, she said, is especially appreciated as people struggle with their own difficulties due to COVID-19.

Outpouring of support

Pichette is now determined to get her husband home.

While she may not fully understand the burial customs of Cameroon or the Banapeople he belonged to, Pichette said she knows her husband’s family wants to wash the body and prepare him for the afterlife.

With $3,000 raised so far, Pichette said she’s looking at remortgaging her house. She’s also sold some of her possessions, like the treadmill he gave her for Christmas, and said family overseas have also been raising funds to bring him home.

“It’s his last dying wish. That’s what he wanted,” she said. “I can’t not give that to him.”

Source: CBC.CA

A journalist who has been held in Cameroon for ten months for “propagating false news” has started a hunger strike, a media trade union said Thursday.

Reporters Sans Frontières (RSF) and local press unions regularly denounce what they say are arbitrary detentions of journalists critical of Cameroon President Paul Biya and his government.

Emmanuel Mbombog Mbog Matip, director of the Climat Social daily, “is on hunger strike” in a prison in the capital Yaoundé, said Alex Koko, head of the national journalists’ union Synajic.

RSF said another journalist, Paul Chouta, had been jailed for 23 months on Tuesday, but as that sentence was equal to the time he has already spent in detention he was released on Thursday.

The Cameroon authorities did not reply to an AFP request for comment late Thursday,

Cameroon sits a lowly 135th out of 180 nations in RSF’s press freedom index.

Source: AFP

There are strong indications of embezzlement against several Biya regime ministers in the context of the management of covid-19 funds.

A report that has just been made public by the Francophone dominated Audit Chamber of the Supreme Court listed 30 cases of mismanagement against the Ministers of Public Health and Scientific Research.

Minister Manaouda Malachie of Public Health is particularly indexed in the report as the supreme culprit. The Minister paid for 16 ambulances that were never delivered.

Another ruling CPDM party criminal cited in the report is Minister Madeleine Tchuenté of the Ministry of Scientific Research and Innovation.  The Institute of Medicinal Plants which depends on her ministerial department was authorized to produce five million tablets of both Hydroxy Chloroquine and Azitrhomycin.  Madam Madeleine Tchuenté and her gang decided to import these medicines from an Indian company known as “ZANEKA” and had them rebranded and repackaged as “Made in Cameroon”.

Minister Laurent Serge Etoundi Ngoa of Basic Education and Dr. Taiga in charge of the Ministry of Livestock and Animal Industries could not provide evidence or any documentation on their management of COVID-19 funds. 21 cabinet ministers are under investigation and 19 have so far gone through the Supreme Court audition.

The corruption crisis has already been dubbed “Covid Gate” and is it currently generating a lot of under-the-table talk. Cameroon Concord News understands several highly placed government officials have been questioned at the Special Criminal Court and according to a correspondent with our sister publication Cameroon Intelligence Report a wave of arrests has taken place at the Ministry of Public Health.

It is vital to include in this report that the IMF had ordered Cameroon to provide information on the management of funds allocated to combat the covid-19 pandemic.

By Rita Akana in Yaounde

Unity Day activities in Cameroon were marred this week by clashes between separatists and government troops.  The violence left at least 16 people dead and 60 houses burned.

Local media reported that streets in Cameroon’s English-speaking towns and villages were deserted Thursday as the central African state celebrated its National Day, also known as Unity Day.

Meanwhile business activity went on as usual in French-speaking towns and villages.

Efang, also known as Big Number, calls himself the supreme general and commander of separatist fighters in the English-speaking North West and South West regions.

He said on social media that he asked fighters to make sure all English speakers remain at home as a sign of protest against National Day.

He says the English-speaking North West and South West regions no longer consider themselves part of the French-speaking majority state of Cameroon. He says English-speaking Cameroonians should not celebrate a national day imposed by the Yaounde government, which is using military might to deprive English speakers of their freedom.

Efang also said fighters and government troops clashed this week in the northwestern town of Kumbo and villages, including Buh, Takijah, Meluf, Oku and Ndop.

Genesis Tamu is a farmer in the village of Buh. He says villagers found six corpses after the military left Buh on Tuesday night. He spoke to VOA via WhatsApp.

Tamu says he saw Cameroon troops setting fire to houses in the northwestern village of Buh. He says when the troops left, villagers found out that 35 of their houses were torched and property, including mattresses, pigs and goats were looted.

Tamu said on Thursday morning, village elders were still searching for missing villagers, who may have either been killed or arrested by the military, or may have escaped to the bush for safety.

Catholic Church officials said about 60 houses were torched in Buh, Tadu and Oku, but did not say whether separatists or army troops were responsible.

The military said violence ahead of National Day resulted in the deaths of 16 people.

General Valere Nka, commander of government troops fighting rebels in the North West region, says the military remained professional during their raids on separatist camps.

“We cleared many camps. Our men in the field are observing the humanitarian law. Our men secure the vulnerable, the children and women,” said Nka. “We need their collaboration to succeed in this operation. We need to win hearts and minds.”

Nka said many suspected separatists were arrested and are helping in investigations.

Philemon Yang is Cameroon’s immediate past prime minister and remains a close ally of President Paul Biya.

He says fighters should drop their guns and rejoice that the government has done much to attend to the needs of disgruntled English speakers. 

He says the government is in a permanent dialogue to make all Cameroonians feel comfortable and proud of their nation. He says the government of Cameroon after a 2019 national dialogue, granted a special status with more autonomy to Cameroon’s troubled English-speaking regions. He says every Cameroonian should know that there is no state in the world without problem. He says Cameroonians should stop all attempts to destabilize their country.

Separatists have rejected the special status and promised to make the English-speaking regions ungovernable until they are granted their independence.

Source: VOA

Prime Minister Joseph Dion Ngute survived an attack by gunmen who shot at his convoy at the entrance to Muea town on Thursday, CRTV, the official French Cameroun state news agency reported.

Dion Ngute was not hurt, but some members were wounded when Ambazonia Restoration Forces fired at his vehicles in the Fako constituency, according to Cameroon government security sources in Buea. A shootout reportedly ensued between the Amba fighters in Muea and elements of the Rapid Intervention Battalion (BIR) and police officers protecting the CPDM official. The Ambazonian Self Defense troops eventually fled.

Also unharmed were some pro French Cameroun Biya acolytes, who had accompanied Chief Dr Dion Ngute and other government officials who travelled to the South West to give the impression that the Francophone dominated regime in Yaoundé is winning the war in Southern Cameroons. No group in the now Federal Republic of Ambazonia has claimed responsibility for the attack.

Violence has surged in the beleaguered oil-rich Southern Cameroons. The mineral-rich but poverty-stricken territory has been unstable since the 88-year-old President Biya declared war against the English speaking peoples of Southern Cameroons.

Thousands of people have died since the war erupted four years ago and more than a quarter of the population has fled their homes. Of these, 75,000 are refugees in neighbouring Nigeria.

Even though bloodshed has reportedly receded in intensity over the last few months, violence remains chronic. Ambazonia groups hold sway over nearly all of the Southern Cameroons rural territories.

At the time of filing this report, huge flames were reported at GBHS Muea, just after the ferocious gunshots targeting the prime minister.

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai with files