Corruption scandal rocks SODECOTON as 580 million disappears from company coffers ⁰

The CEO’s of public companies in Cameroon have continued their CPDM policy of looting in the open. This is the case with the Cameroon Cotton Development Company, SODECOTON, where 580 million FCFA have been stolen recently. Cameroon Concord News learned that SODECOTON created in 1974 by the Cameroon government is facing the worse ever financial crisis in its history.

Our chief intelligence officer hinted at the time of filing this report that a dozen company executive members have already been interrogated by prosecutors at the Special Criminal Court and 6 of them are in police custody.  A sister publication, Cameroon Intelligence Report revealed that some of those highly placed SODECOTON officials arrested over the week end were transported to Yaoundé by a military plane from Garoua including the out gone general manager, Abdou Namba.

This is not the first time that cases of misappropriation of public funds have been reported in Sodecoton. In 2007, more than 174 million CFA francs disappeared from the state enterprise. The funds were reportedly diverted to Cotton Sport Garoua- a football club partly owned by SODECOTO.

The most recent case is that of Iya Mohammed, former general manager of Sodecoton, serving a 15 years sentence at the Kondengui central prison. He was charged in September 2015 for embezzling 11 billion FCFA.

Tambe Peter (Cameroon Concord News Group)