By Yerima Kini Nsom
One of the hallmarks of the 2026 national budget that stands at FCFA 8,816.4 billion is the suppression of budgetary lines 65 and 94 that were nearly 45 percent of the budget. The suppression of these lines has received widespread approval because they were a huge source of the embezzlement of public funds by some unscrupulous officials. The huge sums of money that were reserved for some unforeseen and strategic situations were the subject of opaque management and embezzlement.
According to investigations by one of Cameroon’s leading economic newspapers, Investir au Cameroun, FCFA 5.400 billion simply went into private pockets between 2010 and 2021. The saga of the assassination of critical radio commentator Martinez currently rocking Cameroon is linked to the corruption scandal in which some individuals pocketed several billions. His assassination was a byword of how far corrupt barons intended to go in their nation-killing enterprise. For the journalist was cruelly cut down for unearthing and denouncing an embezzlement scandal that has left budgetary lines numbers 65 and 94 bleeding.
The inaction that followed Martinez’s denunciation and those of many other whistleblowers cast aspersions on the government’s political will to truly fight this nation-killing scourge. This silence equally emboldened the corrupt barons, encouraging them to do an encore with determination to crush everyone that stands in their way. The suppression of these budgetary lines was heralded by the Minister of Finance, Louis Paul Motaze, in a circular that articulated the guidelines of the 2026 budget. The International Monetary Fund, IMF, recommended the suppression of these lines as a way of avoiding extra-budgetary spending and instilling discipline in the management of public funds. According to the IMF recommendations, credit that was hitherto allocated to the 65 and 94 budgetary lines will be distributed to the various ministries. Yet, many observers are asking if the money will now be safely managed for the common good.
Cameroon is endowed with enormous natural and human resources but is home to some of the poorest people on earth due to corruption and bad governance. In the early days of the New Deal regime, when whistleblowers raised an alarm on the high level of corruption in the country, President Paul Biya challenged them to provide proof of their claims. But later on, he realised that the entire nation was mired in corruption. He swung into action by insisting that government officials accused of corruption face the music of the law. Many of them whom the courts found guilty are in prison today. President Biya has created many anti-corruption institutions in the country. There are the National Anti-Corruption Commission, CONAC, the National Financial Investigation Agency, ANIF, the Special Criminal Court, the Audit Bench of the Supreme Court and the anti-corruption unit in the ministries and other government institutions. Despite these supposed watchdogs, corruption has remained resilient in Cameroon. Transparency International’s recent report still rates Cameroon among the most corrupt in the world. For one thing, critics hold that the contradictions are ailing the government’s fight against corruption. For instance, some government officials that CONAC targeted for prosecution in its 2011 report on alleged embezzlement of public funds are not only enjoying impunity but have also been promoted to higher offices in the administration. Many officials who have embezzled public funds, like many of their former colleagues, are free.
That’s why observers are tempted to qualify the anti-corruption onslaught, Operation Sparrow Hawk, as a hoax tailored to victimise political enemies of the regime and equally enable the authorities to play to the gallery. Otherwise, why would some people be slammed with heavy jail terms for complicity in the embezzlement of public funds while many others accused of embezzling COVID- 19 funds have not been called for questioning. No move has been taken to prosecute these people after the Audit Bench of the Supreme Court published an indicting report on them. The same scenario holds sway in the embezzlement scandal that has continued to rock the embezzlement of the Olembe Stadium. These are the issues that adulterate the government’s sincerity to truly fight corruption in the country. The authorities are in the dock of public opinion as people who lack both the political will and the moral authority fight corruption. It is because of this that the ill has remained ubiquitous in the country with its lethal consequences on the economy and the people.
Many people in this country have died because of one corruption act or another. When some officials were found guilty of embezzling Global Health Fund money, it was very clear that many people had died of diseases that ought to have been decently treated.
Corruption has contributed in no small way to stoking the fires of the ongoing socio-political crisis rocking our dear country. Funds for the construction of roads, schools and health centres have been embezzled by some of the people who are supposed to protect them.
It was Lance Morrow, the erudite Time Magazine columnist, who stated the reason for endemic corruption in African countries. He said the only reason for pervasive political and economic corruption in the Black Continent is that African governments themselves are hyper-corrupt. Such a situation, to Morrow, has imposed moral bankruptcy on the national psyche wherein people who manage public funds believe that there are no qualms about robbing a robber, especially in a society where corruption is ubiquitous.
The case of Cameroon is even more pathetic. The tragic ease and speed with which public funds disappear into the private pockets of some officials whose duty is to safeguard them for the general wellbeing is a veritable enigma. Cameroon has emerged as the world corruption champion twice for the simple reason that the demarcation line between the nation’s treasury and the private wallets of those who manage state funds, in many situations, is not only slim but blurred. The government’s financial debauchery spans across the socio-economic and political spheres of national life.
The truth of this predicament is that the establishment is seething from a sickening lack of checks and balances. Even when norms of checks and balances are established, some powerful corrupt barons render them impotent. Consequently, the citizens are orphaned by the incestuous trinity between the executive, the legislature and the judiciary.
The people who are emasculated in the gnawing fangs of poverty have also been robbed of their moral ideal and critical questioning that would have been enabling them to distinguish between fair and foul and the sway to embrace virtue and repel vice. Thus, the crux of the matter is equally the upsurge of moral corruption.
The selective arrest and detention of some officials on corruption charges lend credence to claims that the so-called “Operation Sparrow Hawk” is a score-settling campaign. Otherwise, why do you let B off the hook of justice and cage A for allegedly committing the same crime? Are our laws respectful of some persons? In other words, are there some people that tower above the law in our country?
Critics hold that the regime has no moral authority to fight corruption. To them, the oligarchy has often ridden to power on a bouquet of highly flawed elections.
Experts state that if the government were serious in its much-touted fight against corruption, it would have endowed CONAC with powers to prosecute suspects. Paradoxically, some of the officials CONAC recommended for prosecution because of embezzlement have been promoted. Many of those who have looted the state to near bankruptcy are in charge, as if to say corruption has become a virtue.
If some people are not so determined in making Cameroon a den of corruption, why then has Article 66 of the Constitution that borders on the declaration of assets not been implemented? Why have many of those who lavish in unjustified affluence not been targeted for investigation? The selective arrest and detention of some officials on corruption charges lend credence to claims that the so-called “operation sparrow hawk” is a score-settling campaign.
CONAC has, equally, sounded the alarm bell through its yearly reports. But the fraternity of corrupt networks has proven to be more powerful. Socio-economic and political unaccountability has unleashed an unprecedented feat of moral anarchy in which conmen, scammers and word benders are shamelessly venerated as role models. The Machiavellian maxim has a good place here: the end does not justify the means but also the meanness of moral pervasion. The onus to stem the tides lies on creating strong institutions and giving them a free hand to truly fight corruption without caring whose ox is gored in the process.
For it takes strong institutions to dislodge that fraternity of fraudsters and imposters that have bloodied Cameroon’s image as a corporate entity. The stakes equally lie with the judiciary. It is up to the judicial club members to either make or mar history.
They could maintain the “my-hands-are-tied” status quo or print their names in gold as people who stirred the cataclysmic change in Cameroon, a country that providence blessed with enormous natural and human resources but is paradoxically poor and heavily indebted. Even as the 2026 finance law has an increase of FCFA 1,000 billion, indicating that it is quite an ambitious budget, it will not produce the expected results if corruption is not vigorously fought.