The “Covidgate” deal is bouncing back in Cameroon. The local press published a summary of the Court of Auditors’ report on the management last year of the special national solidarity fund against the coronavirus. A summary which has not been denied by the Court of Auditors and which highlights the many shortcomings in the management of this fund of 180 billion CFA francs, by the Cameroonian Ministries of Health, Research and Finance.
Even the Cameroonian account chamber struggled to see it clearly. In her summary, she emphasizes “the serious errors or approximations in the accounting documents”: “originating from several official sources” and “often contradictory”.
The gendarme with the public accounts then points to the weakness of the management of the Special Fund and the health response to Covid-19, an “irregular handling” of medicines: stocks of hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin reconditioned in the territory of Cameroon “to make people believe in a local manufacture” and never distributed, but also the misuse of “specialty markets” in cash that deviates from the public procurement code while encouraging embezzlement and has proven to be slower than normal procedures.
Illustration with the 16 ambulances paid twice as much as the concessionaire who was never delivered, the screening tests overloaded to incompetent companies or billions of 250 million CFA francs paid for unfinished work in patient wards.
The Chamber of Accounts emphasizes that there were “interesting links between the awarding companies and the chair of the working group of the Ministry of Health that participated in the award of these contracts”.
According to a source from the government, preliminary investigations have been initiated with respect for the presumption of innocence, and if there is a question, legal proceedings will be initiated.
.
