FINANCIAL SCANDAL ROCKS LRC
Financial Scandals Rock LRC: A colossal sum of FCFA 5000 Billion Unaccounted for
Undaunted has been made to understand that some 1,790 agents from the LRC Ministry of Finance are being asked to justify their fictitious mission expenses collected under a certain expenditure line coded line 65 managed by this ministerial department and the amount missing being a colossal sum of FCFA 5000 billion
Reports say the Presidency of the LRC initiated a few months ago, an audit on the management of budget lines 65 and 94 managed respectively by the Ministry of Finance (Minfi) and Economy.
Line 65 of the Minfi is entitled "Common operating expenses", while line 94 entitled "Investment interventions" is managed by the Ministry of the Economy.
In a correspondence dated September 30, 2022, the Minister of Finance, Louis Paul Motazé, invites 1,790 agents from his ministerial department to justify mission expenses received during the period from 2010 to 2021.
These include expenses engaged on line 65, indicates the letter. The audit mission is carried out by the LRC Ministry Delegate to the Presidency in charge of Supreme State Control (Consupe).
From these investigations, it revealed that the mission expenses incurred on this sovereignty line do not most often comply with the regulations in force.
Undaunted learned, for example, that there are several civil servants who accumulate more than 400 or even 600 days of mission per year, while the text in force in the LRC civil service stipulates that the number of days of mission to be carried out by an agent of the State must not exceed 100 during a fiscal year.
Surprisingly too it was noted that many State agents regularly receive all of their mission expenses incurred on this line 65 even before carrying out the said mission. However, the regulations in force prescribe that only 60% of the costs must be collected on departure for the mission, the rest of the 40% must be collected when the agent returns after filing his/her mission report.
This audit arouses suspicions in the public opinion, due to the opacity that reigns around the management of these credit lines and the volume of funds allocated to these two budgetary chapters.
The 2020 settlement law, which takes stock of the execution of the annual state budget, indicates for example that line 65 had benefited from an initial allocation of FCFA 272.8 billion. But at the end of the fiscal year, this "revised" allocation was FCFA 570 billion consumed at 99.7%.
Many observers accuse the LRC Presidency of complicity and ordering for this control very late.
They argue that LRC Presidency must have wanted to protect the culprits, for how could certain public officials produce proof of a mission carried out 10 or 12 years ago view the endemic corruption and poor filing system in LRC’s public service. Even if they had kept some documents, the recurrent moves coupled with negligence, and laisser-faire they will be lost.
Sceptics describe this move as another smokescreen to search for scapegoats which characterises the thieving Junta in Yaounde.
This is so because many of such enquiries are opened and at the end no one knows their outcome as the LRC corrupt presidency holds the yam and the knife and has been abusing this powers indiscriminately usually against those who do not toe the line especially with the dictates of the ruling party, CPDM
