Court: Abah Abah challenges experts’ findings

The former Finance Minister started testifying on July 29, 2014 at the Special Criminal Court.

Former Finance Minister, Polycarpe Abah Abah, has stated that three experts gave wrong figures in their reports as amounts recovered for workers’ contributions and paid into the account of the National Housing Loan Scheme (Crédit Foncier du Cameroun-CFC) at the National Treasury between 1999 and 2004.

To him, only the sum of FCFA 17.6 billion, certified by the Audit Bench of the Supreme Court, could be held as the amount instead of FCFA 22.7 billion, FCFA 21.08 billion and FCFA 21.3 billion, respectively, presented by the three court-ordered expert reports.

Polycarpe Abah Abah was undergoing examination-in-chief led by one of his lawyers, Barrister Atangana Ayissi, at the Special Criminal Court on July 29, 2014 as first defence witness in the trial pitting the Legal Department and Crédit Foncier du Cameroun against Polycarpe Abah Abah, former CFC General Manager, Joseph Edou and several others. The accused are charged with embezzling over FCFA 4.9 billion between 1999 and 2004.

In his testimony, Polycarpe Abah Abah explained that the error committed by the three experts resulted from their failure to get the information from the right source; CFC’s account in the National Treasury.

“What was the December 2004 balance in CFC’s account No 470 532 opened in the National Treasury to receive workers’ contributions from employers?” quizzed Barrister Ayissi. “The balance at the end of 2004 was FCFA 20.2 billion, representing contributions collected from 1999 to 2004. If FCFA 2.5 billion, which represented contributions collected during the period of 1998-1998 that was not considered, then the amount to be retained is FCFA 17.6 billion.”

The lawyer then asked the witness to give the legal framework governing the collection of contributions for the National Social Housing Scheme. Polycarpe Abah Abah then flashed back to Law No 90/050 of December 9, 1990 which instituted the contribution by workers and ordered that it be retained by employers and paid into the National Treasury. The National Treasury then recovers throughout the national territory through a network of treasury accountants (answerable to the Paymaster General) in various tax centres.

Para-fiscal taxes that are sent to the National Treasury such as contributions to CFC, CRTV and National Employment Fund, amongst others, are later put by the treasury accountants in an account at BICEC bank opened by the Finance Ministry for the Directorate of Taxes. From the said account, the Directorate of Taxes then issues cheques to the various beneficiaries and hands them officially at a public ceremony.

The witness bothered to demonstrate that the treasury accountants in charge of recovery in various tax centres were not accountable to him, but to the Paymaster General. “I forwarded the figures they gave me regularly without any means of verifying since the bank deposit slips were kept by the treasury accountant for archives,” explained the former Finance Minister to the panel of judges led by Mr. Justice Yap Abdou.

As at press time, Polycarpe Abah Abah was warming up in the dock to start the second and third parts of the examination-in-chief that dwelled respectively on payment of the contributions and the effectiveness of the cashing of the cheques by the said beneficiaries.