Is corruption delaying state of corruption report?

The 2014 Report on the State of Corruption in Cameroon supposed to have been released since December last year by the National Anti-Corruption Commission, NACC, is yet to be published. NACC which also goes by the French acronym of CONAC, has in the past always make public the report every end of December.

But last year’s report has been unprecedentedly delayed opening room for rumor to spread around. Some of the allegations have it that the report has not been released, owing to deadlock between commission members or that it is undergoing scrutiny at the presidency.

A junior staff at NACC who asked for anonymity, told The Cameroon Journal that the report is being delayed because the Presidency is still keeping it. He confirmed that the involvement of the Presidency in last year’s State of Corruption report has been unprecedented.

“At first, whenever the report was ready, we simply informed the presidency on the day of publication, but last year was quite different as they demanded to read through before it is published,” our source said.

But Dieudonné Massi Gams, NACC chairman, speaking to The Cameroon Journal by telephone, refuted the allegations that the Presidency is in possession of it. He told The Cameroon Journal that the report would be made public any moment from now.

“We are still working on the report. Any moment from now, it shall be made available. No one is editing it, we shall publish just the information we investigated and nothing less. My hands are not tied.” He was, however, oblique as per the exact date he expects the report to be made public.

It should be recalled that the commission had earlier distributed invitation letters mid-December last year to both the media and the diplomatic community inviting them to the public presentation of the report that same month. Few days to the D-day, Massi Gams issued a communiqué in which he postponed the date indefinitely.

The last time NACC published its report on the state of corruption in Cameroon was in December 2013.