Headline News

4, August 2024

SNH Corruption: Moudiki says staff linked to Glencore bribes will face UK court ⁰

The head of Cameroon’s National Hydrocarbons Corporation (SNH) has said some managers and employees will appear before a UK court over suspected involvement in bribery offences linked to Swiss commodity trader Glencore (GLEN.L), opens new tab.

Adolphe Moudiki, SNH’s administrator and director general, had previously denied staff involvement but late on Friday issued a statement saying some employees had been identified as suspects and would appear before a British court on Sept. 10.

In June 2022, Glencore’s UK subsidiary pleaded guilty at a London court to seven counts of bribery in connection with oil operations in Cameroon, Equatorial Guinea, Ivory Coast, Nigeria and South Sudan.

On Thursday, Britain’s Serious Fraud Office (SFO) charged Glencore’s former head of oil Alex Beard with two conspiracies to make corrupt payments to government officials and employees of state-owned oil companies in Nigeria and in Cameroon.

“SNH welcomes the progress of proceedings against the perpetrators and accomplices of the acts of corruption that have tarnished its image,” Moudiki said in the statement.

He did not say how many SNH staff were involved.

Glencore’s UK subsidiary has admitted it paid bribes in Cameroon to SNH officials and others to the sum of 7 billion CFA francs ($11 million) to secure preferential access to oil between 2011 and 2016.

That raises the risk of cholera and other diseases in an area already facing extreme levels of malnutrition, where 500,000 people reside, including Yahia Ali.

Cameroonian lawyer and anti-corruption specialist Akere Muna said SNH should disclose identities of those involved and suspend all dealings with Glencore.

“The culprits are within Cameroon, the transactions that gave rise to the corruption took place in Cameroon yet they expect us to believe the solution will come from London,” said Muna, a former vice-chairperson of corruption watchdog Transparency International.

In July 2022, Cameroon’s state anti-corruption commission said an investigation into the bribery offences was underway, but it has not since shared further details.

SNH is a state company that sells the share of national crude oil production accruing to the state on the international market.

Source: Reuters

3, August 2024

UN Human Rights Chief en route to Yaoundé ⁰

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk will conduct an official mission to Cameroon from 5 to 7 August.

During his visit, Türk is scheduled to meet senior Government officials, including President Paul Biya and Prime Minister Joseph Dion Ngute, as well as members of a wide range of political parties, officials of the Cameroon Human Rights Commission, representatives of civil society organisations, members of the diplomatic corps and UN entities.

The Human Rights Chief will also inaugurate new premises for the Central Africa Regional Office (OHCHR-CARO) in the capital Yaoundé. The Office covers Burundi, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Congo, Democratic Republic of Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Rwanda, and São Tomé and Príncipe.

This is the first visit by High Commissioner Türk to Cameroon. Türk’s predecessor visited the country in May 2019.

A press conference will be held on Wednesday, 7 August in Yaoundé. Access will be limited to accredited media and details will be communicated locally.

Source: ohchr

2, August 2024

Cameroon Olympic boxer fears being ‘killed or put in prison’ if she returns home ⁰

Boxer Cindy Ngamba is hopeful of winning a medal at the Paris 2024 Olympics – but has vowed never to go back to her home country of Cameroon.

Ngamba left the African nation aged just 11 with her family to head to the UK, where they settled in Bolton, eventually being granted asylum status years later.

She picked up boxing a decade ago, but while she trains with GB Boxing and had hoped to represent Great Britain at the games, she has been prevented from doing so after failing to attain a British passport in time.

As such, in Paris she is representing the 37-athlete strong Refugee Olympic Team and was one of their flagbearers in the opening ceremony.

But Ngamba has no intention of ever stepping foot in the country of her birth again, having come out as gay aged 18.

‘In Cameroon, it’s illegal to have any kind of sexuality instead of straight,’ the now 25-year-old said of this summer’s games.

‘That was one of the reasons why I was given refugee status. I can’t go back.’

Ngamba’s worst fears were nearly realised shortly after she came out, when she and her brother were arrested during a routine visit to an immigration centre in Bolton and subsequently sent to a detention camp in London.

‘It was like a prison in there, I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy,’ she recalled.

‘I spoke to some of the women, some had children with them, some didn’t know if they were going back that evening. I was left with so many thoughts, not knowing what was going to happen to me.

‘I had created something here and I would be sent back to a country I hadn’t been to since I was a child.’

Everything has been going to plan so far in Paris however, winning her opening bout in the women’s 75kg event against the third seed Tammara Thibeault from Canada.

Ngamba, who previously won British National Amateur Championships in three different weight categories, will now take on France’s Davina Michel in the quarter-finals on Sunday.

‘If it wasn’t for the support I got from the people who saw something in me that I didn’t see in myself…no matter how hard you try, it’s those people who started this for me.

‘Having to adapt to a lifestyle here was difficult. Then becoming an adult and needing papers to take the next step, making my case to the Home Office and failing so many times, it’s been very, very hard.’

Source: metro.co.uk

2, August 2024

Cameroon Bribery Scandal: UK billionaire charged with corruption over role ⁰

Alex Beard, the billionaire former head of oil at Glencore Plc, was charged with corruption by the UK’s top fraud agency, alongside four other ex-employees from the commodities trader.

The UK’s Serious Fraud Office accused Beard of conspiring to make corrupt payments to benefit Glencore’s oil operations in West Africa. The agency alleges he conspired to make the payments to government officials and employees of state owned oil firms in Nigeria between 2010 and 2014, and Cameroon between 2007 and 2014.

Beard, 56, who was one of Glencore’s top executives for more than a decade before his departure in 2019, is the highest profile individual to be charged in a sweeping series of investigations into corruption and market manipulation at the company – and one of the most senior commodity traders ever to be charged with wrongdoing.

Also facing criminal prosecution is Andy Gibson, 64, Glencore’s ex-head of oil operations and for years Beard’s second in command. The SFO charged him with four conspiracies of making corrupt payments in Nigeria and Cameroon between 2007 and 2014, and Ivory Coast between 2007 and 2010. He was also alleged to have conspired to falsify invoices between 2007 and 2011.

Additionally, Paul Hopkirk, Ramon Labiaga and Martin Wakefield, former Glencore employees involved in trading West African oil, stand accused of conspiring to make corrupt payments to government officials and employees at state owned oil companies in Nigeria, Ivory Coast and Cameroon.

Wakefield is separately charged with one conspiracy to falsify documents between 2007 and 2011.

All the men are scheduled to appear at Westminster Magistrates Court in London on Sept. 10. Lawyers for Beard and Gibson declined to comment. Lawyers for the other men didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.

“Today’s action is an important step toward exposing overseas corruption and holding those who are responsible to account,” Nick Ephgrave, director of the Serious Fraud Office, said Thursday.

Glencore in 2022 pleaded guilty to corruption and market manipulation cases in the US and UK, admitting that it had paid bribes to win business in eight countries from Brazil to South Sudan and paying about $1.5 billion to resolve the investigations against it.

“Glencore cooperated with the SFO in its investigation into this past conduct and resolved its SFO investigation in 2022,” a Glencore spokesperson said noting the charges. “We are committed to acting ethically and responsibly across all aspects of our business and have taken significant action towards building a best-in-class Ethics and Compliance Programme.”

Until his departure from Glencore in 2019, Beard was part of the inner circle of former chief executive Ivan Glasenberg as one of a dozen department heads who made up Glencore’s management board. After working at BP Plc, he joined in 1995, becoming head of oil in 2007 and was known for his acumen trading Russian oil. When the company listed in London in 2011 he was revealed to be one of its largest shareholders with a stake worth $2.8 billion.

After leaving Glencore he started an investment company, Adaptogen Capital, to invest in large-scale batteries connected to the UK grid. He has been a major donor to Christ Church College at Oxford University and a trustee of Shakespeare’s Globe theatre in London. His net worth was estimated at £1.2 billion in the latest Sunday Times Rich List.

Beard’s role at Adaptogen Capital ended on July 12, according to a filing at Companies House.

“Alex Beard is no longer a director of the company having resigned in July 2024,” a spokesperson for Adaptogen said on Thursday. “It remains business as usual at Adaptogen.”

Source: BNNBloomberg

2, August 2024

Bamenda Ecclesiastical Province: Archbishop Nkea highlights six levels of Communion ⁰

Archbishop Andrew Fuanya Nkea of Cameroon’s Catholic Archdiocese of Bamenda has outlined six levels of communion, which he said Catholic Priests share in their Priestly ministry.

In his Wednesday, July 31 homily during the opening Mass of the General Assembly of Priests of Bamenda Ecclesiastical Province (BAPEC), Archbishop Nkea highlighted Communion with the Trinity, Communion with the Church, Hierarchical Communion, Communion in the Eucharistic Celebration, Communion in the Exercise of Ministry, and Communion in the Presbyterate as vitally important in the ministry of Priests.

He described the July 31 – August 2 meeting as a “wonderful encounter of faith and fraternity”, and added, “The Priesthood is the strongest brotherhood in the world.”

“We are linked by that special fraternity which flows from the mystical oil of Chrism with which we were anointed during our Priestly ordinations, and nothing can weaken or separate us from this divine brotherhood,” the Cameroonian Catholic Archbishop said at St. Thomas Aquinas Major Seminary Bambui (STAMS) in Bamenda Archdiocese.

Communion with the Trinity

“The communion of the Priests is fulfilled above all with the Father, the ultimate origin of all his power, with the Son, in whose redemptive mission he participates, with the Holy Spirit who gives him the power for living and fulfilling his pastoral charity,” Archbishop Nkea said.

The Local Ordinary of Bamenda, who doubles as the President of the National Episcopal Conference of Cameroon (NECC) advocated for “pastoral charity” on the part of Priests.

“Far from being reduced to a series of techniques and methods serving the functional efficacy of the ministry,” he said, pastoral charity “refers to the nature proper of the mission of the church for the salvation of humanity.”

Communion with the Church

“The ecclesia communion of the Priest is lived in diverse ways. In fact, through Sacramental Ordination, he develops special bonds with the Pope, the Episcopal body, his own Bishop, other Priests, and the faithful,” he said.

Communion with the Church, the Archbishop of Bamenda emphasized, “is of utmost importance because without the Church the Priest cannot exist. We are Priests, and we can only experience this Priesthood in its fullness by being in communion with the Church.”

Hierarchical Communion

“Taking form in said ministerial communion are also some precise ties, first of all with the Pope, the college of Bishops, and Priests’ own proper Bishop,” he said referring to communion from the hierarchy viewpoint.

The 58-year-old Catholic Archbishop, who started his Episcopal Ministry in August 2013 as the Coadjutor Bishop of Cameroon’s Mamfe Diocese explained, “There can be no genuine Priestly ministry except in communion with the Supreme Pontiff, the Episcopal College, especially with one’s own Diocesan Bishop who deserves that filial respect and obedience promised during the right of ordination.”

“The Priesthood has absolutely no meaning if it is separated from that of the Bishop in whose Priestly ministry we share,” Archbishop Nkea said.

Communion in the Eucharistic Celebration

“Hierarchical communion is most meaningfully expressed in the Eucharistic prayers,” Archbishop Nkea said.

He explained, “When the Priest prays for the Pope, the College of Bishops and his own Bishop, he expresses not only a sentiment of devotion but attests to the authenticity of his celebration as well.”

“The Eucharistic celebration manifests the unity of the Priesthood of Christ in the plurality of his ministers as well as the unity of the sacrifice of the people of God,” he added.

Holy Mass, the Cameroonian Catholic Church leader said, “contributes to the consolidation of the ministerial fraternity existing among Priests. Without the Eucharist, the Priesthood has absolutely no meaning.”

Communion in the Exercise of Ministry

“Each Priest is to have a deep, humble, and filial bond of obedience and charity with the person of the Holy Father and adhere to his Petrine ministry of magisterium, sanctification and governance with exemplary docility,” he said.

Filial union with a Priest’s “own vision is also an indispensable condition for the efficacy of the Priestly ministry,” the Local Ordinary of Bamenda Archdiocese added.

“Priesthood without communion in ministry has no meaning. In this province of Bamenda we have a provincial pastoral plan that binds us in the exercise of our ministry, and therefore we share commitment in the exercise of ministry through this common pastoral plan,” he said.

Besides being an expression of maturity, Archbishop Nkea said, “This adhesion which entails proceeding in unison with the mind of the Bishop, contributes to the education of that unity in communion which is indispensable for the work of evangelization.”

Communion in the Presbyterate

“By virtue of the Sacrament of Holy Orders, each Priest is united to the other members of the Priesthood by specific bonds of apostolic charity, ministry and fraternity,” Archbishop Nkea said.

Priesthood, he said, is “a true family, in which the ties are not of flesh or of blood but come from the grace of Holy Orders.”

“Belonging to a specific Presbyterate always takes place within the context of a particular church, and not for reasons of incarnation, which in no way alters the fact that the Priest too, as a baptized person, belongs in an immediate manner to the universal church,” he explained.

Archbishop Nkea described the Priesthood as “a moving signpost”, and went on to explain, “The signpost stands on one place and indicates the road to heaven. But the Priest is a moving signpost. You are moving as you show the people the way to heaven.”

“You are also moving towards heaven. You cannot be showing the way to heaven, and you are moving towards hell,” he added.

Archbishop Nkea called upon Priests to “give up everything so as to enter heaven at the end of our lives. It will be a total catastrophe and a waste of life if we direct people to go to heaven and we find ourselves outside heaven.”

Source: aciafrica

2, August 2024

CPDM Crime Syndicate: Yaoundé raises 550 million USD from international bond sale ⁰

Cameroon has raised 550 million U.S. dollars from its international bond sale, Finance Minister Louis Paul Motaze has said.

The bonds were issued “on favorable terms” during a three-day operation that ended Wednesday in London, the minister said.

“The funds thus mobilized will make it possible to significantly continue the clearance of domestic debt in order to stimulate the activities of SMEs, consolidate the growth of the economy, strengthen the confidence of the private sector in the state and improve the business climate,” Motaze said in a statement Wednesday.

The bonds were a vote of confidence in the credibility of Cameroon and its ability to attract investors to fund its national development strategy, he said.

Source: Xinhuanet

2, August 2024

CPDM Crime Syndicate: Detained TikToker released ⁰

Cameroonian authorities have released a young activist detained last week after posting a video on TikTok advocating democratic change in the country ahead of next year’s presidential election, his lawyers said.

Barrister Akere Muna, lead lawyer for Junior Ngombe, 23, told the media in Yaoundé on Wednesday that the activist had been granted bail and that no charges had yet been filed against him.

“After the investigation, authorities may decide to either drop the case or press charges,” said the lawyer, who is also an opposition politician.

Ngombe, a hairdresser and social media influencer with more than 12,000 followers on TikTok, was arrested in the country’s second city Douala on July 24 and taken to the gendarmerie headquarters, also known as the State Defense Secretariat (SED), in the capital Yaoundé, where he was detained.

The move drew widespread criticism, with rights advocates describing it as a crackdown on freedom of expression by the government of President Paul Biya.

Source: The East African

1, August 2024

Trump questions Harris’ racial identity: ‘Is she black or Indian?’ ⁰

Donald Trump has questioned Kamala Harris’ racial identity during a heated exchange at a convention for black journalists.

Trump falsely claimed the vice-president and presumptive Democratic nominee had only emphasised her Asian-American heritage until recently when, he claimed, “she became a black person”.

“I didn’t know she was black until a number of years ago when she happened to turn black and now she wants to be known as black,” he said at the National Association of Black Journalists convention in Chicago on Wednesday.

“So I don’t know – Is she Indian? Or is she black?”

Ms Harris said Trump’s remarks were “the same old show” of “divisiveness… and disrespect”.

“The American people deserve better,” she told a meeting of the historically black sorority Sigma Gamma Rho in Houston. “We deserve a leader who understands that our differences do not divide us – they are an essential source of our strength.”

Ms Harris is the first black and Asian-American vice-president, with Indian and Jamaican-born parents. She attended Howard University, a historically black university, and joined the predominantly black Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority.

She became a member of Congressional Black Caucus after entering the Senate in 2017.

Trump’s claims prompted a heated exchange with ABC News’ correspondent Rachel Scott, one of the moderators of the Chicago event.

“I respect either one,” the Republican said in reference to Harris’ racial identity. “But she obviously doesn’t because she was Indian all the way and then all of a sudden she made a turn and she became a black person.”

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said no-one “has any right to tell someone who they are, how they identify. That is no-one’s right.”

“Who appointed Donald Trump the arbiter of Blackness?” asked Representative Ritchie Torres of New York. He described Trump as a “relic of a racist past”.

The Republican nominee and former president has a history of attacking his opponents on the basis of race.

He falsely accused Barack Obama, the country’s first black president, of not being born in the US.

Trump attacked the former UN ambassador and his Republican primary opponent Nikki Haley by falsely claiming she could not be president because her parents were not US citizens when she was born.

Ms Harris has faced a series of attacks since becoming the presumptive Democratic nominee. Republicans have criticised the decision, saying she was chosen only because of her race.

Tim Burchett, a Republican congressman from Tennessee, called her a “DEI vice-president” – a reference to diversity, equity and inclusion programmes.

On Wednesday, Scott pushed Trump to clarify whether he believed Ms Harris was a “DEI hire”. He replied: “I really don’t know, could be.”

Ms Harris has described growing up engaged with her Indian heritage and often visited the country. Her mother also immersed her two daughters in the black culture of Oakland, California – where she was raised, she said.

Trump also attacked Ms Harris’ credentials during the discussion, saying she had failed her bar exam early in her legal career. His comments were met with murmurs from the crowd.

“I’m just giving you the facts. She didn’t pass her bar exam and she didn’t think she would pass it and she didn’t think she was going to ever pass it and I don’t know what happened. Maybe she passed it,” he said.

Ms Harris graduated from the University of California Hastings College of Law in 1989. The New York Times reported that she failed her first attempt and passed at the second. The state bar of California says fewer than half of those who sit the test pass on the first attempt.

The Chicago discussion began with a contentious back and forth between Scott and the former president. Trump accused the journalist of giving a “very rude introduction” when she began the conversation asking about his past criticism of black people.

She cited Trump calling black journalists’ questions ”stupid and racist” and that he had ”dinner with a white supremacist at your Mar a Lago resort”.

“I love the black population of this country, I’ve done so much for the black population of this country,” he responded.

The former president criticised the conversation hours later on his social media platform. “The questions were rude and nasty, often in the form of a statement, but we CRUSHED IT!” he said.

Source: BBC

1, August 2024

Rome: New report suggests long-term worries for Vatican finances ⁰

A new analysis of the Vatican’s financial situation by an Italian news outlet contains both good and bad news for papal finances, pointing to relative success in efforts to contain ballooning deficits but also seemingly irreversible long-term declines.

According to an overview of the most recent financial data published July 26 by La Repubblica, Italy’s most widely read daily newspaper, the Vatican’s annual operating deficit grew by roughly $5.4 million in 2023, a lower figure than in past years. The report suggested the result was due to the impact of both spending cuts and also efforts to generate more realistic appraisals of the value of Vatican properties.

Among the cost-cutting measures adopted in recent years include new limits on hiring and contracting, as well as efforts to increase the rents collected on some Vatican properties which are leased commercially and to put others up for sale.

The report cited a recently completed financial statement approved by the Vatican’s Council for the Economy, led by German Cardinal Reinhard Marx. According to the report, the deficit for 2023 amounted to over $90 million, with income of $1.25 billion and expenses of $1.34 billion.

Income in 2023 actually grew by $30 million, according to the financial statement, but expenses also went up by $36 million due to the impact of inflation.

The statement also indicated that the size of the 2023 deficit could still shrink somewhat depending on what the actual performance of the Vatican’s investment portfolios match projections.

The Repubblica analysis also found that income from the annual Peter’s Pence collection, which supports the works of the pope, amounted to $52.5 million in 2023, an increase over the $47.2 million collected in 2022.

Nonetheless, the net gain from the collection was offset by the fact that the fund’s reserves were once again draw upon in 2023 to support the Roman Curia, the Vatican’s chief administrative bureaucracy, to the tune of almost $98 million.

Moreover, the long-term trend in income from the fund is clearly downwards. According to the Repubblica analysis, collections dropped 23 percent overall from 2015 to 2019, and are poised for further reductions.

To some extent, those declines may be related to financial scandals, such as the aborted $400 million purchase of a former Harrods warehouse in London that resulted in the criminal convictions of nine figures for fraud, including Italian Cardinal Angelo Becciu. Given that Peter’s Pence also is sometimes viewed as a referendum on the popularity of the current pope, various controversies surrounding Franci may also have had an impact.

More basically, however, most observers believe the core factor is that much of the Peter’s Pence income derives from wealthier nations, where Catholic populations, and therefore Catholic giving, have been in decline for decades.

Declines in income are especially worrying for Vatican accountants today, given concerns about an aging workforce and unfunded pension obligations down the line. There’s also alarm that rising costs and declining income could eventually compel the Vatican to either trim its payroll or cut salaries, or both, at time when both the volume and the complexity of the workload from around the world is increasing rapidly.

The financial statement reportedly approved by the Council for the Economy concerns the Holy See, and mostly excludes both the Government of the Vatican City State, which is responsible for administration of the physical territory – including income, for example, from the Vatican Museums – and also excludes the Institute for the Works of Religion, the so-called “Vatican bank,” which for 2023 showed $33.2 million in income and a total of $5.9 billion in client assets.

However, it’s considered improbable that income from either the city state or the IOR will be sufficient in coming years to offset the Vatican’s broad deficits, leaving it unclear for the moment how the losses will be sustained.

Source: Crux

1, August 2024

HIV/AIDS: Yaoundé launches nationwide survey to determine prevalence ⁰

The Minister of Public Health Manaouda Malachie on Wednesday unveiled a nationwide survey to ascertain the prevalence of HIV/AIDS and the impact of preventive measures in the country.

The survey, dubbed Cameroon Population-based HIV Impact Assessment (CAMPHIA), will run from August to February 2025.

“It aims to comprehensively explore the situation of HIV infection within the population aged 15 and over based on a nationally representative sample. The primary objective of CAMPHIA 2024 is to estimate the national and regional prevalence of HIV viral suppression, while the secondary objectives are to estimate the incidence and prevalence of HIV at the national level,” Manaouda said in a statement made public Wednesday afternoon.

It is one of the largest surveys to assess HIV prevalence in the Central African nation and would aid in implementing new measures to further prevent its spread.

“Nationally, the survey will cover 512 enumeration areas from which 15,360 households will be randomly selected, for a total of approximately 28,405 people,” Manaouda added.

The first HIV survey was conducted in the country in 2017.

According to data published by the World Health Organization in 2023, Cameroon witnessed a 50 percent decrease in HIV prevalence among people aged 15 to 64 in the past 14 years.

Source: Xinhuanet