Cameroon: Issa Tchiroma Bakary reveals over 10,000 billion stolen in gold, oil and wood

Issa Tchiroma Bakary exposes alleged looting of gold, oil, and timber, along with fraudulent contracts, tax evasion, and illicit enrichment by President Paul Biya’s inner circle. Here are the figures he presented.

“Fellow citizens, I was struck by the 2,000 billion francs worth of gold reportedly diverted. That prompted me to order my teams in Cameroon and abroad to gather detailed information on the state of public finances. What we found is a trail of anger, pain, and even revolt. It is obvious that in 43 years, Cameroon has been brought from relative prosperity to absolute poverty for its people.

Let me present the facts. The first area of predation concerns subsoil resources, particularly oil. For 40 years, SNH generated oil revenues outside the budget, without parliamentary oversight or transparency. The IMF, World Bank, and EITI flagged huge flows leaving the country that never appeared in official accounts. Oil sold to Glencore at less than 30% of its value, missing cargoes, and unrecorded SNH revenues total several thousand billion FCFA. Forests suffered the same fate: 80% of timber is sold illegally. Cameroon’s land has been openly plundered with state complicity. Between gold, oil, and wood, over 10,000 billion have vanished.

The second area is direct embezzlement through fraudulent contracts. Budget lines 65 and 94 for 2012-2021 were simply erased. These two lines alone represent 5,400 billion in unjustified spending. The TCS, created by Biya himself, judged and convicted his own servants for nearly 9,000 billion in embezzlement between 1997 and 2021. And what about ghost employees? According to MINFI and the Treasury, over 20,000 phantom civil servants were on the payroll for years. The annual damage has been around 200 billion FCFA for decades. Everyone remembers the big scandals: the Yaoundé-Douala highway, the 2021 Africa Cup of Nations, and the COVID vaccines, where massive overbilling has been documented, exceeding 500 billion FCFA.

The third area concerns tax and customs fraud. ANIF and CONAC identified systemic fraud mechanisms. Their official figures: 1,665 billion FCFA in suspicious flows in 2023 alone; 1,246 billion FCFA in documented customs fraud over six years; 1,745 billion FCFA in scanning fraud at the Douala port attributed to SGS. With these numbers, we can understand the troubling scene at the Douala port since 2026, where two regime clans fight over control of institutionalized fraud.

The fourth and final area is the personal enrichment of the Biya clan. It has been established that the clan systematically diverted public wealth to acquire personal assets in Cameroon, France, and the Middle East. Dutch authorities identified 744 million euros in ill-gotten assets in France, plus the Nyom estate of the SGPR valued at 18 billion FCFA, assets in Dubai estimated at 44 billion FCFA, and stays at the Hotel Continental in Geneva costing $50,000 per night for the entire delegation. Everyone—Mr. Biya, his wife, his son, the SGPR, the DCC, the DCCA, the MINAT, and many others—has amassed considerable personal fortunes without ever meeting the asset declaration requirement of Article 66 of the Constitution.

The total amount of predation is revolting. The conservative estimate stands at 26,000 billion FCFA. This is a lower bound, as the regime has perfected concealment through nominees and tax havens. Based on reasoned extrapolation, our experts believe the real figure could reach 80,000 billion FCFA. To illustrate the scale of this pillage: with 26,000 billion FCFA, Cameroon could have paid 36 years of salaries for all 380,000 teachers, healthcare workers, and soldiers combined, and built 2,600 district hospitals—260 per region.

Fellow citizens, there will be no amnesty or secret negotiation trading impunity for a quiet transition. Any senior official guilty of malfeasance will answer for their actions before competent national and international courts.”