(Business in Cameroon) - This is panic time for Jean Paul Nana Sandjo, former MD of Camair Co, the Cameroonian public airline, who was dismissed on 22 August 2016. Fearing legal proceedings, he attempted, on 31 August at 4 A.M., to board a Royal Air Maroc flight, to reach New York, USA. With a US passport, we learned from authorises sources.

Indeed, our sources indicate, since his dismissal, the Cameroonian passport of this former MD of Camair Co was seized by the Police, and his description sent to all the airports in the country, to be added to the black list of personalities banned from leaving Cameroonian soil until further notice.

This setup, which is generally a forewarning of imminent legal action against the interested parties, led Jean Paul Nana Sandjo to imagine a scheme, which consisted in leaving Cameroon using a different nationality. Our sources even declare that the booking made for the Royal Air Maroc flight by the former MD of Camair Co was first done under his spouse's name, before the revelation, at the last minute, of the true identity of the passenger. After being removed from the airport and questioned at the Criminal Investigation Department of the police, the former Camair Co MD was able to reunite with his family.

For the moment, no formal court action has been started against him, but information picked from Camair Co are sufficient to inform on the reasons for Jean Paul Nana Sandjo’s worries. Indeed, we learned, this Camair Co administrator, who later became MD of the company, was known for conflicts of interest, which were detrimental to the company.

Internal sources in this over-indebted public company list, for example, contracts for the rent of aircraft, engines and other spare parts, done at exorbitant prices with foreign service providers, whose legal representative in Cameroon was sometimes the former MD of Camair Co himself, and whose brokerage activity (provider of spare parts for aircraft) is very well known in the country.

Brice R. Mbodiam