(Business in Cameroon) - The audit firm KPMG Central Africa announced it has found various irregularities in the management of state company Aéroports du Cameroun (ADC).

In the company’s 2021 financial statements, KPMG indicated that “several anomalies in the inventory management software were identified. These include problems of parameterization (weighted average unit cost deactivated, authorization of negative stocks); the existence of items recorded in the wrong counting unit, which consequently distorts the unit price determined (oil cans recorded with the price of a barrel, a box instead of a piece, etc.); the existence of items without unit prices; the existence of duplicate items; the existence of obsolete items not depreciated...".

The firm also reported that as of December 31, 2021, the inventory accounts of ADC show a balance of CFA764 million, however there are mismatches between the prices displayed on the closing inventory valuation statement and the prices entered in the Gescom inventory management software, based on a randomly selected sample of items. This translates, depending on the items, into "under- or over-valuations". Moreover, the ADC human resources department does not have a monitoring report that allows it to know in real time the remaining days of leave to be taken by each employee. And the number of leave days used to calculate the provision for paid leave is not comprehensive. "As a result, we are not in a position to comment on the accuracy of the provision for paid leave in the account, which amounts to CFA404 million as of December 31, 2021," the auditor said.

Let’s note that ADC, 71% owned by the state, is on the list of public companies that will soon be listed on the stock exchange. In 2019, the company posted a net profit of CFA6.7 billion and ranked among the top five public companies with the highest profits that year. However, this profit turned into a dry loss of CFA7 billion in 2020, due to the 62% drop in international traffic in Cameroon's airports as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic.

S.A.