(Business in Cameroon) - FCfa 1.3 billion. This is the amount unduly collected by approximately 700 Cameroonian civil servants during 2016, in collusion with the IT and Payment Units at the Ministry of Finance, with some employees of these services now in prison, we learned from sources within this ministry.

The scheme used by these fraudsters and their accomplices, we learned, consisted in receiving several payments for back pay, salary advances, salary top-ups due to promotions or reclassifications.

While the Ministry of Finance employees involved in this fraudulent practice are in the grip of the Cameroonian justice system, the beneficiaries have already been served with a notice indicating that they owe the Public Treasury, to ultimately refund all monies unduly collected, our sources report.

Labelled “Mboma”, or boa in English, this is a widespread practice in some sections of the Cameroonian civil service such as the army. The different measures taken by the government have not succeeded in uprooting this practice which, combined with the phenomenon of fictitious civil servants, was taking away up to FCfa 5 billion on a monthly basis from the Cameroonian Public Treasury, based on the confession of the former Minister of Finance.

BRM