Kini Nsom & Christopher Jator Njechu
5 May 2008
The Board Chairman of the Commercial Bank of Cameroon, CBC, Yves Michel Fotso, has denied any dubious involvement in the purchase of the Presidential plane, the Albatross.
Fotso, who was the General Manager of the Cameroon Airlines, CAMAIR, at the time the Albatross was purchased, made the denial at the Judicial Police in Yaounde on April 30.
He entered the headquarters of the Judicial Police at the Elig-Essono neighbourhood at about 10 am that day and was reportedly interrogated for more than five hours.
A police source told The Post that Fotso said as CAMAIR General Manager at the time, he took no major decision in making the choice of the aircraft that was finally acquired.
"I am not an aeronautics technician," our source quoted the businessman as telling the police.
He reportedly argued that after the technicians gave a go-ahead that Albatross be acquired, he could not gainsay them because he was only the General Manager and not a technician.
The police are said to have also questioned Fotso on the allegation that he is a shareholder of the Assets Portfolio Management, APM, the company that won the contract to acquire the Albatross.
He is said to have cleared himself of such allegations. Thus, the police reportedly did not find any incriminating evidence to put Fotso in pre-trial detention as they did to two former Ministers, Polycarpe Abah Abah and Urbain Olanguena Awono, who are currently languishing at the Kondengui prison on charges of corruption.
Unlike the situation in Douala on Monday, April 28 when police raised some brouhaha while serving him a summons, Fotso's interrogation in Yaounde was discrete.Journalists hunting for information were kept at a safe distance and no cameras caught him when he was going in or leaving the police station.
After the interrogation, Fotso's father and business magnate, Victor Fotso got so worried that he reportedly talked with his son on the phone for over thirty minutes to find out what had happened.
Meanwhile, the former Secretary General at the Presidency, Jean Marie Atangana Mebara, whom the Judicial Police interrogated earlier on Friday, April 25, is said to have also passed on the bulk of the blame on aeronautic technicians who recommended the Albatross.
Prime Minister, Ephraim Inoni, who was the Deputy Secretary General at the Presidency at the time, is said not to be directly implicated in the deal. But security sources say when investigations on the matter would have come to a head, he might be invited to clarify certain issues.
It is said that the inaugural flight of the Albatross with the Presidential couple on board almost turned out to be a disaster as the plane narrowly missed crashing.Panic-stricken, Chantal Biya is said to have cried for days as the awful scene of the incident continued to haunt her. The purchase of the Albatross that consumed billions of francs CFA from the state coffers is said to have been shrouded in so many controversial deals that many state officials who were concerned were going on mission every now and then just to line their pockets.
Albatross Deal
The deal which involves top government officials was initiated in 2001, when Biya pronounced his intention to acquire a new aircraft.A commission for the acquisition of the aircraft had been set up and General Blaise Benae Mpecke, Edgar Alain Mebe Ngo'o, then Director of Civil Cabinet, Marafa Hamidou Yaya at the time Secretary General at the Presidency and Chief Ephraim Inoni, his assistant, were its members.
Meanwhile, Fotso in his capacity as CAMAIR General Manager and a business magnate, Jean Marie Assene Nkou, were to work closely with representatives of the Presidency in choosing the plane.
Division between Biya and Mebara is said to have widened when the latter suspected of being member of a group (G11) wanting to take power in 2011, misled the commission into botched negotiations for the purchase of the plane.
The Post learned that despite earlier reports by an inspection team of fuel leakages and corrosion in some part of the aircraft, the commission acquired the plane in violation of presidential prescriptions
The Albatross affair, sources say, is so complicated that President Paul Biya will need to reshuffle the cabinet for full-fledged investigations to go on hitch-free.For one thing, it is alleged that many members of government including the Minister of Territorial Administration and Decentralisation Marafa Hamidou Yaya, are highly implicated in the affair that they need to be shaken out of the cabinet first for interrogation.
Perhaps it is in this light that allegations of an eminent cabinet shake-up have continued to make rounds in Yaounde for the past two weeks.
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To Mr Biya "signals from within the Earth might one day warn of an upcoming earthquake,..."
may the lord quietly charge u for all u have done