2023-05-28 16:13:22
In the final communiqué of the Conference of Heads of State of the Economic and Monetary Community of Central Africa (Cemac) held on March 17, 2023, the Heads of State recommended to the heads of the eighteen institutions that they had just named, like those already in place, “to register their actions within the framework of transparency in management and the strengthening of collegiality in decision-making”.
The ink prescribing good governance and collegiality in its institutions barely dried, the Bank of Central African States (BEAC) has embarked on the path of progressive blocking of its operation. According to some indiscretions, the governor, whose mandate will end in January 2024, notably signed two decisions before organizing the inaugural meeting of the BEAC government resulting from the recent CEMAC summit.
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BEAC: Abbas Tolli goes strong and publishes the results of the controversial competition
Controversial decisions
The first, dated April 3, 2023, concerns the appointment of a special adviser to the secretary general of the Central African Banking Commission (COBAC), in the person of the outgoing director general of studies, finance and international relations.
This decision led to a scathing reaction from the new Director General for General Control (DGCG), Cameroonian Blaise Eugène Nsom – a reaction brought to the public square via social networks and whose Young Africa echoed. The DGCG, declaring itself “guarantor of respect for the texts and the framework surrounding the entire action of the BEAC” and citing the resolution of the Heads of State of CEMAC, ordered Governor Mahamat Abbas Tolli to postpone his decision , considered without a clear legal basis and likely to be detrimental to a third party.
The second, adopted on April 5, 2023, relates to the publication of candidates admitted to the recruitment competition for senior executives of the Issuing Institute. However, this procedure for selecting new BEAC officials, which began in May 2022, had been the subject of long controversy within the institution, and led to its suspension by the Ministerial Committee of the Monetary Union in Central Africa. , the body overseeing, among other things, the operation of the BEAC and the appointment of its managers.
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Central Africa: storm at the BEAC after new suspicions of nepotism
If this last decision of the Governor of the BEAC n’a not been the subject of a known reaction, it would have caused on the part of the other members of the government, on the basis of the same elements invoked in the letter from the DGCG mentioned above, measures to prevent its application, of which the refusal to bear the costs of this recruitment.
With the return of the governor from a long mission, the first meeting of the revamped government is eagerly awaited, in particular to discuss the principle of collegiality, presented as cardinal by its new members. The relevance of the legal opinion issued by the Court of Justice of CEMAC, in December 2022, on the suspension of the competition by the ministerial committee, which seems to support the position of the governor, should also be mentioned.
Good practices
The IMF, present in Yaoundé since April 8 for its annual talks with the CEMAC institutions, will perhaps be called upon to recall the good governance practices of a central bank that it had helped to establish in 2009- 2010, after the embezzlement scandal at the Paris office of the BEAC. The notion of independence of the Bank, and not of the governor or the government, should in particular be reviewed.
To read
BEAC: “Chadian-style” settling of scores?
However, the CEMAC authorities are first called upon to prevent a recurrence at the BEAC of the tussles that led, in early 2010, to the almost complete replacement of the government led by Philibert Andzembé, who was succeeded by Lucas Abaga Nchama, the sole survivor. of this purge.
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