Embezzlement at MINFI:

OusmaneMey nails four corrupt tax collectors

-The fraudsters are accused of jointly pocketing over FCFA 1 billion of revenue recovered from taxpayers

By Tanyi Kenneth Musa in Yaounde

The minister of finance has uncovered a crime syndicate in his ministry comprising of a well-seated network of thieving tax collectors, who siphon recovered tax revenues into their private pockets instead of the state treasury.

                AlamineOusmanMey on 26 July signed decisions sanctioning four members of the crime network that are found essentially in strategic posts in the directorates of taxes and treasury. The four croocks are alleged to have stolen state money to the tune of about FCFA 1.3 billion.

                According to the minister’s decisions, one of the alleged fraudsters is a certain YaoubaAmadou, a tax controller working in the Extreme North region.

                Yaouba, who was indicted for “gross misconduct and violation of professional ethics,” has been suspended from taking part in any activities in the Finance ministry for a period of four months.

                Another victim of Alamine’s sledge hammer is PelagieEyinga Blanche, a contract worker in the taxation administration, who before her sanction occupied the duty post of interin tax collector (receveur des impots) at the divisional tax centre in Sa’a in the Centre region. Dame Pelagie was relieved of her functions as receveur.

                It was idem for NkoulHyacinthe, the receveur of taxes in Bafia in the Centre region, who also lost his post.

                For his part, Zang Francis, controller of taxes in Ntui, was suspended from all activities in the MINFI for a period of four months on grounds of “gross professional misconduct and violatoin of the ethics and deontology of the public service”.

                According to sources at the taxation headquarters here, the four workers and their accomplices were operating a network through which they inflated the emoluments and salaries of their colleagues. They would multiply several times the salaries, advancement bonuses and emoluments of the state agents and then get these people paid the undeserved amounts which they will later share out between and among themselves.

                It emerged that these fraudsters had been plying their dubious but very lucrative trade for months and years running. And they always made sure they deleted all traces from the records in the automated systems at the finance ministry.

                It is worthy to mention that some of the beneficiaries of the fraud have been roped and are helping the judicial police in investigations.

                It should be noted that ever since the minister of finance adopted new methods of tax assessment and collection whereby taxpayers declare their taxes online and effect payments directly to the state treasury through bank transfers, tax workers who have now been completely deprived of their source of dubious earnings, have devised new means of siphoning and lining their pockets with taxpayers’ money.