A session of the Board of Commercial Bank of Cameroon (CBC) held on May 6, 2016, led to the appointment of Cameroonian banker Léandre Djummo as Managing Director of this banking institution under provisional administration since 2009.

The newly promoted MD is an ex-employee of the Central African States Bank (BEAC) and the Central African Banking Commission (COBAC), the regulatory body of the banking sector in the Cemac. Léandre Djummo was until his appointment Administrator at Afriland First Bank, first Cameroonian banking group.

The Board of CBC will be chaired by Alfred Tiki. Mr Tiki was also provisional Administrator of Amity Bank, another Cameroonian bank facing difficulties, which was finally bought by the Ivoirian group Banque Atlantique despite a decision from the Common Court of Justice of the Cemac denouncing this transaction with the Cameroonian government.

The re-establishment of the corporate bodies of CBC, whose new leaders will take function after ratification of their appointment by COBAC, thus puts an end to a period of provisional administration which lasted 7 years. This provisional administration was even punctuated by an ongoing complaint against the provisional administrator, Martin Luther Njanga Njoh, accused of misappropriating funds and having received salaries and benefits seen as outrageous or unmerited. The restructuration of this lending establishment, started on 28 January 2013 for a six-month period, was extended six times.

As a reminder, the bank created by the Cameroonian billionaire, Victor Fotso, was put under provisional administration in 2009, after a control by the Central African Banking Commission. The regulator of the bank sector in the Cemac had found gaps in the management of this credit establishment, particularly in the embezzlement of equity capital blamed on Yves Michel Fotso, son of the majority shareholder.

In April 2014, after two roundtables unattended by its historical shareholders, who kept denouncing “an expropriation attempt”, CBC was recapitalised with FCfa 12 billion, including approximately FCfa 10 billion injected by the Cameroonian State, who now owns 98% of the assets of this originally private bank.