Atangana Kouna recovers wealth – President Paul Biya

By Eratus Ndueh

Released last July 2022, after spending four years in prison, the former Minister of water and energy, Basile Atangana Kouna, has been granted permission to recover his property – vehicles, cash and bank accounts, worth several hundreds of million FCFA.

The instruction was recently given by Ferdinand Ngoh Ngoh, the Secretary General at the Presidency of the Republic of Cameroon, to the Minister of Justice, Laurent Esso, via a correspondence under instructions of President Paul Biya, which ordered the restitution of nearly one billion CFA seized from the accounts of Basile Atangana Kouna.

Suspected of embezzlement of public funds, illegal emigration and violation of the legal code by the country’s justice system, Basile Atangana Kouna fled at night in March 2018 to Nigeria where he was arrested. He was later brought back, prosecuted and charged, then sent to the Kondengui central prison in Yaounde. After delayed proceedings under the same presidential instructions, Kouna’s accounts were seized following the requisitions of the investigating judge of the Special Criminal Court (TCS).

The money seized included 971,000 euros and USD 222,256 which converts to just over FCFA 754 million. In addition to this money, several luxury vehicles were seized from the homes of Basile Atangana Kouna in Douala and Yaoundé, as well as from his relatives.

It is yet unclear where the former Minister of water and energy and also former Director General of the National Water Corporation, CAMWATER, could be at this moment but he was lastly seen in his residence in France.