Part 5 – Final: The CEMAC Court Ruled That The Takeover Of Amity Bank By Atlantic Financial Group Of Ivory Coast Was Wrong And Illegal.

The original shareholders of Amity Bank were never involved in discussions to completely handover the bank to the Ivorian Group, and the terms of the deal have never been known 

The Cameroon Gov’t ignored the CEMAC Court’s ruling, and so Esimi Menye’s or Gov’t’s mafia, caused another Anglophone bank to disappear, after Cameroon Bank

  The arrangement between the then Cameroon’s Minister of Finance, Essimi Menye Lazare, and the Ivorian group, Atlantic Financial Group, for the latter to instead  take over Amity Bank,  was not only very controversial, but illegal.  The minister’s normal proposal to Atlantic Financial Group would have been that the Ivorian group could pump some money into Amity Bank, and become the new majority shareholder. Even such a proposal to the Ivorian Group was not rational or necessary, as it was in reality not in the interest of Cameroon to do so.

As The Mentor stated in the last article (Part 4) of the Amity Bank story, the Ivorian Group, the Atlantic Financial Group, that owns and runs Bangue Atlantique in a number of Francophone African countries, came to Cameroon to set up an affiliate or subsidiary of the Group, that is, Banque Atlantique Cameroun. There was no rationality to instead propose that the Ivorian group should instead takeover Amity Bank, as the controversial Minister of Finance, Essimi Menye Lazare, did.

No Other Cameroonian Bank Has Ever Been Treated Like Amity Bank By Gov’t

The Atlantic Financial Group of Ivorian billionaire, Bernard Kone Doitongu, came with funds to set up an affiliate, Banque Atlantigue Cameroun. Essimi Menye would have allowed the Group to set up the affiliate, and then open Amity Bank for a new shareholder to come in with funds and become the new majority shareholder, and not the sole owner of Amity Bank.  There are many commercial banks, insurance companies and so on, that would have readily done that.

The original shareholders of Amity Bank like Chief Mukete, and Pa Francis Yong, and others, were supposed to be protected by the Government. As a Cameroonian bank, Amity Bank was also supposed to be protected by the Government to remain as Cameroonian bank, even if the new majority shareholder would have been a foreign group.  That was what earlier happened to Union Bank of Cameroon, after it was restricted by the Central African Banking Commission, CONAC, and that is what is about to happen to Commercial Bank Cameroun, CBC.  Why was Amity Bank treated differently? In fact never in the history of Cameroon, has a Cameroonian bank been completely handed over to a foreign group, as happened to Amity Bank.

 A Secret Deal By Minister Essimi Menye!

But then in Amity Banks’s case, the then Minister of Finance, Essimi Menye Lazare, instead proposed that the Atlantic Financial Group should takeover Amity Bank.  Worse still, the shareholders of Amity Bank were never involved in the discussions that Atlantic Financial Group should takeover Amity Bank.  So the shareholder strongly held that Essimi Menye Lazare illegally sold Amity Bank to the Atlantic Financial Group.

There were in fact lots of rumours that Minister Essimi Menye struck a deal with the Ivorian Group to secretly sell Amity Bank. Whether it was true or false, the fact was that the deal was not only illegal, but that there was also total lack of transparency and honesty in the way things were done, by both parties. How could the Ivorian group, the Atlantic Financial Group that has commercial banks (Banque Atlantique) in a number of Francophone African countries, have accepted a complete takeover of Amity Bank Cameroon, in discussion that the original shareholders of the bank were never involved? Not even once. Amity Bank was not created by Minister Essimi Menye Lazare, or by the Government of Cameroon.

  The Lack Of Transparency And Honesty            

Also, as regard the lack of transparency and honesty, both Cameroon’s Minister of Finance, Essi  Menye Lazare, and the Ivorain group, the Atlantic Financial Group, did not initially come out clear that the deal they had struck or that the agreement they had reached, was that Atlantic Financial Group should take over Amity Bank completely. It should be noted that initially, when observers heard of the coming in of the Atlantic Financial Group, they thought it was to come into Amity Bank as the new majority shareholder. Nobody could imagine then that the Ivorian group was instead to completely take over the Cameroonian bank, Amity Bank.

Even then the old shareholders raised their voice, questioning how the Ivorian group could be brought into Amity Bank as majority shareholder by Minister Essimi Menye or Government, without them been formally informed by Government as to what was up.  The first response to the original shareholders by both Minister Essimi Menye and the Atlantic Financial Group was that the Ivorian group would soon meet with them, and that they should just allow the group a little time to settle.

But then weeks and months passed without any meeting, and the old shareholders rightly started complaining again.  The next thing the shareholders were shockingly told by Minister Essimi Lazare, was that Atlantic Financial Group met the account of Amity Bank in red, and that the old shareholders thus no longer had a franc in the bank. In other words, the message was that Amity Bank that was created by a group of Anglophone investors had been completely handed over to the Ivorian group, the Atlantic Financial Group. Minister Essimi Menye claimed that the takeover of Amity Bank by Atlantic Financial Group was a Government decision, and that Government took the decision to protect the savings of the bank’s customers. However, neither Minister Essimi Menye, nor the Cameroon Government, never ever issued any statement on the controversial issue.

CEMAC Court Ruled That Takeover Of Amity Bank By Atlantic Financial Group, Was Illegal

But the former majority shareholder of Amity Bank, Christophe Silienou, PDG of SCTM Gas and a big fighter, publicly denounced the complete takeover of Amity Bank by Atlantic Financial Group of Ivory Coast, and qualified what happened as a MAFIA. Silienou who insisted that the takeover of Amity Bank by the Ivorian Group was illegal, took the matter to the CEMAC Court, which was the competent court to handle such a matter. INTERSTINGLY ENOUGH, SILIENOU WON THE CASE, AS THE CEMAC COURT TOO SAID THAT THE COMPLETE TAKEOVER OF AMITY BANK BY THE ATLANTIC FINANCAIL GROUP WAS WRONG AND ILLEGAL.

Silienou in his typical character, paraded  a copy of the judgment that was delivered by the CEMAC Court everywhere, and also shouted all over the place that the takeover of  Amity Bank by the Ivorian Group, Atlantic Financial Group, was not only illegal, but that it was A BIG MAFIA.

Cameroon Gov’t Ignored The Court Judgment

But unfortunately the Cameroon Government ignored the ruling of the CEMAC Court. Unfortunately too, Silienou passed away.   The death of Silienou, a very daring fighter, was also a deadly blow to the fight by old shareholders of Amity Bank that had been robbed of their bank in broad daylight, to seek justice. That was how the story of Amity Bank Cameroon that was created by a group of Anglophone Cameroonians, and that was once the pride of all Anglophone Cameroonians sadly ended.  That also came to remind Anglophones of what happened to Cameroon Bank.

Meanwhile, it should be noted that the controversial Essimi Menye Lazare, was Cameroon’s Minister of Finance from September 7, 2007 to December 9, 2011. He also ‘served’ as Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development from December 9, 2011 to October 2, 2015, when he was dropped from government.  Soon after that, Essimi Menye Lazare fled from Cameroon to the United States Of America, when information leaked to him that he was about to be arrested for alleged embezzlement of public funds, when he was Minister of Finance. This was also clear evidence that the Government, or better still President Biya, had come to recognize the fact that Essimi Menye was not a credible Minister of Finance.

Essimi Menye Lazare has since been hiding in the US, most probably on political asylum as most of them do.  The President –Elect of the United States, DONALD TRUMP, has repeatedly said that he will throw out of the country, those fellows who committed crimes in their countries of origin, and ran to the United States.  ESSIMI MENYE LAZARE is one of such criminals. Let Donald Trump, hear this. Besides the alleged embezzlement of State funds, Essimi Menye will also one day have to tell Cameroonians the truth about the Amity Bank deal, that led the Ivorian group, Atlantic Financial Group, to completely take over  the Cameroonian bank, Amity Bank, and become the sole proprietor. SCANDAL!

By Joe Dinga Pefok (Uncle Joe)

Website: www.thementornews.com

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Email: djpefok@yahoo.com  / djpefok13@gmail.com

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