Mounouna Foutsou, Minister of Youth and Civic Education (Minjec), is back again in the spotlight. But this time around, the French Cameroun political elite is caught up in a massive financial scandal in the management of the Triennial Youth Plan (PTS-Jeunes).

The PTS-Jeunes is an initiative dedicated to a specific social group in La Republique du Cameroun- the youth. It is intended to accelerate their socio-economic integration. This initiative that was put in place by the Biya Francophone regime to avoid anti government protest in French Cameroun received FCFA 102 billion.

Local media houses in Yaoundé are now reporting that a huge part of that money has disappeared.  To be sure, the initiative, set up in 2016, aimed to support 1.5 million young people in three years at a rate of 500,000 per year. Five years after its launch, nobody, not even members of the so called President Biya Youth have benefitted from the project.

Cameroon Intelligence Report source deep inside the Ministry of Youth hinted this reporter that all what Minister Mounouna Foutsou and his gang are claiming to have done with the money ranges from plain fiction to the most absurd. According to many youth groups loyal to the Biya Francophone Beti Ewondo regime, thousands of beneficiaries of the fund have been ghosts and hundreds of names recently released to justify payments are names of dead people. They do not exist anywhere.

The most recent case denounced by youth groups occurred in Atok. In this locality in the Eastern region ravaged by poverty and populated mainly by Maka pygmy populations, dozens of foreign-sounding names appeared on the list to the detriment of the local young people who have been trained.

“This cacophony is maintained by the Minister of Youth to encourage the misappropriation of public funds. He puts the names of his family relations on the lists including people we don’t know here in Atok. And no one can prove their existence. When the cheques are handed over, we don’t even see them. This way of cheating unemployed youth is frightening,” a young woman who has been trained but has not received any funding was quoted as saying to a local radio host.

Cameroon Intelligence Report can now reveal that even President Biya lied to French speaking Cameroonians about the success of the scheme.

“The Special Youth Triennial Plan, which in 2020 has funded 5,500 projects for a total amount of 15 billion CFA francs, has enabled the installation of 16,000 young people in 66 pioneer villages of the second generation,” said Biya in his speech to the youth on February 10, 2021.

“These figures as stated by President Biya are false. The president was misled by his youth minister,” another youth from the South region noted.

“I learned tonight during the speech of the President of the Republic that the Special Three-Year Youth Program have financed 5,500 projects out of the 738,000 requests for funding submitted, to the tune of 15 billion if I remember correctly. On a televised debate in which I took part, none of the panelists, including those of the ruling party, could remember the name of any young person from his locality who has benefited from this program,” said Anne Féconde Noah, spokesperson for Cabral Libi, chairman of the PCRN party.

By Rita Akana with files