It is through a letter from the Minister of Sports addressed to the Secretary General of the Prime Minister’s office dated January 3, 2023, that we learned Magil decided to shut down its contract with the State of Cameroon.
One of the biggest financial scandals under Biya’s’s reign is therefore official. With already more than 150 billion F swallowed up and its gruesome toll of eight deaths following a stampede, the Olembé Sports Complex is still not completed, five years after the start of work. It was, with forceps, the theater of the opening match and the final of AFCON 2021 in Cameroon.
If the enclosure is now somewhat functional, the rest of the complex planned at the time of construction cannot say the same. And their finalization is far from being effective, according to the Minister of Sports of Cameroon.
In a correspondence sent on January 3, 2023, to the Secretary General of the Prime Minister’s Office, Séraphin Magloire Fouda, the Cameroonian sport’s boss, Narcisse Mouelle Kombi, reveals that MAGIL Construction, in charge of ensuring the finalization of the works, has decided to put a term unilaterally to the contract which bound him to the State of Cameroon.
The Minister of Sports also indicates that the budget provided for the completion of other related infrastructure has already been made available to Magil. Mr. Mouelle Kombi adds that Magil continued to demand more financial resources, without advancing work on other related infrastructure despite all reminders.
“This company has implemented schemes to artificially inflate its services through the slowing down of works, their pure and simple stoppage, overbilling, double billing, exponential remuneration of expatriate staff”, regrets Narcisse Mouelle Kombi, in his letter. However, the Minister does not intend to stop there and announces “that from January 5, 2023, the case will be brought to international arbitration.”
Since the resumption of the construction contract, the Magil company would have received an amount of around 42 billion FCFA, including 38 billion FCFA from the guaranteed loan contracted by Cameroon with the British bank Standard Chartered Bank.
