The former General Manager of Société Camerounaise des Dépôts Pétroliers (SCDP), the company responsible for storing and distributing petroleum products, Jean Baptiste Nguini Effa, has been freed.
He was released from the Kondengui prison in Yaounde today after spending 15 years behind bars.
“I want to thank all those who supported me, financially and otherwise,” Nguini Effa said after his release.
Dr Nguini Effa was sentenced in June 2022 to 15 years in prison by the Special Criminal Court for embezzling FCFA 2 billion when he served as SCDP General Manager.
He headed the company from 1994 to August 2009, when he was arrested and imprisoned for acts of embezzlement stretching from 2005 to 2009.
Two of his co-defendants, Jean Gueye Beautemps Mackongo, former director of accounting at the SCDP, and Marck Therry Etondi, were sentenced to 12 and 10 years, respectively.
One of the accused, Mokoko James, now on the run, was sentenced to life in prison.
Nguini Effa is among several high ranking government officials who have been arrested and detained since President Paul Biya’s regime introduced the Operation Sparrow Hawk in 2006 to crackdown on institutional corruption.
The operation has since then seen the arrest and jailing of several regime barons, including former Prime Minister Inoni Ephraim, Atangana Mebara, Marafa Hamidou Yaya, Issa Hayatou, Gervais Mendoze, Basile Atangana Kouna, Edgar Alain Mebe Ngoh, among others.
