(Business in Cameroon) – Over the past two years, Richard Evina Obam has pulled the Caisse des Dépôts et Consignations du Cameroun (CDEC) out of obscurity. Long confined to inactivity within the machinery of the state (2008–2023), the institution now positions itself as a lever of economic sovereignty. The results remain mixed, however: the target of collecting up to CFA400 billion appears difficult to reach in an environment marked by banking and institutional resistance. The director general has imposed a line of conduct rooted in legality and national interest in the face of what he describes as “incivility” by financial actors.
The symbolism is deliberate. While the CDEC is locked in a standoff with banks ordered to transfer funds and assets legally owed to the public deposit institution, its director general turned outward. On November 3, 2025, in Casablanca, Richard Evina Obam signed a cooperation agreement with Morocco’s Caisse de Dépôt et de Gestion (CDG), an institution with 66 years of experience. Alongside CDG’s CEO Khalid Safir, he is banking on a structuring partnership focused on expertise transfer, staff training, modernization of management tools, sharing of best practices in deposit and risk management, financial engineering, digital transformation, and governance.
Beyond technical exchange, the cooperation seeks to secure and enhance public deposits while supporting flagship projects aligned with the National Development Strategy 2020–2030 (SND30). The message is explicitly political: the CDEC intends “to become a key player in financing national development.”
A jurist shaped by power dynamics
The director’s background helps explain his method. A tax expert trained as a legal specialist, he previously served at the Directorate General of Taxes (oil and mining unit, then the Large Enterprises Directorate), then as a technical adviser at the Ministry of Finance, and later as director general of the Caisse autonome d’amortissement (2017–2023). He arrived at the CDEC in January 2023 with a culture of a “state rooted in accounting logic”: legal texts, procedures, and statutory levers. To critics who accuse him of an approximate approach, he responds with norms: “the public service of deposits and consignments is not among the domains transferred to the community… the CDEC remains a national instrument governed by domestic law,” he wrote in an op-ed in Défis actuels in May.
This posture goes beyond rhetoric. It shapes his response to what he describes as “lateral pressures.” When BEAC and COBAC seek to frame the CDEC’s activities, he sees it as a sign of a broader power struggle in which “banking lobby activism” has led to a “capture of the regulator.”
Modernizing to reassure, collecting to exist
The legal standoff is paired with a technical credibility push. Faced with hesitation from the banking system, the CDEC adopted the Amplitude operating system from Sopra Banking Software, a platform reportedly used by more than 800 banks in 70 countries. The goal is to secure operations, align the young institution with industry standards, and deny financial institutions a convenient argument: operational uncertainty.
The CDEC has since multiplied transfer agreements with banks and insurers. Banque Atlantique Cameroun, via a pilot agreement signed on November 2, 2023, was among the first to formalize a transfer framework. On the life insurance side, Allianz Assurances Cameroun initiated transfers with more than CFA1.5 billion in unclaimed contracts (Investir au Cameroun). SCB Cameroun followed with a transfer report signed in June 2024. In an earlier draft, Société Générale also appeared among participating institutions.
Numbers: the core of a sovereignty battle
The CDEC’s governing bodies validated the 2023–2025 strategic plan and structured the oversight committee. The target: CFA400 billion in deposits by 2025. At this stage, the CDEC is approaching CFA100 billion, a threshold reached thanks to sometimes forceful cooperation from banks, microfinance institutions, public procurement operators, and the state.
The official figures show the gap. As of April 30, 2025, the CDEC reported CFA83.5 billion transferred—around 21% of the target. Richard Evina Obam, who expected “at least half of the CFA400 billion,” attributes the delay to widespread resistance and cites network companies as particularly “reluctant” regarding certain guarantees.
To set an example, an agreement was concluded between the Ministry of Finance, BEAC’s national directorate, and the CDEC to transfer guarantee deposits linked to public contracts. According to information from Investir au Cameroun, the arrangement includes an automatic monthly debit of CFA2 billion to settle outstanding amounts estimated at between CFA40 billion and CFA60 billion.
Committed to transparency on the use of funds, the institution carried out its first investment of CFA3 billion in treasury bills (BTA) on December 9, 2024. The transaction was presented as compliant with the legal framework governing CDEC intervention in financial markets. Additional projects are said to be “in the pipeline,” with the stated ambition of contributing to the development of several sectors in line with the statutory mission: receiving, safeguarding, securing, and growing these resources, then channeling them into priority public-interest projects.
On this point, the CDEC’s website emphasizes the philosophy of a public tool: “A deposit and consignments fund is not meant to earn profits. It exists to remedy market failures.”
The contradiction: financial stability versus national sovereignty
While Richard Evina Obam casts himself as a bulwark against the “incivility” of reluctant actors, community regulators and some observers highlight a different risk: the stability of the financial system. In a letter dated October 22, 2025, sent to the Minister of Finance, COBAC cited an approach “that risks disrupting the Cameroonian banking system, notably by contributing to a drain on its liquidity.”
Criticism does not come only from institutions. Financial engineer Babissakana, a central figure in the debate, describes a structural weakness: “one of the main obstacles to the development of Cameroon’s financial sector is the low and inadequate level of financial engineering.” In a forceful response, Richard Evina Obam counters with a defense of legality and argues that sovereignty—here, ownership and traceability of public funds—is a prerequisite for any modernization.
In this institutional standoff, the director general opposes COBAC’s desire to supervise CDEC activities and BEAC’s directives. He denounces an encroachment on Cameroon’s sovereignty and a “discriminatory treatment” of the state, while reminding authorities of the CDEC’s status as a national public institution. Tactically, he argues for limiting the community regulator’s oversight to “residual banking activities” and calls for withdrawal of the proposed community regulation.
A narrow ridge line
Richard Evina Obam has emerged as a prominent figure, disrupting the financial ecosystem through an assertive patriotism and firm opposition to resistant entities. His primary battleground remains the recovery of unclaimed funds long held by banks and other actors. His command of legal mechanisms has led him to initiate forced recovery procedures, generating a climate of lobbying and tension.
One fact remains: the CDEC, only recently operational, is advancing in a gray zone where national sovereignty, monetary integration, and prudential supervision intersect without fully converging. Richard Evina Obam has chosen to move quickly—sometimes too quickly for regulatory caution, but fast enough to assert the institution’s presence. His record, so far, is that of a leader under pressure: an institution pulled out of the shadows, a collection level still far from the CFA400 billion target, and a battle whose outcome will reveal whether rigor was a method—or a gamble.
Baudouin Enama
