The sale of Société Générale Cameroun, the local subsidiary of the French banking giant, has descended into a murky power struggle at the heart of the Biya regime — with two of the president’s most influential loyalists, Ferdinand Ngoh Ngoh and Louis Paul Motaze, reportedly pulling in opposite directions over who controls the outcome.
According to Jeune Afrique, President Paul Biya had thrown his weight behind a consortium led by the CNPS — Cameroon’s national social insurance fund — and NSIA Banque to take over the subsidiary. Yet the process appears to have been derailed or rerouted, deepening uncertainty over the future of the institution, which holds a critical position as the second-largest bank in the country.
The reported rivalry between Ngoh Ngoh, the Secretary General of the Presidency and one of the most powerful unelected figures in Cameroon, and Motaze, the Minister of Finance, reflects a broader pattern within the CPDM party-state: major economic decisions are not governed by transparent regulatory frameworks or public interest, but by factional manoeuvring among regime insiders competing for patronage, influence, and control over strategic assets. Ordinary Cameroonians — including the millions of workers whose pension contributions sit inside the CNPS — have no seat at the table.