Zachaeus Mungwe Forjindam's defence has accused the newly appointed National Assembly Secretary General of plotting to unseat their client.

The defence is saying that Jean-Claude Nyassa joined in the alleged plot to sully the image of Forjindam with wild allegations of embezzlement.It is said that he might have acted in that way to placate some powerful board members, who were also raising questions on the legality of his occupation of the post of Board Chairman.

The 63-year-old Secretary General is expected to testify in the case of alleged embezzlement by Forjindam (sacked Cameroon Shipyard and Industrial Engineering Ltd, CNIC, General Manager.

In a petition dated April 1, 2008 which Forjindam, while CNIC General Manager, sent to the Vice Prime Minister of Justice and Keeper of the Seals, Amadou Ali, the Board Chairman was one of those directly accused of having been part of the vicious plot to unseat him (Forjindam).

In the petition, which was published in its entirety by the French language weekly newspaper, La Nouvelle Presse (No. 345 of May 8, 2008), Forjindam had stated that Nyassa had accumulated functions as he was also MP for 10 years, ending in 2007.The two functions, according to the law, are incompatible.

Forjindam said some board members, aware of this incompatibility, had exploited it to weaken the position of the Board Chairman.They did this by often threatening to go to court to have all the decisions which he (Nyassa) had signed since the time he entered parliament annulled because of his irregular situation.

Forjindam had noted that those acts of intimidation contributed to a large extent to sap the authority of the Board Chairman, as he glaringly lost authority over the board members.

He noted that this explains Nyassa's difficulties in the last 10 years to exercise his functions as Board Chairman; fairly, honestly, courageously and with authority, and without fear of 'heavyweights' in the Board.

Forjindam had also cited nine examples of instances of the negative impact which the Board Chairman's panicky attitude caused in the company.He stated, for example, that in spite of the fact that Nyassa had been Board Chairman since the creation of CNIC in 1988, he (Nyassa) did not have the courage to personally correct the grave faults committed by the SNH funded audit.

He noted that the faults had put to question the 2003 and 2004 accounts of the company. Yet, those accounts had all earlier been examined and certified by the company's official auditor, and approved by the General Assembly of shareholders.

Furthermore, Forjindam regretted that though Nyassa was the representative of the Presidency on the board, he failed to show respect for the functions of the Higher State Control.

He recalled that in early 2006, SNH had unilaterally and irregularly brought in a private audit firm, Cac, to carry out an audit at CNIC.He noted that the private firm carried out the audit under the directives of Antoine Bikoro Alo'o.

Suffice to say that Forjindam noted that following his protest to hierarchy against the irregularity of the SNH audit, the Presidency, in September 2006, despatched a team from the Higher State Control, to CNIC to carry out a new audit.

But Forjindam noted that SNH had its own secret agenda for the audit, which was that it should eject the person who was occupying the post of General Manager, and replace him with somebody else.

So SNH did not want to wait for the results of the audit by the State Control. The greatest embarrassment was that the Board Chairman took sides with SNH to ignore the work of the Higher State Control, even when the law is clear that the report of the Higher State Control takes precedence over any other audit report, in a state-owned company.

The sacked General Manager added that the Board Chairman went to the extent of supporting a blatant lie in an SNH report which claimed that CNIC had not paid dividends to shareholders.

But he recalled that not long before that claim was made, CNIC had paid out by cheques, dividends to the shareholders a total of FCFA 2 billion.It was a claim which clearly indicated the desperate state of the clique that wanted to give a dog a bad name and hang it.

Forjindam in his petition also talked of how Nyassa was pushed into a situation where he started turning against projects that the CNIC Board of Directors had earlier met under his chairmanship, examined and adopted.

Forjindam said Nyassa had behaved that way for fear of contradicting the claim of the powerful board member, the National Hydrocarbon Corporation, SNH, which through its representative, Antoine Bikoro Alo'o, was for selfish and diabolical reasons out to paint the General Manager of CNIC black at all cost.

There are, however, some fears that with Nyassa now the scribe of the National Assembly, he might use the office as a cover to stay away from court.However, a source close to the office of the President of the National Assembly, on August 3, explained to The Post that the Secretary General, being an appointee, is an ex-officio MP and does not, therefore, enjoy the advantage of immunity like proper MPs.

Suffice to add that Forjindam also told the Vice Prime Minister that the Board Chairman had become part of a group led by Bikoro, and supported by Laurent Esso (Secretary General at the Presidency), which spent months running to the cabinet of some ministers, with the cynical mission being to see him removed as General Manager of CNIC.