Essimi Menye

Essimi Menye (born Emmanuel Essimi Menye, also known as Lazare Essimi Menye) is an exiled Cameroonian politician who served as Minister of Finance between 2007 and 2011 and Minister of Agriculture between 2011 and 2015. Since 2015, Menye was targeted in Operation Sparrowhawk, and the Cameroonian government accused him of embezzling public funds. He was sentenced to life imprisonment in absentia in 2019 by the Special Criminal Court.

Early life and professional career Menye was born in 1950 in Mfomakap, Lekié, Cameroon. He studied at the National Institute of Statistics and Applied Economics in Morocco, and then Paris Dauphine University where he attained a DEA in production economics. He also studied at the Institut national des sciences et techniques nucléaires where he obtained a DEA in economics.

In 1984, Menye joined the National Institute of Statistics (INS) where he carried out the census in Cameroon and collected information from industrial companies. That November during a session of the National Assembly, Menye responded to MP Roger Nkodo Dang, who accused Menye of the "slicing and dicing" of public procurement budgets, with Menye saying "Cameroon is an environment where corruption has deep roots, and an administrative text alone is not enough to eradicate it." Menye later said he wanted to fundamentally change Cameroon's relationship with money.

Menye was reappointed as Minister of Finance in the first government of Philémon Yang, and in 2010 launched a 200 billion FCFA bond issue. In July 2011, the government opened free banking services in 15 areas, incentivizing Cameroonians to save and promote financial inclusion. Menye garnered a lot of criticism as Minister of Finance, and during a government reshuffle later that year, he was reappointed to Minister of Agriculture, effectively a demotion.

In 2015, Menye was under investigation by the Special Criminal Court for embezzling funds during his time at the ministry, and was placed on house arrest. He was ousted from the government during a government reshuffle in 2015.

Exile In April 2013, as part of Operation Sparrowhawk led by Laurent Esso, the Ministry of Justice opened a case on Menye while Menye was Minister of Agriculture, for his alleged embezzlement of funds during his time as Minister of Finance.

After he recovered in the U.S., Menye returned to work at the IMF as an advisor. In 2017, Cameroonian authorities issued an arrest warrant for Menye, accusing him of complicity in the embezzlement of 1.8 billion FCFA of public funds. His extradition is a very low possibility due to limited cooperation between Yaounde and Washington.

Personal life Menye is married and the father of four children.