Polycarpe Abah Abah

Polycarpe Abah Abah is a Cameroonian politician who served as the Minister of Economy and Finance from 2004 and 2008 until his arrest in Operation Sparrowhawk.

Biography Abah was born on September 17, 1954, in Zoétélé, South Region, Cameroon. He graduated with honors from Manemgoumba high school in 1974. Abah studied economics at the University of Yaoundé, and then obtained a master's degree in public administration from the University of Southern California, a diploma in finance management from the Atlanta Institute of Management, and another from the International Law Institute in Washington, D.C..

Within the Tax Directorate, Abah served as deputy director of Tax Legislation in 1983, and then as a member of the National Public Procurement Commission for several years. He became an expert within CEMAC, and left the directorate in 1988. Between 1988 and 1992, Abah was appointed Attache to the General Secretariat of the Presidency, where he served as a liaison between the Ministry of Economy and international banking organizations like the IMF and World Bank Group.

After 2008, Abah was implicated in Operation Sparrowhawk, an anti-corruption operation within the Cameroonian government launched in 2006 by Ephraïm Inoni. Between 2008 and 2022, Abah was convicted six times by the Special Criminal Court for various cases of corruption and embezzlement. Abah was acquitted for two of them; the Lydienne Eyoum affair and the VAT affair. He was sentenced to 81 years in prison, and was deemed the political figure most affected by Operation Sparrowhawk.