A financial scandal is underway at the Mali Chamber of Commerce and Industry CCIM. It concerns an alleged misappropriation of more than 10 billion CFA francs from the Covid fund. Indeed, it turns out that nearly 7 billion CFA francs were extracted from this fund to represent a Malian bank in Côte d'Ivoire before taking an unknown destination based on a crude financial package between Mali and Côte d'Ivoire.

It has been nearly twenty days that the president of the Mali Chamber of Commerce and Industry (CCIM), Youssouf Bathily, and some of his supporters were incarcerated at the Central Arrest House in Bamako following checks carried out by the Office of the Auditor General and by investigators from the Economic Centre and financial. These audits have unsealed a gaping hole in the management of the 10 billion CFA francs that had been allocated to the CCIM as part of the presidential intuitive “One Malian, one mask”.

Investigations show that after more than 10 billion CFA francs were made available to the CCIM, the entire fund was first housed in a local bank. Further investigations revealed that nearly 6 billion 950 million CFA francs were transferred to the group's bank account in Côte d'Ivoire (number CI 118/01301/01 00 590 02001-46) with invoice payment as the reason.