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It started with a protest by unpaid health workers in a small city in northwestern Congo. It has become one of the most consequential banking disputes on the continent.
Nurses and medical staff in Gbadolite went on strike in early February, angry that bonuses and salary payments routed through the local branch of Afriland First Bank had not come through. The protest drew little attention beyond the region. But it opened a window onto a crisis that has been building quietly inside Afriland First Bank RDC for nearly five years, and that now pits Cameroonian billionaire Paul Fokam against the Congolese state in front of the World Bank's investment arbitration tribunal.
The numbers behind the Gbadolite protest tell a grim story. Data published by the Central Bank of Congo at the end of December 2025 show that Afriland First Bank RDC reported negative net banking income of $4.68 million for the period, while the country's broader banking sector posted positive net banking income of $2.241 billion. Net banking income is roughly what a bank's core operations generate in revenue. When it turns negative, the institution is no longer covering its costs through its primary business.
A loan book in deep trouble
The bank held $124.9 million in customer deposits and $175 million in gross loans at the end of 2025. Of that loan portfolio, only $37.8 million, or 21.6%, is still classified as performing. The rest has gone bad. To account for the deterioration, the bank has set aside provisions of $131.9 million against nonperforming loans — a figure that exceeds the performing portion of the portfolio by more than three times.
About 70% of the loans were made to private companies. The bank is not getting the interest back.
On top of the loan deterioration, Afriland lost a significant source of fee income during 2025. Congolese authorities stripped the bank of contracts to manage salary payments for teachers and operational disbursements for schools across five administrative regions, citing payment delays and irregularities. Those contracts covered roughly 29,513 public employees and 2,039 schools, with monthly flows of around 12 billion Congolese francs. Losing them removed a steady stream of commissions at precisely the moment the bank could least afford it.
By year end, accumulated losses stood at $50.4 million and shareholders' equity had turned negative at minus $116.9 million. Under rules in effect since January 2025, banks operating in the DRC must maintain minimum capital of $50 million. Afriland First Bank RDC is not close to meeting that threshold.
How it unraveled
The crisis traces back to the summer of 2021. In July of that year, according to Afriland First Group, the Congolese government and the central bank forcibly removed shareholders, expelled the board chairman from the country, and dismantled the entire board. Afriland First Group, the Swiss-registered holding company controlled by Fokam, says it has had no operational, managerial, or financial control over the Congolese bank since that date.
The central bank's version is different. Authorities say enhanced oversight was introduced in August 2021 following an internal governance crisis triggered by the suspension of the bank's chief executive by the board chairman. Whatever the sequence, the effect was the same: the bank passed from private control into a state-supervised administration.
In March 2022, the Central Bank of Congo assessed that Afriland RDC needed approximately $90 million in fresh capital. Afriland First Group, which held 95.6% of the shares, disputed both the figure and the process, arguing the assessment was conducted while the bank was already under heightened regulatory scrutiny and that any recapitalisation should be preceded by a joint audit. The central bank declined that condition.
On June 20, 2022, the BCC placed the bank under provisional administration, appointing a seven-member management team led by Mudiay Mpinga to oversee restructuring and liaise with stakeholders.
The provisional mandate was set at 180 days. It was not resolved in that window. On Dec. 27, 2022, a new banking law was enacted in Congo. Less than a month later, Afriland RDC was placed under a resolution regime, the most serious stage of banking supervision short of liquidation, reserved for institutions whose solvency and long-term viability are in doubt and whose failure could harm depositors and creditors.
Three years on, the two conditions for exiting that regime, restored profitability and restored solvency, have not been met. By most measures the bank's position has deteriorated since the crisis began.
Fokam takes it to the World Bank
Paul Fokam founded Afriland First Bank in Cameroon in 1987, originally as the Caisse Commune d'Epargne et d'Investissement, and built it across nine African countries over nearly four decades. His net worth has been estimated at over $1 billion. In April 2025, the International Finance Corporation announced a $60 million partnership with Afriland First Bank Cameroon, underscoring that the parent group retains credibility in regional banking markets even as the Congo subsidiary unravels.
Fokam is not taking the DRC situation quietly. In August 2023, Afriland First Group filed for arbitration at the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes, the World Bank's dispute resolution body, under case reference ARB/23/38. The group engaged White and Case, the U.S. international law firm, to pursue the claim. Congo retained Hogan Lovells to defend.
The arbitration accuses the Congolese state of expropriation and seeks compensation for what Afriland First Group describes as the unlawful seizure of its stake. In a February 12, 2026 statement responding to the Gbadolite health worker protests, the group said it had been "removed" from the bank's capital by the Congolese state and central bank and that ICSID proceedings were active and ongoing, with conclusions to be made public in due course.
Under the resolution framework enacted in 2022, Congo's resolution commissioner holds broad powers, including the authority to open the bank's capital to new investors, sell assets, and replace governing bodies. Given the current financial position, negative equity of $116.9 million, a loan book that is 78% nonperforming, and a minimum capital requirement the bank cannot meet, the risk that existing shareholders are wiped out entirely has moved from theoretical to concrete.
Fokam built a banking network across some of Africa's most difficult markets over four decades. The fight to preserve his stake in the DRC chapter of that network now sits in a Washington tribunal, and the numbers coming out of Kinshasa are not moving in his favour.
