Corruption in cameroon:Is Paul Biya not personally responsible?

Transparency international has once again exposed the Biya regime for its corruption. Why is Biya reluctant to fight corruption? Given the many long years of the president’s unwillingness to face up to corruption in Cameroon, in spite of his own rhetoric, isn’t it time to begin to ask if indeed the president can stand out of it in innocence. Can Paul Biya face a probe?Transparency international, the Berlin-based international watchdog, means business. For the first time in its nine years of yearly ranking it issued a second report of corruption perception rating of countries.
Whereas the traditional report is based on a survey of businessmen’s perception of each country, the second survey is focused on governance in the different countries. That first-time second report which was pleased recently ranked Cameroon again as the most corrupt country in the world. Cameroon’s institutions are rotten: the police, the judiciary, political parties, education, health, administrative services, etc.
Last September’s report placed Cameroon 138th among 179 countries surveyed with a score that put it among the worst performers. In 1998 and 1999, the first two year of the annual rankings, Cameroon topped the list. Since then it remains a poor performer. It is not with the Ti rankings that Cameroon became corrupt or was known to be so. Corruption has always been an integral aspect of life in Cameroon and the government was always known to be corrupt. HIGHLIGHT What the annual Ti rankings have done in recent years is to highlight the evil and keep it permanently on the agenda of public debate. In fact, fighting corruption, like fighting poverty, has become an integral component of public policy in Cameroon. Paul Biya made the fight against corruption the third priority of government after economic growth and social progress. Government would combat corruption, he said, with “far more determination than before.” At a police definition meeting with minister last September, the president described the evil in the following terms “it is corruption that, to a large extent, jeopardizes the success of our efforts. It is still corruption that negatively impacts public morality. The embezzlement of funds is a crime against the people who are thus deprived of their resources.” Biya recommended as follows: “it (corruption) should therefore be punished with the utmost severity.” Hearing or reading these words, anyone would believe that there is an all-out war against corruption in Cameroon. Sorry, there’s never been one. If indeed there had been such a war why would the evil persist to this day .if the government had supposedly gone to sleep on the issue, the rude awakening provided by the shock announcements of it must have set it to work. Did it actually go to work? Why shouldn’t there be results by now? Time and experience force the observer to believe that Paul Biya is unwilling to address the matter to end it once and for all. But then, about corruption he gives a different impression. Imagine that with such evident unwillingness Biya still refers to combating corruption as a priority!

The president disguises his motives by multiplying not only statements of policy, but also organs intended to facilitate the war, which are deliberately kept weak and harnessed so they cannot be effective.DISAPPOINTINGThe latest of these Is the national anti-corruption commission which shocked the public when it assumed an advisory role. The commission headed by Paul Tessa addresses meetings of public institutions trying to see how work could be better organized as to eradicate corruption. That is much too disappointing. There is a constitutional provision for the declaration of assets by public officials that has never been made to apply. There also exists a financial crimes investigation commission that has equally never worked. The president creates these organs to calm the public each time questions are raised about what the government is doing about the issue. Foreign partners appear to be easily satisfied when told about such an array of organs to fight the evil. The ministry of supreme state audit would have done the work of all these structures if free to go to work. But it is not free. It works only upon being told to do so. It turns in its report under strict confidence to Paul Biya who then decides when and what to do with it. Very often he simply ignores it. From the many reports of public corporations undertaken over the years it is possible to incriminate a vast majority of serving or retired public officials. To satisfy the requirements of the government’s debt relief application file, Paul Biya decided to rope in a few scapegoats some of whom are now serving long sentences after court trials. The absence of audit or management control is partly responsible for the abuse. Moreover appointments to high public positions are not done on the basis of competence but upon loyalty to Paul Biya. Appointees are seen as having been rewarded with those lucrative jobs. The unduly long periods over which the same management is left in a public corporation is further conducive to abuse. Ten, fifteen, twenty years as head of a public corporation without audit practically makes the body the private property of the manager!COMPROMISEEven appointments to boards of public structures are done and equally perceived as reward to members who do not only earn sitting fees but obtain many other favors from the management. That compromises their control function. When the corruption situation is all put together the following emerges: the laxity in the management culture of the Biya regime is a strong inductive factor of corruption; public appointments for political loyalty and last for too long for healthy management. Paul Biya is clearly unwilling to fight the evil even though he will sacrifice some scapegoats if his regime is threatened. Is it possible in the light of these conclusions to believe that the president could stand out of it all and claim innocence? Does Biya’s very unwillingness to curb corruption not suggest that the president feels a deep sense of being himself implicated? Can Paul Biya stand a probe? When Air Force Lieutenant Jerry Rawlings seized power in Ghana in 1979 his first act in the attack against corruption was to undertake a public execution of two long retired former heads of state and the one he had just overthrown. He held them personally responsible for the hopeless state of corruption in which Ghana was mired. Is Biya’s evident unwillingness to fight corruption not self condemnatory