Yet another smoke-screen anticorruption charade designed by Paul Biya solely to deceive western diplomats and the Cameroon people

After a long history of failed promises to improve on governance, the latest promise to accelerate anti-corruption arrests was not nearly so inspiring

By Ndien Eric in Yaounde

In a surprise move the government summoned diplomats from Western countries and multilateral institutions to announce its decision to accelerate its anti-corruption campaign. The campaign of arrests of senior public officials believed to have embezzled public funds has so far been on a stop-and-go basis to the utter disappointment of Western diplomats

The government used the meeting chaired by Prime Minister Ephraim Inoni to flatter the diplomats by giving the impression that the new accelerated programme was based on a programme proposed one year ago by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)
and that they were all partners in its anti-corruption campaign. The programme goes by the ear-catching name of CHOC, “change habits, oppose corruption.”

Commentators are unanimous in believing that the government had used the opportunity to try to warm up its relationship with Western diplomats after the unpopular amendment of the constitution which was opposed by Western countries. They further observed that the UNDP anti-corruption programme was proposed since a year ago and the government had only turned to
it now to give the impression that it was responding to Western concerns on corruption.

But many Western diplomats who attended Wednesday’s meeting did not appear to be much impressed by this new development. Television cameras showed many countenances in doubt and in a wait-and-see mood.

The relationship between Western diplomats and the Biya regime is distinctly one of love-lost because the government has a history of reluctance in adopting good governance reforms.

A year ago, the government summoned a similar meeting of Western diplomats and vowed that for once it would conduct transparent and credible elections. But it failed to do so. The legislative elections of last year turned out to be such a horrible mess that Western embassies who had been promised a change issued a statement to denounce the exercise as a missed opportunity for democratic advance in Cameroon.

President Paul Biya has not shown a strong political will to punish culprits and discourage corruption in Cameroon. Instead, the president has used corruption arrests more as a political expedient.

In February 2006 he held and imprisoned a handful of senior public officials to strengthen the government’s application for debt cancellation under the HIPC initiative. He since resisted public clamour to continue with more arrests. He resumed the arrests, which usually spark public enthusiasm, last March just prior to the highly controversial and unpopular amendment of the constitution.

After that, the president has been interrogating more suspects to change the public mood after the unpopular constitutional amendment. And also, it is believed, to prepare the public for what is believed to be important dismissals in the much- expected government change.
It is, in fact, believed that there will be more interrogations and arrests in the days ahead, but it
is not known if the campaign will be sustained.

The president’s uncertain and unsystematic handling of the war against corruption has been so disappointing to Western diplomats that Sophie de Caen, the UN system representative who left Cameroon a few months ago, became inhabitually cynical. The UN diplomat who was otherwise principled and respectful openly dismissed existing public anti-corruption structures as being non-efficacious. She expressed the view that without a political will, the multiplication of structures will not solve the problem of corruption in Cameroon.

It is difficult for anybody to tell what the president is up to with the announcement of a change of gears. That is why Western diplomats as much as the wide public remain sceptical.