Cameroon and the IMF: Never the best of friends, even now

At the onset of a decade-long economic crisis in Cameroon in 1986 Paul Biya was sure that he didn’t want to turn to the IMF. He had succeeded to get the Germans to warm up towards Cameroon, their former territory, and to accept to bail him out.
By the next year1987 prospects were so rosy that Biya boastfully shot his mouth off, “Cameroon will not go to the IMF!” Then Jacques Chirac, French prime minister at the time, spoilt everything.
Chirac took the next plane to Bonn and warned off Chancellor Helmut Khol. “The problem of Cameroon is mismanagement. We think it is in everyone’s interest for president Paul Biya to go to the IMF.”
The Germans backed off. Biya swallowed back his pride, humiliated. Unwillingly, he turned to the IMF. But that was Hobson’s choice. No doubt the next four successive ‘structural adjustment programmes’ failed. Each time the government proved unwilling to live up to the demands of its own freely accepted economic recovery programme.
Cameroon’s unwillingness to swallow the bitter pill of disciplined management under the supervision of the IMF strained relations between the two parties who then agreed to disagree and let matters lie in abeyance.
Relations remained suspended until a certain Peter Mafany Musonge came in with a new impulse. More than a decade since Yaounde is still a reluctant partner of the IMF.
The IMF control mission that recently ended a two-week stay in Yaounde was very unimpressed with the authorities’ financial management. Yaounde failed to put money in poverty alleviation measures. Much too little money went to the development of schools, health and roads infrastructure.
To compound matters, the mission observed, government was engaged in much wasteful spending. The high price of oil has provided government with substantially increased revenues. Some sources estimate that an increase of up to 287 billion fcfa has been gained from the export of oil.
The IMF mission left Yaounde deeply disappointed with government’s unwillingness to fight poverty, given so much unexpected increased revenue.
For the same fault the World Bank withdrew from the Chad oil project. Instead of using oil money to address the poverty problem in Chad, Idris Deby put everything into buying arms to fight off rebels.
After failing for so long to address the problem of poverty in Cameroon, the IMF may also consider punishing Cameroon. That may be the ultimate solution to getting the authorities to sit up.