The President’s assets: Paul Biya is a clever man; catch him if you can!

It is no longer a secret that Paul Biya spends considerable sums to manage his image. In the early 1990s at the beginning of multi-partism the new, and at the time powerful, opposition parties multiplied negative reports about him abroad using global radio and foreign newspapers.

Matters got to a head and Augustin Kontchou Kouomegni, then communication minister and government spokesman had to lead a delegation to RFI, BBC and elsewhere to warn them to no longer mess up Paul Biya and his regime. The president since learnt his lesson.

Paul Biya since took steps to make sure he minimises, if not completely avoid negative press mention. And after the problem he and the late Jeanne Irene had over their hospital in Baden Baden, Germany, the president learnt to be very careful and wise about his assets. You can comb all of Europe and the US you won’t hear of, let alone seeing anything belonging to the president of Cameroon. Yet it is all there and probably all over the place. That is how clever Biya is.

This is interesting because other African heads of state are not nearly so clever. Some of them are presently having a public relations pounding over their unwise display of wealth. Omar Bongo Ondimba, Denis Sassou Nguesso and Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasosgo are having a bad time over their properties in France.
Transparency International France filed a suit against them a week ago or so, accusing them of buying properties in France that could not be financed with their official earnings. The French court would be expected to look into how the men were able to purchase their huge real estate portfolios.

Bongo and his family are said to own 39 properties including luxury villas, 70 bank accounts and nine cars in France. Sassou Nguesso and his family own 24 apartments, 112 bank accounts. Obiang Nguema and his family own one apartment and eight cars in France. Obiang Nguema’s son has faced the court in South Africa over two luxury villas he owns there. Obiang Nguema himself also had problems in 2006 over a $35 million California beach house he owns there. Information on the properties in France was obtained from police reports.

This matter had come up earlier in the year but was thrown out of court on the ground that it was beyond the French court’s competence. At about that time Sassou Nguesso was in Paris and instead spoilt their case by the ill-thought out answers he gave in an interview with RFI in defence of himself and the others.

“Why are we the only ones accused when other African heads of state and world leaders also own properties in France? I therefore consider the accusation discriminatory.
“And by the way you don’t mean that having been head of state for so many years it is not possible for me or any of the others to be able to raise money to buy the properties?”

That response missed the question as to the source of the money they used to buy the properties. It was such a shameful show for a head of state. Paul Biya is much wiser than that. To begin with Biya would never have accepted to give a live and unrehearsed interview on so controversial an issue.
That is why when it comes to such things you cannot catch Biya. The Cameroonian president is a fox. You never know its hole or the entrance into it. He disguises his tracts with all his genius. You will not find any business or property in the name of Paul Biya; we challenge you.

We learn from some of the closest men to the president that all his many businesses and shareholding in companies abroad are in the names of his bosom friends, not even in his wife’s or children’s names.
Jeanne Irene, for the nurse that she was, persuaded the president to invest in a hospital in Baden Baden. All was well until the tumultuous years of multipartism. Biya had a bad name and the Germans didn’t want him. He and his wife gave up the hospital. Paul Biya eventually found refuge in Geneva where he since became a distinguished and honorary citizen.

To satisfy public clamour, Paul Biya allowed it inscribed in the revised constitution of 1996 a provision for the declaration of assets by public officials upon taking and leaving office. That provision since became a dead letter for the simple reason that it is the president who should lead the way. He did not. Everyone can understand the president’s problem. What will he declare? He has nothing (in his name) to declare! Or if he really must declare he will easily shock everyone! You could learn, for instance, that the president owns the worth of several European countries put together! And, by the way, the president is not accountable to anyone, thanks to a new provision of the constitution.

So why get into such a mess. Let the assets declaration provision lie. Omar Bongo once ran into trouble over a luxurious villa he owns on the French Riviera. A now retired chief executive of the French oil explorer Total disclosed one of the sources of the president’s money.
In the evidence he gave in court the former CEO SAID that it was in the tradition of Total to pay Bongo something (100 fcfa?) per barrel of oil exploited in Gabon. By the way, he said, that was the practice with other heads of state of petroleum producing countries, which included Cameroon of course.

Cameroon presently produces 86,000 barrels of crude daily. We advise you to simply imagine what Paul Biya’s fortune might be. And, like Bongo, that is only from one source alone. Imagine it only. Don’t be foolish to dare to scream like the pastors who are now languishing in Kondengui prison for venturing a figure. They themselves couldn’t either write it or pronounce it. It serves them right!

The lesson is simple. You can’t catch Biya when it comes to finding out about his fortune or assets. The president is smart. And if you try to beat him you will go to prison.

The Observer