FOCAL INTEGRITY TEAM CAMEROON
Country Director: Stephen N Asek asek@igi-integrity.com
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Prior to the 1998 Transparency International release declaring Cameroon as the most corrupt country on planet Earth, there had been rampant corruption in all facets of society though unnoticed. Following publications and reports from many observer institutions like the World Bank, IMF, the HIPC initiative etc, pressing for good governance, there has been much improvement in the last eight years. But the gains of good governance are still underachieved as there is gross mismanagement, tribalism, nepotism ethnic discrimination, sectionalism and many other forms of social prejudice orchestrated by the Biya regime.
However, there is a general awareness on the part of the government and the civil society of the importance of good governance. Anti corruption endeavours through state media propaganda and other forms of operation to track down corruption are now in place. But matching the practicalities of good governance becomes another issue entirely.
The greatest problems emanate from the constitutional set up that gives the President who is head of the Executive absolute powers, thereby limiting the influence of the population as far as governance is concern. Within this bureaucracy, there are elements of cultural chauvinism. The President and his allies represent specific cultural backgrounds and interest groups thereby creating artificial classes and very wide margins between the rich and the poor. More than half of the population lives below the World Bank’s poverty mark of less than a dollar a day whilst members of the elite culture live in luxury. Those of this privileged group mesmerize and obscure outside vision to actually concur the sufferings of the local masses. Hence, so much is still desired from the government with regards to actually redressing the economic, social and political perditions that the present regime has plunged the country in.
Cameroon needs a total constitutional overhaul. It is common sense to understand why ten years after the last constitutional amendment of 1996, the constitution is still non-functional till date. In a nut shell, a constitution that gives power to the president to decide whether it should be applied in running a country is no constitution. Hence the country has no constitution as it is in the hands of the President to decide by degree whether to implement the institutions that where laid down by the amended 1996 constitution. At the present, it is neither the 1972 constitution that is used nor the 1996 constitution that governs the country but the whims and caprices of the President of the Republic making government actions to lack credibility.
Generally electoral processes, transitions, constitutionalism, democracy and political formations have major lapses due to the absolute powers that the President controls. As a consequence, the population has lost total trust in the political process because neither the ruling government nor its opponents have been able to uphold their election campaign pledges or keep to their promises. Hence, electoral and political processes since the inception of democracy sixteen years ago have been total sham.
Elections are often marked with fraud and irregularities and very potent rigging on the part of the government in power which retains the power to control elections through its operated National Elections Observatory NEO, an institution set up by the ruling power with the President appointing its members to run elections in the country. Where as, the 1996 constitution stipulates the running of elections by an independent body.
Social provision which has often been one of the determining factors of good governance is still under rated in terms of equal distribution of the proceeds of growth. The elite class, represented by specific ethnic and interest groups, particularly members of the Beti ethnic group, including the Bulu subgroup, figure prominently in Government, civil service, and management of state-owned corporations. They selfishly share the economic gains of the country ignoring the unprivileged masses which are predominantly made up of the Anglophone minority, and to some extent the Bamilekes who even though they form a strong hold of private business ventures are treated as second class citizens, together with the Anglophone minority. Generally majority of the population live at the brink of the World Banks poverty line of less than a dollar per day.
Due to limited opportunities and general frustration, the population has indulged in different forms of corruption for survival. Hence, Cameroon is fast deteriorating into a survival of the fittest society as everyone struggles to survive, neglecting the rule of law, at the expense of their consciences and immorality within the civil society is being harnessed daily.
The social order now is that of greed and struggle for ill gotten wealth. Morality keeps flowing down the drain. Public ethics are far fetched with the government preaching anti corruption after pushing the society to its present state, but continues to practice vice through its institutions. There is a high degree of moral decay which is championed by civil servants, forces of law and order easily noticed amongst the police and the ‘gendarmerie’ forces proceeded by members of the social services mostly in schools and hospitals who struggle to survive. But there is not much the government could do as it is the major cause of all these ills. Hence the voices of the bewildered extreme poor Cameroonians who decry injustice are ignored.
Immorality and neglect of codes of conduct and professional ethics have become the order of the day in social services and investigators are tipped with petit bribes and kick backs. There is regulated malpractice at each ministerial department by directors and sub directors and at their decentralized units at provincial level. These heads have facilitators at the entrances of the ministries or provincial delegations claiming to offer assistance in processing documents at very high cost. Cameroonians have tend to believe that nothing can go through any government Ministry without passing through a facilitator who demands a very high fee as bribe for the boss without which processing of documents becomes impossible. These malpractices are even coordinated by some of these directors who have given the right to these agents to apply their signature on documents on their behalf in different parts of the country and then pay them a fixed monthly fee.
On the state of human rights, although there are some improvements on the state of human rights due to pressures from international organizations, Cameroon’s human right record remains poor. Impunity remains a problem. Prison conditions are harsh and life threatening. Security forces continue to arrest and detain arbitrarily various opposition politicians, local human rights monitors, election monitors and other citizens deemed as traitors to the regime, often holding them for prolonged periods without charges or trials, and, at times, incommunicado. The Government regularly infringed on citizens' privacy. It continues to impose limits on freedom of speech and press, and harasses and threatens independent journalists, opinion and trade union leaders. It continues to restrict freedom of assembly and association while security forces are charged with limiting freedom of movement.
On recruitment, education and training, there has been great stagnation in this area particularly with the social services with the education and health sectors being the worst hit. If the constitution was anything to go by, there is supposed to be free and compulsory education at the elementary level of education. But there is total frustration as far as providing teachers for this level of education is concern. Generally, there is no social mobility as far as the career profile of those in the social services is concern. Even though teachers and nurses forcefully achieved a statute some 4 years ago, there is no text from the government allowing personnel of the health and educational sectors to enjoy their hard earned statutes.
There remain a great flaw in recruitment, training and integration of teachers for the public sector at all levels. University education still has much unpopularity as reforms are often faced with protest and insurgence from students and lecturers.
Economic policies are quite flexible leading to bias and favouritism. There is huge embezzlements from state coffers by the President and members of government. Much of it uncovered at a directors resignation or when there is a cabinet shake up as in coming members of government strive to impress the head of state. The example of the present Prime Minister Ephraim Inoni a few days after taking office created tension amongst Ministers and Ministerial departments, making abrupt and unannounced visits to Ministries and sacking some directors from the Ministry of Finance was nothing but trying to impress the big master before settling down to amass his own share of wealth quickly before his time wines up. This form of clean house policy just when a minister gets into office raises questions about good governance, integrity and diligence at work from the very top ranking to the least in the public service. No doubt, the result of it all has just been to reduce the Cameroon civil servant to an eye servant who is only conscious of work obligations from fear of the hierarchy. Much still has to be done in the area of governance to win the consciences of public servants and the civil society in general.
The ‘Messi Messi affair’ amongst many others which has now become an archetype in contemporary Cameroon history for corrupters since the President, his family and close collaborators have never given accounts of the ripped off funds and sucking dry of the SCB bank. These malpractices and the non credible tax system make it difficult for the country to attract foreign investors among many disadvantages accruing from bad governance.
However, patches of good governance can be commented in areas like the financial sector due to pressures from international watchdogs like the Bretton Wood Institutions, the HIPC initiative and some foreign donor governments. They have been blinded to give Cameroon an overall positive balance sheet on their files in order to attract grants and loans which account to about 50% of the country's budget.