AFRICANEWS

Cameroon

Cameroon goes to war against corruption

Corruption

The government has finally decided to take stern measures to curb corruption. Only that doubts are high whether this is going to work.

Cameroon's Prime Minister, Mr. Peter Mafany Musonge, recently launched a nation-wide campaign against corruption, an endemic ill that has sunk its teeth so deeply into the Cameroonian social, moral and economic fabric that talk of eradicating it leaves many chuckling openly.

In a recent press release, the Prime Minister's Office said the government had decided that it was time to eradicate corruption from Cameroon and was therefore launching a multi-pronged attack on corruption, starting with a 30-day intensive media sensitisation campaign. This would be followed by some concrete actions that would not only emphasise punishment for those caught in the corruption web, but would also reward those government workers who show proof of moral rectitude in their service to the public. In addition to this, no one would be allowed to stay at the head of any government institution for over five years.

This last point has left the ordinary man wondering aloud if some heads of semi-public institutions, like Mr. Obouh Fegue of the national water corporation, SNEC, and Mr. Niat Njipendi of the national electricity corporation, SONEL, real dinosaurs who have been at the head of these institutions for over twenty years, would at last be shown the door. Chances of this happening, however, are at best slim as Mr. Obouh Fegue is from President Paul Biya's region of the country, and Mr. Niat Njipendi, although from a different region of the country, enjoys the President's favours, being a member of the inner sanctuary of the country's ruling party, the CPDM.

The accumulation of functions and longevity at the head of institutions are nothing new in Cameroon. In fact, critics have not failed to note that even the Prime Minister himself, who is today on a crusade against corruption, continued up until only a few months ago, to cling to the general managership of the Cameroon Development Corporation (CDC), an agricultural semi-public corporation, the second largest employer after the government itself.

To the ordinary man, a man who for years enjoyed the privilege of receiving salaries from two sources in a country where unemployment is endemic, is not the right man to lead a crusade against corruption. Other observers wonder if Prime Minister Musonge has the political muscle to floor the top brass promoters of corruption in the country, many of them his political buddies.

In fact, a few years ago, President Biya's Minister of the Public Service, Haman Hadji, made a much lauded effort to purge the country's civil service of corruption. As long as the net he cast out was hauling in the "small fish," the ordinary civil servant caught taking a bribe, the radio and television applauded his moves, praising him for displaying great patriotism. But when the net got too close to what the minister himself graphically described as "the whales of corruption," who, for the most part, were either the President's close political associates, family members or tribes people, hell broke loose on the poor minister's head. He then set a record as the first person to voluntarily quit President Biya's government to join the still fledgling opposition. For his temerity, he was rewarded with frequent overt and covert police night raids on his home which left a trail of considerable destruction behind them and the fellow was lucky it was not his bones that were broken.

So when the recent drive against corruption was announced, the radio and television again seemed to focus attention only on the "small fish", not daring to question the actions of those at the top of the political and economic ladder who stoke the embers of corruption at a much higher level. In fact, the bishops of Cameroon have hardly ever ended their meetings without loudly decrying the all pervasive corruption that afflicts the country.

One of Prime Minister Musonge's avowed aims is to definitely eliminate police checkpoints from Cameroonian roads. That is indeed a big chunk which may end up choking him. A casual visitor to Cameroon can leave with the impression that the country is in a state of war, as there are police and gendarmerie checkpoints all over, some within ear and eye-shot of each other. Taxi drivers, transporters or petty traders, who refuse to slip a few coins into a policeman's hands, risk being detained with impunity. Past attempts to eliminate such checkpoints have always ended in failure. How Prime Minister Musonge intends to do away with them, is anyone's guess.

The fight against corruption in Cameroon does very much look like a battle that has been lost even before it begins. The country can only be purged of corruption if the purging starts from the top. Does Prime Minister Musonge have the will or the political muscle to do it? That is doubtful.

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