“How far will Biya go?” That seems to be the most commonly asked question these days as the public impatiently waits for more “heads to roll" as a result of Biya’s anti-corruption campaign. However, a recent interview given to The Post Newspaper by Garga Haman Adji (AKA "the whale hunter”), a former Minister of Public Service and Administrative Reforms, raises a more relevant question: How far should Biya go, given the mind-boggling depth of institutionalized corruption in Cameroon?
For those who don't remember, a similar anti-corruption drive was launched in the early 1990s when Garga was the Minister of Public Services. Garga took the anti-corruption campaign so seriously that his enthusiasm threatened the very foundations of the Biya Regime. As a result, the President stepped in and unceremoniously stripped of his authority to hunt the "big whales" that were emptying the national treasury. He resigned in protest in August 1992.
In his interview to The Post, Minister Garga reveals that,
When I resigned from the government in 1992, I left 42 very important files, which would be submitted to this body for the trial of at least 42 persons. I say "at least" because the administration or the public enterprises that State Control investigated, not only general managers or the financial directors that were corrupt; many other people were involved. Among these 42 persons that I am telling you, only three of them have been arrested between 1997 and now.
Garga's 1992 “minimal list”, must have increased tenfold by now... So how far should the anti-corruption go in order to be taken seriously and considered credible? You do the math...
In the same vein, prominent Cameroonian journalist, Ntemfac Ofege, has published a series of articles on his weblog that "wade into the vile muck of corruption in Cameroon". The articles show how the Biya regime created a predatory and prebendal system that thrived on institutionalized corruption:
The turnover of every Biya government is about 6 months. What this means concretely is that persons appointed ministers are given a very short time and the license to steal before they are kicked out again. Now there have been over 600 ministers, junior ministers, and persons with rank of minister since Mr. Biya came into power in 1982. This has been very bad news for Cameroon’s public treasury. Name one Biya minister who has not been involved in one racked or another! Small wonder a little upstart Henri Eyebe Ayissi became Minister of Housing and Town planning when he had a rickety and wobbly “504”. He left several months later with 19 cars and a host of land titles.
Garga Haman's interview and Ntemfac's corruption series are required reading for anyone interested in understanding how Cameroon ended up in the mess that it finds itself today.
Click here to read Garga Haman's interview.
Click here to read Ntemfac's special report on corruption in Cameroon.
Dear Readers
It has taken so long for us to wait for this site especially coing from the scribbles of an old essayist like Dibussi.
Welcome to the land of fee thinking . Remember the days we took our turns on tabloids to chant hymns of democracy. Now the e-tabloid has come and your rich and incisive articles will feed the minds of researchers and a young generation yearnig to make something out of this murky Cameroonian life.
Brother in ink and ideas, Congrats
Mwalimu
Posted by: Mwalimu George Ngwane | March 01, 2006 at 06:56 AM
What amazes me with our country; I mean the the system of governance, is how power is centred around one man. It is a Biya-centred rulership. He, though pressured by America, bilateral donors and the Bretton Woods Institutions decides who is to be arrested, when to be arrested and how to be arrested. The manner with which the three former corporation managers were arrested, shines with an intent to humiliate them. I predict to say that no matter the opinion of Cameroonians on this current corruption drive, it will end where Biya wants it to end. He wouldn't sink his own ship. Look at the ENAM affair. If we assume that Minister Amama is correct and the Director of ENAM is wrong why is it that nothing has been done to put things in order?
Posted by: Nkosi Jacob | March 01, 2006 at 09:27 AM
Nkosi, you are talking here about some key things that are dear to us:
*Transparency
*A free and independent judiciary
*Presumption of innocense until the case is proven
The little tinpot dictator just decides who to set an example on. Do you think this will ever change? I do not trust that any of these so called progressive francophones would do differently if presented with power.
Southern Cameroons must be free.
Posted by: Ma Mary | March 01, 2006 at 12:11 PM