Cameroon’s President takes Swiss vacations as his country grapples with crises
wsj.com
wsj.com
- why can a president be the president for 36 years in a country rich of natural resources while the people never profit from it?
- why does French army go straight to Mali (not far from Cameroon BTW) if there's a terrorist threat?
- why can't whole West Africa not print their own money (called FCFA) and why is a single European country however permitted to print their money for millions and billions in licenses?
- why is DR of Congo the materially richest country on Earth but has most of the conflicts and the poorest of the poorest population?
- why was Gaddafi chased and killed by non-African?
- why is China gifting huge buildings and communication systems to African Union (check out yesterday's HN)?
- or to put it more simply: who is profiting at the end? Is it really Paul Biya?
Exactly because of that. When a country is rich in resources, the population isn't needed.
See: The Resource Curse
> Most experts believe the resource curse is not universal or inevitable, but affects certain types of countries or regions under certain conditions.
It's not only the natural richness. So let's look into all of the conditions. And who establishes those conditions (see my questions above).
Africa, on the other hand, is a very different story. Tropical diseases, terrain, and other features of the continent have made it difficult to form stable, cohesive nations. Now you throw in the discovery of resources and only an elite have the power to exploit them.
The resource curse kicks in when you have a developing nation with autocratic political norms because the rulers keep the resources for themselves. Because democratic reform would mean giving up their exclusive grip on the resources, they use those resources to fight it. This can also lead to a slide to autocracy in democratic countries with weak institutions - see Venezuela.
You hit the nail on the head.
For anyone that doesn't get it - here's another great story. Gabon had just had an election before I got there. The people were angry at the result, so they rioted, burned cars, etc. Border closed. That's what the media told "us" about.
When I was there I dug into the details. So the incumbent president was losing by quite a bit during the counting, until his home state was counted. Miraculously, get got 99.9% of the vote in his home state, when in no other state did he get more than 60%. Also staggering, there were more votes cast and counted in his home state than there are people.
The really sick part?
The UN and other international observers declared this a free and fair election, and he remains president.
Ask yourself why the UN and other international Governments & observers would sanction what any 5 year old can see is blatant election rigging.
Follow the money.
Er, no, they didn’t.
I live in one of these resource-exporting exploited countries (non-Africa) and I can tell you that most everyone here and outside is oblivious to the fact that that our government, nor the ones outside are really protecting our interests as a populace, instead they are doing everything to just propagandize us and keep the status-quo intact.
FCFA is issued in Senegal. Is it physically printed somewhere else?
His $600K salary serves just as the seed to launder. Buy land in x place and surprise...2 years later land is valued 20x more as an airport will be there. Now he has 20x the money invested to try the same. Rinse repeat. They are also "lucky" with business etc
Road costs $1.2 Billion? $200 MILLION to me, make the road a little narrower and pour x cm less asphalt. Buying and selling electricity? 20% to the leader. They are shameless and they know how to keep power, they let those downstream wet their beak too.
But ultimately they know that they have to have clean cash. I make $600K and spend just $50k a year so $550K is invested year after year. No matter what, I can keep the $xx that derived from that. The stolen money is in secret accounts, companies, in other people's names etc. Not always easy to get a hold or keep the state away.
It's not that the 1st world is less corrupt, it's just that some schemes are more evolved.
Try to find a normal priced taxi as a white person in Haiti: 5 minute drive = $100. Or "You give me $150, I give you a receipt over $300." This scam was brought to you by... drumroll the UN! (It's a nice way to make one or two additional salaries while on an "educational visit").
Opportunity makes thieves, as the Germans say. You’re using an organisation with close to zero effective oversight, that is without exaggeration a law to itself, and which for political reasons has many staff from really corrupt countries as an example of corruption. The UN is not clean and no one who knows anything about it thinks it’s clean.
For similar reasons aid organisations are also not paragons of probity. They work in poor, corrupt countries and they have access to both budgets and people who are willing and eager to get some of that money by helping them defraud their employers.
What does this prove about corruption in more developed countries? Either very little or that systems are important.
In Sweden your political career can end for putting hundreds of dollars of private expenses on a ministerial card.
https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-1995-11-11-951111...
In Ireland you can die rich through corruption after having been prime minister, never having been charged with anything.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2006/dec/20/ireland
And petty corruption in either country is much less than anything aid workers deal with regularly, basically absent. Living in China has made me far more cynical and accepting of the fact that corruption happens all the time but I know perfectly well that petty corruption is very limited in Ireland, my home country.
Interference in civil service exams or school leaving exams is unremarkable in China and would bring down a government in Ireland.
The difference in corruption between developed, developing and undeveloped countries is so large that it’s not just a difference in quantity but in kind.
Uhm, yes. The more money at stake, the higher the "quantity"; I don't argue that because it is obvious and irrelevant. The ~"difference in kind" is what I was pointing out.
(US should also build dorms for US Congress /Senate people and charge them for maintenance, say $300 a month. Pretty sure people /foundations would donate so the building would be built for free and the govt has land)
Presidential salary is about USD 3.5mm/yr. PM is similar, and other ministers are about half that, and there's variable performance-based pay as part of it.