It's not as bad as this article says, but almost. Some roads in Douala have been fixed, some new roads have been paved. I didn't see a working telephone line, but several competing mobile phone companies are doing a good job of connecting almost everybody.
The corruption is still there. My stepmother lives in a new house without running water. My wife has paid all the fees to have water months ago, but no one from the water company ever came to do the work. Obviously,a bribe has to be paid to someone, but we don't know whom. A distant cousin claims he knows someone at the water company, but the close family doesn't know the cousin well enough to trust him. The hope that the privatisation of the water company would lead to a rooting out of corruption by its new american owners has faded long ago.
However the railroad seems to have taken steps to root out corruption by making every employee wear a uniform with his name on it, and putting posters in the train station to ask people do denounce bribery. This was a good surprise. Before that I couldn't even imagine anything that could be done to fight corruption. I don't know how well this works, but we had no trouble when taking the train.
The north of the country, which is mainly muslim, seems to be less corrupt. A christian told me he wished the president was a muslim because it would reduce corruption.
Several unconnected people also told me about something else than corruption that slows down private initiative. They speak of jealousy. Apparently when someone succeeds, many of those around him get so jealous they try to make him fail. I don't know what to make of this. I also heard a lot about sorcery.