An open letter to Paul Biya and Ephraim Inoni
Cameroon is, in a regional context, stable and peaceful and even functional. It’s a funny little paradox then, that they rank at the very top of the Transparency International corruption index, and every now and then I devote a little time to wondering why that is.
I’ve heard a few people (nationals) make the case that Cameroon is actually not stable in any reliable or substantive way, that things are in fact terrible and on the verge of collapse but are propped up artificially by fertile soil and an abundant food supply. “You get angry but at the end of the day you go home and eat something” according to my no-nonsense neighbor julianna. And why not be angry? Consider the case of the president’s son, who allegedly celebrated his birthday party in a Paris hotel room and left useless piles of Central African francs, not as a misguided tip but because he couldn’t be bothered to scoop the piles up and take them with back to Africa where they might be used to buy things. The story goes that the hotel staff had to call him back from the airport to come clean up.
But I digress. Cultures of corruption are real whether Cameroon is stable or merely appears that way, and they are very tricky things to explain let alone fix. Lots of people smart people write about corruption, so I had just assumed all of the obvious structural incentive-based fixes had been tried already.
But check this out: It seems like if you wanted to ensure corruption in government rather then prevent it, one thing you might do to get the ball snowballing is to withhold the salaries of civil servants for their first two years. Create an expectation that they present themselves as professionals, not to mention feed and clothe their families, and then inject them into a bureaucracy without any legitimate means of income. Stir and let simmer.
I had heard someone (a non-national) say a while back that this was the case in Cameroon, but it sounded like a lot of nonsense. But last night I asked a proper government man and he confirmed it. He is the boss of a lot of people at a big ministerial research institution and he takes remittances from his mom, god bless him. Apparently The Man just takes its time processing peoples’ papers and 2 years is about how long it takes to get paid. Unless you can find some way to speed things along I guess, wink wink.
Dear Your Excellency Mr. Biya, and Your Excellency Mr Inoni,
Maybe if you paid people money they wouldn’t have to take bribes?
