Editorial: Anti-corruption war; when too many ‘cooks’ spoil the meal

Despite Prime Minister Yang’s “contingency plan for fast-tracking economic growth in Cameroon”, one stop office at the port to speed up the clearance of goods and registration of business in less than a week, the World Bank has still failed the Biya regime in its latest Doing Business Report.

The report indicates that Cameroon has regressed from its previous ranking coming 161st position, the same score three years ago.

The authors took ten key areas such as construction permits, electricity, registering property, getting credit, protecting investors, paying taxes, trading across borders, enforcing contracts and resolving insolvency into consideration.

It is having an impressive record in doing business in a country that a government can afford to attract foreign investment and provide jobs to the millions of unemployed and under employed Cameroonians.

The business sector, not the government that employs just one percent of the population, is the principal engine that can offer the solution to such debilitating problems of poverty alleviation through the provision of jobs.

Cameroon’s much trumpeted plan to attract investment is aligned to the Growth and Employment Strategy Paper (GESP) and prepared in a participatory manner with the support of organisations representing the private sector. The private sector is the main locomotive of growth.

Consequently, the actions and measures adopted aim inter alia at improving the business climate, modernising the production machinery, strengthening access and availability of factors of production, fostering access to financing and accelerating industrialisation.

The plan also offers “the search for robust growth and job creation with the pillars of the national development strategy being implemented by public authorities. A substantially higher Gross Domestic Product (GDP) will not only take the country closer to emergence but also positively affect the country’s performance and hence foreign direct and national investments and fiscal revenue, the plan points out.

Prime Minister Yang’s contingency plan for fast-tracking economic growth in Cameroon also aims to achieve a growth rate of at least 6% in 2014 and to reap other substantial spinoffs in coming years, in terms of higher production and increased national wealth to stimulate investments especially for small and medium size enterprises.

On paper and in speeches, the government is providing a lot of incentives for local and foreign investors such as tax exemptions for business start-ups, registration of businesses within three days, and provision of land in industrial zones for relatively cheap rates. There is also abandoned work force with a liberal labour code that significantly favours investors more than employees since wages are negotiable.

Faced with the rising cost of unemployment, unscrupulous investors use it to under pay employees to reap windfall profits.

Why then with those enticing advantages is the Cameroon business environment not rated among the very best, at least in Africa? Why has the Doing Business Report like previous others by the International Monetary Fund not given Cameroon a pass mark? The IMF earlier pointed out that Cameroon's economic growth rate which was predicted to rise by 5 percent in 2013 and 6 percent this year is performing even below the average in the Sub-Saharan African region.

The IMF report indicates that Cameroon's present economic performance would lead to a 5.4 percent growth rate in 2020, far below government’s forecast of 10.2 percent when the country had initially prepared to achieve a 6.1 per cent economic growth rate in 2013 but later scaled it down to 4.8 per cent. The Central African sub-regional average for the same period was 5 per cent, said the IMF adding that it was “not good enough to meet the development objectives of the State."

Apart from disappointing economic indicators, the balance of trade continues to nose-dive in its aggravated perennial deficit of 1054 billion francs in 2013. The latest statistics provided by the National Institute of Statistics shows an average of 242.96 billion francs from 2001 to 2013, reaching an all time high of 304.50 billion francs in 2006 and a record low of -1142.70 billion francs in 2012.

For an economy planning to emerge, it is no sign of progress. The country needs to have a positive balance of payment by exporting more especially processed agricultural products and timer. As observed in Doing Business Report, investors will not put their money where the risk is high. Cameroon’s outstanding economic policies will be empty of any good if not translated into practice through good governance. Corruption still remains the bane in registering business, taxation, imports, payment for work done and in the award of contracts.

At The Guardians Post, we are aware of the measures the government has embarked upon to fight corruption. There are anti-corruption units in each ministry and parastatal, there is the national anti- corruption commission, (CONAC), the supreme state audit, the financial bench of the supreme court and an audit department at the ministry of territorial administration and decentralization to scrutinize councils.

Too many cooks, it is said, spoil the meal. Does the government not think these organs are too many to overlap each other and in the process make the “war” against corruption ineffective? It is open knowledge that despite the so-called tender boards strewn left right and centre, be they answerable to the ministry of public contracts or councils and corporations, corruption still continues to rear its ugly head.

And those who are beneficiaries: customs officials, taxation, treasury, the police, gendarmes et all do not even conceal their elicit wealth. They flaunt it so arrogantly in the luxury jeeps they ride and kingly mansions they own despite their very moderate salaries.

Corruption continues to be an impediment in the country’s economic growth and as long as the fight against it cannot be intensified from the top down, it will continue to dampen the prospects of doing business in Cameroon.