The political will to fight corruption still absent in cameroon

Corruption is  endemic in Paul Biya`s Cameroon  where 65%  of the country's 19 million people live on £1.50 or less a day, and critics most of them civil rights groups and campaigners, political party leaders not represented in the parliament and the medias accused officials of usurping the nation's wealth.

Cameroonians have  long complained of an unspoken policy of sweetheart deals that allowed top officials and businessmen to enrich themselves.


Dr Shanda Tonme, one of those leading the fight against corruption and a meaningful way of doing it


In recent days, watchdog groups and private lawyers have demanded that the country's chief prosecutor launch criminal investigations against the president relatives  and some of their wealthy associates.

Scores of former government officials have already been banned from travel and several, among them many  former Cabinet ministers, have had their assets frozen and been prosecuted and put in jail. Some even members of Biya`s political party and potential leadership challengers.

Corruption in Cameroon has gained increased attention. In the early 1990s it wasdifficult for civil society to tackle the issue of corruption, as it was perceived that delving into this issue could lead to problems.

Additionally, the government wasn`t hardly talking openly about corruption at that time. However, since the mid-1990s and especially since the year 2000, when Transparency International launched his 5th annual report on Perception of corruption Index and where Cameroon was ranked the first corrupted country worldwide, corruption is being discussed extensively and openly by media, civil society and academic organisations.

On a parallel level, efforts undertaken to combat corruption by the government and anti-corruption agencies have increased and tax payers money been used for that purpose as well.

 As a result, corruption has become the focus of attention by many opposition leaders..and privatization program is the biggest corruption process in Cameroon for over all its history.

 There are areas where it will be difficult to tackle corruption because of the lack of strong legal and institution mechanism. For example  issuing certain decisions in favour of a certain group other than the public interest, the lack of transparency in public procurement, receipt of certain payments or bribes in return for facilitating access to governmental services, and misusing or wasting public funds and public property.

The  main areas that are most vulnerable to corruption in Cameroon today are  payments and bribes to facilitate public access to government services, customs and taxes, documenting and specifying fines, misuse of public property, government employment opportunities and public procurement.

There is no explicit article in Cameroon  law that obliges information on government officials’ assets to be publicly accessible.  The freedom of information in Cameroon doesn`t exist and journalists and others activists groups are just fighting for having that real in the country where the law gives power to authorities to abuse investigative journalists while trying to do their job.

On the contrary there are laws and decrees that prevent medias  from accessing government information and records.