About twenty years ago, I was told the story of a prosperous Ivorian businesswoman who was robbed in her home by bandits. They took several tens of millions of our francs. The investigation quickly showed that the bandits had benefited from an accomplice at the lady's home. And it turned out to be the householder of his children. He admitted his crime, stating that he had committed it to find enough to pay for a driver's license. After the robbery, the bandits had been correct with him, and had given him the sum of 100,000F which he said he needed to pass his license. They had left with tens of millions of francs. The master of the house was the only one apprehended and was the only one sentenced to a very heavy prison sentence.
This story came to mind when one of my friends told me about a discussion she had had with Asians. The latter were surprised at the ease with which we sold off our wealth to them. She told me that one of her interlocutors took this example: “When we know that the property we covet is worth, for example, 100 million francs, we are ready to pay up to ten million to corrupt the person who has the signature. But very often, to our great astonishment, he himself only asks for a million francs. “I recently saw reports by Cameroonian journalist Alain Foka in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Guinea. In the first country, a Chinese mining company prohibited a Congolese minister from setting foot on its facilities. And in reality, no one in the DRC knew what this company was doing exactly in its concession which had become a completely autonomous enclave in the country, only it knew what it was extracting and exporting. The report in Guinea showed much the same thing. The ores extracted were transported directly on a boat without any Guinean authority being able to control the quantity that left. In another report by French television, a minister from Congo Brazzaville said that a major French oil company forbade the Congolese authorities to check the amount of oil it produced. Another showed us small planes landing on small dirt tracks in the middle of the forest in the DRC, carrying precious minerals right in front of the authorities of this country.
It is thus that our States are plundered of all their resources, while our populations languish in misery. Obviously, no one will make us believe that all this is done without the complicity of the authorities of these countries which are so quick to brandish their sovereignty. Somewhere someone has necessarily touched something to close their eyes or to order those who should have their eyes open to keep them closed. For what ? For sums which seem astronomical to them, but which are in reality ridiculous for the corrupters. Who among our decision-makers knows exactly what a kilo of manganese, cobalt, copper, uranium, bauxite, iron is worth, and above all what quantities of these ores are found in a particular mine? What interests the decision-maker is the sum he needs to carry out a project, such as building a house that would crush those of the neighbors, buying a second, third or fourth car or wife, financing an electoral campaign, etc. The interest of the country? It is a notion that we have not yet succeeded in translating into our national languages. Personal interest, clan interest, yes that, we know.
It must be said in defense of these people that our populations are not very demanding of them. All they ask for are miracles. And there are a lot of miracle sellers in our tropics. In my little street in Bingerville, there are at least five churches or temples that promise it and they are always full. And some miracle sellers are real stars of social networks who have very high personalities in their relations at the level of the hierarchy of decision-makers.
By Venance Konan
*This article has been translated from French into English by Marcus Boni Teiga
