CAMEROON’S STATE COFFERS ARE EMPTY
THE STATE COFFERS ARE EMPTY. LRC’s Finance Minister Louis Paul Motaze. THE TRUTH EVERYONE IS SCARED OF.
And why are the state coffers empty? This statement of extreme distress from the LRC finance minister should never be a surprise to those who understand the financial voracity of the Yaounde cabal. Since 1982, Biya has turned water into wine, turning a developing, prosperous nation into a dangerously poor, critically indebted one. For 44yrs this process of a singular level of cruelty was sustained by one rhetorical lie… “Le bout du tunnel”. Each time the people weep, Biya will repeat this promise… “The end of the tunnel”. With the system Biya has installed for 44 years, there never was and will never be any end of the tunnel. Rather, each year the tunnel extended and became a Tartarean tunnel. But why has this ocean called LRC become critically dry? I will suggest 2 glaring reasons:
1) A governance based on a greedy and voracious syndicate. Two years after Ahidjo left power, he sounded the alarm. Ahidjo left huge reserves in cash and assets. Just 2 years after Biya took power, he installed a mad and frenetic race. Members of his regime, appointed by Biya, engaged in a weird race and quest for wealth. Banks were emptied, parastatals closed, and new ones created with a different mission… To serve as a milking cow for Biya’s friends. Over the years, the oil sector, mining, gold, forests, and other natural resources were privatised by the ruling clan. Corruption and embezzlement went through the roof, and civil servants became the new billionaires in town. Accountability and transparency were sent out the door, with Biya himself refusing to apply Article 66 of the constitution that was crafted to limit stealing of state funds. The regime went on a mad journey of internal and reckless borrowing. Borrowing and stealing are the same. With this voracious system of governance, take all the money in the world and give it to Biya’s syndicate, and LRC will become even poorer and more desperate.
2) The second reason for LRC’s financial meltdown is the one many fear to evoke. THE WAR IN SOUTHERN CAMEROONS. It is hilarious every time I hear people declare that the war does not affect Yaounde. No. The war has crippled Yaounde critically and drastically reduced the survival chances of the cabal. The poverty orchestrated by the war has enraged citizens and as demonstrated by the last presidential elections will not miss any opportunity to take on the cabal. Last night I listened to the Trump administration publishing expenditure details of the war in Iran. No citizen of LRC will ever know the amount of money spent in the war in the Southern Cameroons. Even figures of dead soldiers or civilians are never published by the regime. It is an opaque system based on financial chaos and unaccountability. War is the most expensive financial misadventure. If a war can bring down the Trump administration, what then will happen to the economy of a highly indebted and desperately poor, beggarly country like LRC? The war has crippled the Biya regime and brought it to its knees. The regime barons remain insensitive, but their political survival now lies entirely on brute force and not the consent of the people. At any moment, they will have to hand back power to the people against their will. If they had 60 more years to hang onto power, the war in the Southern Cameroons has brought it down to 20 years. Biya’s hermit and primitive kingdom is critically hanging in the balance, on life support.
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