by Thinker
There is an alternative story to the Cameroon genocide that speaks of violence and separatist talks being fueled by foreign corporations who want to get their hand on the immense oil and gas resources of Southern Cameroon. is there any truth to this?
Corruption in Cameroon has been called “Cameroon’s worst-kept secret” by Thomson Reuters, and Cameroon has had “persistent problems with corruption” according to BBC News. The Corruption Perceptions Index (2014) by Transparency International ranked Cameroon 136 out of 175 countries and found that the police are seen by Cameroonians as the most corrupt institution in the government. Cameroon also witnessed the prosecution of corruption committed by a former prime minister, Ephraim Inoni, who was sentenced to 20 years in prison in 2013 for embezzlement.
Several high corruption risk sectors, such as customs and public procurement, pose obstacles for doing business in Cameroon. David Wallechinsky ranked President of Cameroon Paul Biya with three others (Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe, Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo of Equatorial Guinea, and King Mswati of Swaziland) as the most corrupt dictators in the world.
He describes Cameroon’s electoral process in these terms: “Every few years, Biya stages an election to justify his continuing reign, but these elections have no credibility.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corruption_in_Cameroon
Human rights organizations accuse police and military forces of mistreating and even torturing criminal suspects, ethnic minorities, homosexuals, and political activists. Prisons are overcrowded with little access to adequate food and medical facilities, and prisons run by traditional rulers in the north are charged with holding political opponents at the behest of the government. A video showing Cameroonian soldiers executing blindfolded women and children has emerged in 2018.
In 2017, President Biya shut down the Internet in the English-speaking region for 94 days, at the cost of hampering five million people, including Silicon Mountain startups. President Paul Biya with U.S. President Barack Obama in 2014. The constitution divides Cameroon into 10 semi-autonomous regions, each under the administration of an elected Regional Council. Each region is headed by a presidentially appointed governor. Cameroon’s per-capita GDP (Purchasing power parity) was estimated as US$2,300 in 2008, one of the ten highest in sub-Saharan Africa. Major export markets include France, Italy, South Korea, Spain, and the United Kingdom.
Its currency is the CFA franc. Since the late 1980s, Cameroon has been following programmes advocated by the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) to reduce poverty, privatise industries, and increase economic growth. (NOT WORKING???) Logging, largely handled by foreign-owned firms,[104] provides the government US$60 million a year in taxes (as of 1998), and laws mandate the safe and sustainable exploitation of timber. Nevertheless, in practice, the industry is one of the least regulated in Cameroon.
The Cameroon Armed Forces, (French: Forces armées camerounaises, FAC) as of 2015, consists of the country’s army (French: Armée de Terre), the country’s navy (French:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cameroon