Cameroon: Begging for Investors Instead of Selling?
So Prime Minister, Yang, is spending billions of CFA Francs on a mission to beg Britain to come and invest in Cameroon? After Biya has gone to Turkey on the same mission and returned virtually empty handed. It makes me wonder, are these our rulers merely creating opportunities to enjoy a European holiday or do they truly think what they do is the best way to encourage foreign direct investment in Cameroon? To achieve a feat like this, is it not advisable to emulate others, in line with Longue Longue who says "one should not be ashamed of copying a good example"? My example here being China. Here the government concentrated on economic reforms at home to create an enabling environment, and neighbouring countries like Taiwan, Hong Kong and S. Korea were early adopters, signalling to European and American multi-nationals that investment in China was safe and profitable.
No amount of trumpet blowing will attract foreign investors to Cameroon, in fact, an earlier media campaign undertaken by our government for the same purposes a few years past equally proved futile. Possibly because Cameroon is classified as an area with a high conflict potential despite our 30 and more years of "Pax Biyaica", perhaps due to corruption which places the country among one of the top "Conflict Affected or Fragile" economies.
The regime's fight against corruption therefore, instead of serving as a sign of our commitment to peace, stability and justice (all preconditions for secure foreign investment) is instead seen as a potential conflict escalator, due to the fact that American Diplomatic reports qualified operation "Sparrow-Hawk" as instrumentalized for political witch hunting.
To me, President Paul Biya and Prime Minister Yang will be better off concentrating their energies to truly empower the Judiciary to conduct a credible fight against corruption. Foreign investors need no better bidding than this. It is worthless to go and remind them that Cameroon is rich in natural resources and qualified man power, this they already know, sometimes, better than we do!
No amount of trumpet blowing will attract foreign investors to Cameroon, in fact, an earlier media campaign undertaken by our government for the same purposes a few years past equally proved futile. Possibly because Cameroon is classified as an area with a high conflict potential despite our 30 and more years of "Pax Biyaica", perhaps due to corruption which places the country among one of the top "Conflict Affected or Fragile" economies.
The regime's fight against corruption therefore, instead of serving as a sign of our commitment to peace, stability and justice (all preconditions for secure foreign investment) is instead seen as a potential conflict escalator, due to the fact that American Diplomatic reports qualified operation "Sparrow-Hawk" as instrumentalized for political witch hunting.
To me, President Paul Biya and Prime Minister Yang will be better off concentrating their energies to truly empower the Judiciary to conduct a credible fight against corruption. Foreign investors need no better bidding than this. It is worthless to go and remind them that Cameroon is rich in natural resources and qualified man power, this they already know, sometimes, better than we do!
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