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Posted: Wednesday August 30th, 2006 18:52 |
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Yesterday I was watching a program on BBC2 called Equator, It started off in Gabon (Massive Oil Reserves Low population "so plenty of wealth to go around", supposable??) The traveler would cross Central Africa to Somali. During the 1 hour program the traveler would do a small presentation of each country, mostly negative of course, but none the less I was angry by what I was watching in Gabon. The traveler on this visit to Gabon went to a supermarket to by some food, there you would find all ranges of food all imported from around the world. The Traveler when on to pick up what seemed to be a small plastic container of vegetables from Chile, the price, £45! and still affordable to your average Gabonese with high wages they receive. The Traveler's Gabonese companion when on to tell that everything was imported from cars to clothes to food, all expensive but still affordable to the average Gabonese.
The Gabonese went on cynically to say "with oil you can do anything".
Taxi services, the driver was asking for £2k to wait awhile. Gabon's GDP PPP is 3rd highest in the Africa Ranked 136th at 9,621
On watching the program I wanted to find out a bit more on this on the net...
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/3733578.stm
"The Cameroonians and the Equatorial Guineans - we used to mock them because they were not as rich as us.
"Now we have unemployment, inflation and beggars on the streets," he said.
In the 1980s Gabon was Africa's lucky country.
Massive reserves of oil and a population of just one million prompted unguarded optimists to make comparisons with Kuwait and Saudi Arabia.
The boom years saw massive building projects in Libreville.
New ministries mushroomed, providing plush office suites for the country's expanding civil service.
The nation's president since 1967, Omar Bongo, started constructing an ambitious and ferociously expensive rail line that bisected the nation.
Libreville boasted fine hotels, French cuisine and the world's highest per capita consumption of champagne.
But the oil boom has left Gabon with a splitting hangover.
Flood of imports
One cause was obvious as Mr Cherubim, a food importer, showed us the goods being unloaded at Libreville's seaport.
"Chicken legs, pork and fish from Europe, these things come from France, Holland and Asian countries," he told us, as a fork-lift truck loaded pallets onto a creaking truck.
Far from kick-starting sustainable economic growth, Gabon's oil wealth has fuelled a flood of imports.
It is easier - even cheaper - to buy foreign goods rather than products grown or made in Gabon because oil is paid for in dollars.
Over the past three decades Gabonese farming and industry have withered away.
The seas off Gabon teem with fish, yet entrepreneurs like Mr Cherubim are investing in cold stores to house imported seafood rather than fishing boats to catch their own. Fish has become an expensive luxury.
Corruption
The boom has left another bitter after-taste.
Oil prices fluctuate wildly from year to year - even month to month - which means the government's impressive infrastructure projects have been thrown into confusion.
When the price per barrel went down, so did government income, and ministers borrowed foreign cash to complete construction.
Soon the country was accelerating down the fast-lane to international debt.
Today about half the government's income is swallowed up by interest payments.
And then there is corruption.
President Omar Bongo: "Africa's president for life"
The nation's Oil Minister, Richard-Auguste Onouviet, laughed off suggestions of government impropriety when we met him inside the impressive ministry building.
Gabon's oil money had been quite properly expended on building the nation's infrastructure, he insisted.
"There's nothing to regret," he assured us.
"Gabon is facing up to the continuing challenge of economic development, which of course is a very long process."
Following US foreign policy the US preferred to Import its Oil from West Africa rather than the unstable Middle East but here is another reason why Oil is better from West Africa than Saudi Arabia. Africa is more and more fulfilling the roll as a place for roar materials and open markets.
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