Berkley Center

It’s been only a couple of weeks since I arrived in Yaoundé, Cameroon for spring semester, but I’ve learned a couple of special phrases I’m translating as: “wet the beard,” “speak properly,” and “How much is the gumbo?” They’re all ways of asking about a bribe. Not that I have been asked for a bribe, but there is a perception that Cameroon is filled with corruption. On my first day in Yaoundé, an American working here told me that corruption is everywhere and it’s hard to deal with. But, he cautioned, foreigners have to remember that in Cameroon it is almost impossible not to be corrupt or accept bribes. As a government official, a certain standard of living is expected of you, one you can’t possibly obtain with a regular salary. Moreover, you have an obligation to provide for your family—not just your nuclear family but also your extended family network. Also, if you don’t accept bribes and everyone else does, people will become suspicious.

After this introduction, I was a bit skeptical of corruption in Cameroon. Of course, there is corruption everywhere (look at my home state of Illinois, where the most recent former governor to be investigated by the FBI still has about a decade of time to serve). It’s a matter of degree, but I soon found out that the perception in Cameroon is that corruption is everywhere. For two years in a row, from 1998 to 1999, the country was named the most corrupt country in the world by the Corruption Perceptions Index. Bribe money is demanded not only by policemen and politicians, but at every level of society.

I’m told that Cameroon’s problem with corruption is a delicate subject, as bribery is well known but never admitted to. However it comes up often in conversations, and every person I’ve talked to—from professors and students to my host family and neighbors—is glad to share a personal story. One night at dinner, my host father explained that even in preschool, a child who doesn’t have parents able to pay bribes will suffer. The teacher will put the child in the back of the class and spend her time with the children whose parents have paid. In middle school, if a class brings in tomatoes for a science experiment, the teacher will use just one and will pocket the rest. And corruption only gets more serious in higher education. My history professor tells the story of the time he created an exam for his students, posed as a student, took the exam, graded the exam, and then saw on the list of official results from the university that he had failed (because he hadn’t paid the bribe). These stories usually start in a tone of amused exasperation, but the teller almost involuntarily ends on a note of disgust and a shake of the head. You want a certain school grade, a job, a doctor? Parlez bien, the official will request, which translates as “speak well, offer some money on the side.”

In a way, the American who told me that Cameroonians care for their families through corruption has a point. The chief reason for Cameroon’s corruption, my history professor tells me, is the poverty that persists despite solid GDP growth in recent years. After an economic slump in the 1980s, Cameroon cut public officials’ salaries by 65 percent in 1993, and the CAFranc was devalued by 50 percent in 1994. For every dollar earned before, an employee was left with maybe 18 cents. My host sister taught me a Cameroonian proverb: one employed person works to feed ten. The economic troubles crushed entire families. Nowadays, Cameroonians joke that the end of corruption would mean war, since people would have to live on their real salaries.

That’s not to say people aren’t fighting against corruption. Several institutions and NGOs exist to try to end the legal impunity that has allowed corruption to flourish. But it will take a lot to “fix” corruption. It’s an incredibly difficult problem to solve, and I am immediately reminded of my host sister asking me, “Is it true that the US still has ghettos?” I can talk about historical causes and current factors all I want, but I end feebly on “It’s a really big, complex problem, and people don’t have enough money.” She looks at me disbelievingly, and I completely understand her skepticism. For her, if the United States—with its power, resources, and democratic institutions—hasn’t “fixed” urban slums yet, what does that show?

The Cameroonians I’ve talked to agree that whether you are the corrupter or corrupted, everyone is a victim, everyone loses. The consequences for the country are enormous. Instead of meritocracy, clientelism grows, development projects stall, and ultimately the people suffer.

And it’s not because Cameroonians are immoral or it’s “just in their culture.” If Cameroonians know a thing or two about corruption, it’s that wherever there exists a situation with a lack of transparency and the possibility of power, means and motives for corruption are right there—it’s just a matter of time. “Isn’t that what the Americans say,” my host father asks, “that every man has his price?”