Spectator's Journal/Benin Growth
Ciitier, Jean-Paul
SPECTATOR'S JOURNAL BENIN GROWTH by Jean-Paul Mier When I was last there, in the 1960s, Dahomey was a sleepy, poor but quite happy country, under French tutelage like many of its neighbors. Just...
...Le Marabout had his own men here, with an excellent understanding of computers...
...The top people line their pockets through political influence...
...improved somewhat, and in 1983 an American ambassador reappeared, although Benin remains one of the few countries with essentially no U.S...
...Diplomatic relations with the U.S...
...The top men will have had ten or fifteen mistresses who used to run up big debit accounts here, and then go to the Palais and say, 'You've gotto straighten me out with the bank.' "The rulers now admit that they never understood Marxism, and as a sop to opinion a few people have been jailed...
...President, you have the money.' " All of this is familiar ground to a Frenchman, I reflected...
...Benin already had two cement plants—more than enough...
...was quite relieved that nothing I I blew before I was back on my plane to Abidjan, Niamey, and Paris...
...The president's closest adviser, Cisse, called le Marabout`the priest" —stole five billion francs CFA (about $14 million) from this bank...
...Any single ruler—like the European monarchs in their day—will enrich his family and his pals...
...All three major French banks were nationalized, as was the Banque Commerciale de Benin, with sixteen branches, which thus became the only commercial bank in the country...
...Pret pour la Revolution, or ehuzu in the local lingo...
...The Safe sugar refinery and La Beninoise [the government-owned beer and soft drink plant] are the same...
...Signs such as DEATH TO TRAITORS (mort aux traitres) sprouted...
...30 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR MAY 1990 How did things go so wrong...
...Immense official buildings were built and staffed, draining the government's income...
...Bulgarian, Rumanian, and East German advisers were imported, many young people were sent off to study in Russia, Libyans erected a huge mosque, the North Koreans mounted a stirring exhibit of the American invasion of South Korea...
...This provoked roars of laughter, since a few days previously the government had announced the abolition of this detested form of address in favor of the traditional monsieur and madame...
...We chatted for a while, and he urged me to drop in on the way back to town, if he hadn't been "ousted...
...They have run up huge debts that will never be paid...
...I didn't visit him on the way back, but in any event the telephone lines in most of the country got cut, so he wouldn't have known if he had been ousted...
...The basic problem here, beside a lack of competence, is total corruption...
...Political slogans do not in fact improve production...
...On another occasion a speaker used the formerly obligatory expression "the struggle continues...
...The guilty will be arrested...
...THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR MAY 1990 31...
...upcountry, where there were few travelers...
...In the waiting-room, instead of the usual display of annual reports and copies of !'Expansion, lies an aging offprint from Pravda describing how the Red Army, its fraternal duty accomplished, has withdrawn from Afghanistan...
...Alas, some months back the Banque Commerciale itself went bust...
...In 1975 a Marxist military government seized power and changed the name of the country to the People's Republic of Benin...
...Several jumbo state-owned industrial projects collapsed, including the Onidbolo cement plant, the Safe sugar refinery, and the Seme oil field...
...The ruling People's Revolutionary party formed ties with its fraternal parties in the Soviet Union, Libya, North Korea, and Cuba...
...It's rather difficult to answer, 'Mr...
...We were asked when the stolen money would be recovered...
...But new marabouts have been brought in, and are still at the center of decision-making...
...So for now perhaps the best one can hope for in a number of countries is honest administration—perhaps contracted from international sources—of certain key parts of the economy, such as banking, and rulers who, like kings and business-builders, leave a substantial share of their gains in the country...
...Their managers, who are always tied to the government, steal, and then send the loot abroad...
...Meanwhile, the country's economy declined steadily...
...The chief bandit is the president, along with his associates in the politburo...
...I've said all this to everybody," he began...
...The president and his advisers have been in a virtually con-tinuous huddle...
...investment...
...Heading upcountry one day in 100-degree heat, I stopped to pay a courtesy call on the local prefet, a big, tough-looking officer with an armed guard...
...Sitting in this very room, they figured out how to shift funds into a special account, and thence right out of the country...
...So the state companies have enormously inflated overheads...
...Tens of thousands of citizens demonstrated a few weeks back in the streets of Cotonou and Porto Novo...
...One need no longer answer the telephone with 'Ready for the Revolution.' " A s it happened, I chose that moment to make a return visit...
...Monsieur N. described a local variation: "The top management of every enterprise in these parts is absolutely duty-bound to take care of his family—both immediate and remote—together with his friends...
...We've traced it to Switzerland, London, and Monte Carlo...
...From time to time there are announcements: "The President regrets that certain policies haven't worked...
...Creating governments in defiance of the law that power corrupts may work in the next world, but not in this one...
...While there I attended a school graduation ceremony...
...So the unrest is no surprise...
...To answer the telephone you no longer said bonjour but Ready for the wRevolution...
...Shades of Grenada...
...Monsieur N. is a keen banker of long and wide experience...
...The Beninois are highly intelligent, and have understood exactly what's going on...
...again, gales of laughter, since that one has also been discarded...
...For an insight, let us visit the (failed) Banque Commerciale de Benin for a talk with Monsieur N. It is an impressive building, but for obvious reasons one sees little activity within...
...Then, the Onidbolo cement project was a vast fraud...
...I went to the presidential palace along with a representative of the World Bank...
...Le Marabout and two of his men are in jail now, but that doesn't get the money back...
...Eventually the Soviets started to build a major airport Jean-Paul Mier is a financial journalist...
...The chief prosecutor is the next biggest bandit...
...The courts of Louis XIV, XV, and XVI were riddled with corruption: everybody around the king made his pile, including the royal mistresses and bastards...
...As I flew off I reflected that the chief, not democracy, is the custom in Africa...
...Addressing the assembly, the first speaker greeted them in French as "Comrades...
...some were killed...
...And there are constant histoires de femme in local politics...
...Just north of the equator, sandwiched between Togo and Nigeria, it points inland like a finger from the Gulf of Guinea...
...Still, as popular indignation intensifies, things have started coming to a boil...
...Benin was welcomed into the so-called Nonaligned Movement, and launched harsh propaganda attacks against the United States, whereupon the American ambassador was withdrawn...
...So by degrees Benin, like most Marxist countries, began to turn partly away from the Soviet model...
...Another is the minister of justice: all court decisions are determined by bribes...
Vol. 23 • May 1990 • No. 5
