Congo Brazzaville: Cesspool of lies and Manipulations

As already mentioned, the ruling Nguesso family and government is a bunch of professional lairs and manipulators. Hence after cheating her way into the Highly Poor and Indebted Countries scheme of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, they did not stop at lying or doctoring their statistics. They have embarked at lying and manipulating all information coming out from all organisations based in the country. Almost all figures coming out of Congo Brazzaville are wrong. The first wrong information from Congo Brazzaville is her population figure and the second wrong or doubtful figure from Congo Brazzaville is its oil production and the revenue generated from the sale of its crude. Even figures of its internal and external debts are wrong because of the opaque web under which she was contracted and executed. There is a reason why the government doesn’t want its people or its international trading partners to know the true figures or statistics on anything especially, its Oil production or the revenue that she generates from the sale of crude. In order to justify the monumental travesty of international norms set up to discourage corruption and encourage and enforce transparency, the Congolese government uses local NGOs. Paradoxically, some NGOs are used by the international community to promote the respect of human rights and also to fight against corruption or to expose corrupt practices of individuals and governments.

But in Congo Brazzaville, as earlier mentioned, in spite all best efforts local NGOs or their representatives in particular, those heading them are either bought over or are too afraid to denounce or publish the true reality about the abuses of the Nguesso family or the Congolese government, as it concerns corruption. Fortunately, mindful of the limitations of local NGOs, the international community has stepped up its efforts by sponsoring local NGOs in a bid to put them beyond want. The international community has also increase the capacity building of activists on the ground. But the latter strategy has not been quite successful, for the mismanagement of Congolese natural resources by the Nguessos has not decreased but instead increased, hence the need for other international NGOs to develop new adaptable tactics in the fight against corruption not only in Congo but in most developing and African countries. One of such internationally created and sponsored NGOs whose expertise  has contributed to expose corrupt practices within the solid and liquid mining sectors is Publish What you Pay. This organisation through various pressure groups and tactics has succeeded in forcing mining companies operating in Africa to publish some parts of their contracts with various liquid and solid mineral producing countries. Besides the Publish and What You Pay group, other global initiative against corruption in countries such as Congo is the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative abbreviated EITI.