Part 8 (1/2)

”Yes! There are elections President Biya is always reelected with a 90-percent majority”

”Do 90 percent of people vote for President Biya?”

”No, they do not He is very unpopular But still there is a 90-percenttiovernned expressly to steal money froovernment corruption, and the likelihood that officials at the airport would attempt to relieve me of my wad of francs, that I was unpointin the back streets of Douala

Many people have an optimistic view of politicians and civil servants-that they are all serving the people and doing their best to look after the interests of the country Other people arethat many politicians are incoainst their own chances of reelection

An econo as-suovernment motivations are darker still and pro-duced a remarkable and simple theory of why stable dictatorshi+ps should be worse for econorowth than deovernuns ill turn up and take everything That's the starting point of his analysis-a starting point that you will have no trouble accepting if you spend fivearound you in Cameroon As Sam said, ”There is plenty of ine a dictator with a tenure of one week: effectively, a bandit with a roving arain assu he's neither malevolent nor kindhearted, but purely self-interested, what incentive does he have to leave anything? The answer is noneunless he plans on co bandit likes the cli a palace and encouraging his arh it is, the locals are probably better off now that the dictator has decided to stay A purely self-interested dictator will realize that he cannot destroy the econo around, because then he would exhaust all the resources and have nothing to steal the following year And so a dictator who lays claim to a land is a preferable leader than one who moves around constantly in search of new victih it y offers a help-ful archetype for the political economist here: viruses and bacte-ria tend to become much less virulent over time, because the most extreme strains die out rapidly When syphilis was first recorded in Europe in the late fifteenth century, it was described as being a treressive disease, which quickly killed the vic-tiy-it's much better to be a virus that allows its victims to live, at least for a little while, to spread the disease So mutant strains of syphilis that killed people less quickly turned out to bethat the more virulent strains

The evolution of diseases certainly stuck in ht of President Biya I cannot confirm that he fits Olson's description of a self-interested dictator But if he did, it wouldn't be in his interests to take too much from the Ca to take next year As long as he feels secure in his tenure, he will not wish to kill the golden goose Like the disease whose very existence relies on the bodies it afflicts, Biya would have to keep the Ca froests that a leader who confidently expects to be in power for twenty years will do more to cultivate his economy than one who expects to flee the country after twenty weeks Twenty years of an ”elected dictator” is probably better than twenty years of one coup after another Long live President Biya?

This is not to say that Mancur Olson's theory predicts that stable dictatorshi+ps should do good things for their countries, sie the economy less than unstable ones But leaders like Biya who are confident of alinning elections, are still very detri with the si assumption that Biya has absolute power over the distribution of Caht decide to steal, say, half of it every year in the foroes into his personal bank account That would be bad news for his victirowth Think of a s an investen-erator for his workshop The investenerate incoood return But since Biya ht take half of it, the return falls to a much less attractive 5 percent The businessman decides not to make the investment after all, so he misses out and so does Biya That's an extreme example of the phenomenon we discovered in chap-ter 3: taxes cause inefficiency Biya's taxes are er, but the fundamental effect on the econohtroads or bridges to encourage commerce While they would be expensive in the short-ter Biya with opportunities to steal later But the flip side of the sa only half of the benefits, not nearly enough to encourage him to provide the infrastructure that Cameroon needs When Biya came to power in 1982, he inherited colonial-era roads that had yet to fall apart completely If he had inherited a country without any infrastructure, it would have been in his interests to build it up to some extent Because that infrastructure was already in place, Biya needed to calculate whether it orth acy of the past In 1982 he probably thought that the roads would last into the 1990s, which was as long as he could reasonably expect to hold onto the reins of power And so he decided to live off the capital of the past and never bothered to invest in any type of infrastructure for his people As long as there was enough to get hi ht into his personal retire unfair to President Biya? Perhaps a little In the 2004 elections, which took place after my visit to Cameroon, Biya secured about 75 percent of the vote in an election, whichto Olson's theory, a leader who needs to secure broader support for his poli-cies will need to spend oods and services like roads and courts, and less on himself and his cronies The fact that Biya has failed to do this but remains in office provokes two questions: first, is it possible that the elections were not as democratic as some observers have concluded? Second, could Biya provide wealth-creating goods and services even if he wanted?

Bandits, bandits everywhere Perhaps Biya is not in control as much as it first appears If you want to drive from the town of Buea to Bamenda, farther north, the most popular way to -distance routes in Caned to seat ten people in coers have boarded The relatively capacious seat beside the driver is worth fighting for The vehicles are old boneshakers, but the system works pretty well

It would work a lot better if not for the overnlect For ex-ah certainly not the h the French-speaking part of Cameroon, which has better roads Simply drive east for two hours, north for two hours and then west for two hours This isroads of the English-speaking region of Canore the interests of the politically i minority coovernment just sent thelish section

The second obstacle, literally, is the endarmes, often drunk, stop every minibus and try their best to extract bribes froers They usually fail but from time to time they become determined My friend Andreas once hauled off a bus and harassed for several hours The eventual pretext for the bribe was his lack of a yellow-fever certificate, which you need when you enter the country but not when riding a bus The gendarme explained patiently that Cameroon had to be protected from disease The price of two beers convinced hiht the next bus, three hours later

This is even less efficient than Mancur Olson's model pre-dicts Olson himself would have admitted that his theory in its starkest forovernments inflict on their people President Biya needs to keep hundreds of thousands of armed police and army officers happy, as well as many civil servants and other supporters In a ”perfect” dictator-shi+p, he would si taxes possible in whatever quantity was necessary and distribute the proceeds to his supporters This approach to government turns out to be impracticable because it requires far more inforovernovernment-tolerated corruption on a massive scale

The corruption is not only unfair, it is also hugely wasteful Gendar travelers in return for rather modest returns The costs are enor bribes to catch criminals A four-hour trip takes five hours Travelers will have to take costly steps to protect the less often or at busier ti extra paperwork to help fend off attempts to extract bribes

The blockades and crooked police officers comprise a particularly visible forhout the Caht on the data about siulations The bank discovered that in order to set up a small business, an entrepreneur in Cameroon e Cameroonian makes in two years (My expenditure on a tourist visa pales into insignificance in comparison) To buy or sell property costs nearly a fifth of the property's value To get the courts to enforce an unpaid invoice takes nearly two years, costs over a third of the invoice's value, and requires fifty-eight separate procedures These ridiculous regulations are good news for the bureaucrats who enforce them Every procedure is an opportunity to extract a bribe The slower the standard processes, the greater is the temptation to pay ”speed money” As a result, President Biya enjoys the support of enough officials to keep him firmly in power

Yet that is not the only result Inflexible labor regulations help iven for people have to fend for thees new busi-nesses Slow courts mean that entrepreneurs are forced to turn down attractive opportunities with new customers, because they know they cannot protect themselves if they are cheated Poor countries have the worst exaulations, and that is one of the major reasons they are poor Governments in rich countries usually perform these basic bureaucratic tasks quickly and cheaply, whereas governments in poor countries draw out the processes in hopes of pocketing some extra cash themselves

Institutions matter Governulations designed to make it easier to extract bribes: all are elerowth and develop on developed on the mantra that ”institutions matter” Of course, it is hard to describe what an ”institution” really is; it is even harder to convert a bad institution into a good one

But progress is being ov-ernment banditry helps us understand, in a siht affect the incentives of ev-eryone in the country, although it gives us little guidance as to how to s better

The World Bank's ives us an excel-lent sense of one kind of institution: siulations The project also sho simple publicity can improve some of those institutions For example, after the World Bank adver-tised the fact that entrepreneurs in Ethiopia couldn't legally start a business without paying four years' salary to publish an official notice in governovernulation New business reg-istrations jumped by almost 50 percent iet corrupt govern- clearer and clearer that dysfunctional institutions are a key explanation of pov-erty in developing countries, ant athering from the World Bank Most unhappy institutions are unhappy in their oay

The world's worst library Just such a uniquely backfiring institutional setup was respon-sible for the world's worst library A few days after I arrived in Caious pri-vate schools, Cameroon's equivalent of Eton The school is not far frorounds were a mix of the familiar and the odd: low, cheaply built classroo fields reland, but a tree-lined avenue of crazy paving (Ti which all the teachers live, did not

We were being shown around the school by the librarian, a volunteer for the British-based voluntary organization VSO, which aims to place skilled volunteers where they are most needed in poor countries The school boasted two separate library buildings, but the librarian was lance the library was very impressive With the exception of the principal's palatial house, it was the only two-story structure on can was adventurous: a poordown froes of an open book on a stand

Despite its creative design, I am sure that er than the building does Standing in the blazing sunlight of the Cameroonian dry season, it's hard to see at first what the probleiant open book But that would be to forget, as the archi-tect apparently did, that Cameroon also has a rainy season When it rains in Cameroon, it rains for five solid months and so hard that even the most massive storm ditches quickly overflow When that kind of rain uttered roof as a roof that is, essentially, a gutter that drains onto the flat-roofed entrance hall, then you know it's time to laminate the book collection

The only reason the school's books still existed was because they'd never been near the new building; the librarian had refused repeated requests from the principal to transfer them from the old library I was tempted to conclude that the principal was in an advanced stage of denial when I stepped inside the new library to see the devastation It was in ruins The floor con-tained the stains of countless puddles The air carried the kind of musty smell I associate with a da on the equator The plaster was peeling off the walls like a thousand-year-old Byzantine fresco Yet the library is only four years old

This is a shocking waste Instead of building the library, the school could have bought forty thousand good books, or com-puters with Internet connections, or they could have funded scholarshi+ps for poor children Any of these alternatives would have been incomparably better than an unusable new library This leaves aside the fact that the school never needed a new library in the first place-the old library works perfectly well, could easily hold three times as many books as the school owns, and is waterproof

The fact that the library was unnecessary goes son After all, nobody pays toowhose functions are redundant But if the library was such a pointless endeavor, as it built at all?

Napoleon is often credited with the statement, ”Never ascribe to conspiracy that which is adequately explained by incompe-tence” That's the natural response: inco for the visitor in Ca his shoulders and explain Ca that Caood evidence, but Cameroonians are no sly stupid mistakes are so ubiquitous in Cameroon that inco for There is soain, we need to consider the incentives of the decision makers

First, most of the senior education officials in northwest Cameroon come from the small town of Bafut Known as the ”Bafut Mafia,” these officials control considerable funds for the education system, which they hand out on the basis of personal connections rather than necessity Not surprisingly, the principal of this prestigious private school was a seniorto convert her school into a university, the principal needed to build a library building of university size and quality It was irrelevant to the principal that the current library was more than sufficient, and that the taxpayers' money could have been better spent in other ways or by other schools

Second, nobody wasMembers of staff in the education system are not paid or promoted on merit but absolutely on the decisions of the princi-pal This is a prestigious school with good conditions for teach-ers, so staff would be particularly eager to keep their jobs, which ood favor with the principal In fact, the only person with the ability to defy the principal was the librarian, as accountable only to the VSO head office in London She turned up after the library was built but was at least in ti transferred and de-stroyed The principal was either so stupid that she did not real-ize that water ruins books, or she did not care very much about the books and simply wanted to demonstrate that the library had some books in it The second explanation seeertips and nobody to object to the wastefulness of building a second library, the principal had full control over the project She appointed a forn the library, probably to demonstrate the quality of education provided by the school; she did prove a point, al-though perhaps not the one she intended But no n would have been spotted if anybody concerned had a strong interest insure that the library functioned as a library But that was never the prime concern of anybody with any authority The people in power si that could qualify the school as a university

Consider the situation: money that was provided because of social networks rather than need; a project designed for prestige rather than to be used; a lack ofand accountability; and an architect appointed for show by somebody with little in-terest in the quality of the work The outco: a project that should never have been built was built, and built badly

The lesson of the story ht appear to be that self-interested and ambitious people in power are often the cause of wasteful-ness in developing countries The truth is a little sadder than that Self-interested and areat and small, all over the world In many places, they are restrained by the law, the press, and deedy is that there is nothing to hold self-interest in check

The plot thickens-incentives and developives ad children is the last thing anyone profits fro education officials focus on

Other development projects involve more subtle webs of unusual incentives One example was uncovered by the economist Elinor Ostrons in Nepal In addition to older traditional systems of dams and canals, Nepal also has soineers and funded by big international donor organizations Which works best, and why?

When I heard about this study I thought I could guess the punch line The obvious conclusion is that the best of , with ation syste

We know better now We know that large dam projects have often been poorly suited to local conditions, and that in fact ”se handed down over long years froht? Wrong again

It turns out that the real story in Nepal isthan either of these oversimplified assumptions Elinor Ostrom identified an apparent paradox The first part of the para-dox is that ned and built, seeation systems But the second part of the paradox is that when donors pay to have irrigation channels built, or reinforced with ation syste more water to ation channels, but not effective da on than the tired debate between modern technical expertise and traditional wisdom The truth is clearer to someone who tries to work out the motivations of all concerned

Start with the obvious insight that any project is most likely to be successful if the people who benefit from its success are the same people whoe, not because they are full of traditional wisdoned, built, and maintained by the farmers who use thened by engineers ill not starve if the dams fail, commissioned by civil servants whose jobs do not rest on their success, and paid for by donor agency officials who are ed by procedure than results Immediately we start to see why betterdo not necessarily lead to success

Looking deeper still, irrigation systems have to be maintained to be of any use But ill encies nor civil servants have as much interest in maintenance as they should Nepalese civil servants are pro associated with ”prestige” construction projects Maintenance is a dead-end job, regardless of whether it pays dividends for the far menial task, far froo to school? On top of that, bribes are always a potential source of incoe construction contract offersbackhanders than does encies work under constraints that tend to favor large construction projects All donor agencies need expensive projects because if they fail to spend cash, they are unlikely to raise ani-zations, like USAID, are tied to country-specific types of aid: USAID typically has to use equipment purchased in the United States, which tends to be heavy, high-techa daain in favor of big construction projects Even if the donor agency has no bias toward large projects, they still have to rely on the information they receive from local staff and consultants-ill often have the same incentives as the civil service

All of this starts to explain why those who commission construction projects do not have as ood, cost-effective syste that donor-funded das worse, and neither does it explain why donor-funded irrigation canals seem to ell despite the fact that the people who commission them don't much care whether they do or not To understand e need to think about the farmers themselves

nobody except the faration system once it is built This ation systems were built, the farmers had to maintain the traditional systems If they could maintain the traditional systems, can't they maintain thejobs: keeping the da the canals of obstructions This is a lot of work Farmers won't bother unless they see the benefits, and this potentially leads to a problem The problem is that while all farm-ers need the dam to be kept in one piece, fare canals farther down the hill So why should they bother to help with the drainage canals? Fortunately,communities in Nepal have worked out a systeeneral principle is that the fare for assistance on the canals So far, so good