Gabon vows change after 55 years of plunder

After decades of suffering what a government minister called “financial evaporation,” oil-rich Gabon vows to revamp crucial infrastructure and diversify its economy that is heavily indebted.

- SOPHIE PONS

The small central African country holds presidential elections on Saturday, after 16 months of multi-crisis leadership following a coup that ended more than five decades of Bongo dynasty rule.

While the general who led the coup, Brice Oligui Nguema, is now running for the top job, recognition that economic change is needed is evident at the government level.

Buzz phrases such as “eliminate waste”, “moving away from a windfall economy” and “paradigm change” abound in Gabon’s ministries.

“Today we have no choice but to make other choices,” Economy Minister Marc Alexandre Doumba said recently.

After 55 years of iron-fisted rule by the Bongos, who were accused of looting its wealth, Gabon was prey to “financial evaporation,” Budget Minister Charles Mba said.

“From 2010 to 2023, we had an investment budget of 18,000 billion CFA francs ($29 billion) and we did nothing because we don’t see any roads, hospitals, schools, universities,” he said on state television.

While the lack of infrastructure is glaring, the administration is also inefficient and bloated – Gabon has a motor-way department but no motorway.

Despite successive plans, only 2,000 of its 5,600 kilometers (3,500 miles) of roads in the country are “usable”, according to official data.