Corruption in Equatorial Guinea
It has been described as "an almost perfect kleptocracy" in which the scale of systemic corruption and the rulers' indifference towards the people's welfare place it at the bottom of every major governance indicator or ranking, below nations with similar per capita GDPs.
[6] President Teodoro Obiang is said to have control over the oil reserves and the government, Ganesan claimed, and consequentially the country's immensely rich treasury is "a private cash machine for a few" rather than used for any public benefit.
[8] The individual who has become most associated in the international media with the corruption of Equatorial Guinea's leaders is Teodorin Obiang, a son of the president whose lavish lifestyle in southern California, Paris, and elsewhere has made headlines and been the target of investigations by American and French authorities, among others.
Vast oil revenues fund lavish lifestyles for the small elite surrounding the president, while a large proportion of the population continues to live in poverty.
"[17] This corruption system has existed in more or less its present form since the early 1980s, when the government seized farmland on Bioko Island belonging mostly to Spanish and Portuguese owners and redistributed it to members of the Nguema/Mongomo group.
In 2003, for example, Le Temps (Geneva) reported on a village in which 75 people lived in abject poverty having been uprooted by the regime from their homes, which had been used to construct a methanol factory without compensation or apology.
This is because government authorities have used their political power to limit participation in the exploitation of the country's natural resources to themselves and other members of the Nguema/Mongomo group, granting business licenses and approvals only to the chosen few.
He has six personal aircraft, homes in Cape Town, Paris, Madrid, Las Palmas and Maryland, and bank accounts in numerous countries, including France and Switzerland.
[25] He controls the production of half a million barrels of oil per day and travels frequently to such countries as Angola, Malaysia, France, China, the United States, Canada, Brazil, Britain, Switzerland, and Trinidad and Tobago, where he has lucrative business partners and, in some cases, numbered bank accounts and safe-deposit boxes.
[19] A foreign businessman complained that his difficulties with doing business in Equatorial Guinea only become worse when he was required to deal with Emilio Oñebula, a senior official in the sports ministry: "Everything is so easy that you fall for it.
A 2009 article in The New York Times stated that U.S. officials believed that the vast majority of Teodorin's assets derived "from corruption related to the extensive oil and gas reserves discovered more than a decade and a half ago off the coast of his tiny West African country."
Teodorin "shamelessly looted his government and shook down businesses in his country to support his lavish lifestyle, while many of his fellow citizens lived in extreme poverty", said U.S. Assistant Attorney General Leslie Caldwell in 2014.
Although Teodorin's annual salary was about $100,000, he had managed "through bribes, kickbacks, embezzlement, and extortion" to accumulate a fortune of over $300 million, including major U.S. assets owned and acquired through shell companies and third parties.
[29] One Spanish businessmen told El Pais in 2013 that he and his business partners had run several firms in Malabo and Bata between 2009 and 2011, and simply to meet with Teodorín at his house in Paris to make necessary arrangements required payment of a so-called "intentions royalty" of 40,000 to 100,000 euros.
[22] "A long, tree-lined driveway runs from the estate's main gate past a motor court with fountains and down to a 15,000-square-foot mansion with eight bathrooms and an equal number of fireplaces", reported Foreign Policy in 2011.
"The grounds overlook the Pacific Ocean, complete with swimming pool, tennis court, four-hole golf course, and Hollywood stars Mel Gibson, Britney Spears, and Kelsey Grammer for neighbors.
[4] At one point he owned 32 motorcycles and automobiles in California, including "seven Ferraris, five Bentleys, four Rolls Royces, two Lamborghinis, two Maybachs, two Mercedes, two Porsches, one Aston-Martin, and one Bugatti, with a collective insured value of $9.5 million."
[4] As of 2012, he owned "a five-story mansion on Paris' swank Avenue Foch", where he had "kept 11 luxury cars, including a Maserati and an Aston Martin, until French police seized them" in late 2011 or early 2012.
George Ehlers, owner of a South African construction firm who said the government of Equatorial Guinea owed him nearly $7.8 million, tried to recoup the debt by gaining ownership of the two mansions as collateral.
[21] Other members of the family who hold high government positions are Obiang's brother Antonio Mba Nguema, who became defense minister in April 2015, and his nephew Baltasar Engonga, who is head of regional integration.
[3] According to Transparency International, the control of corruption in Equatorial Guinea is among the lowest 1% in the world, with citizens of the country believing that many public authorities perform for personal gain.
"[7] Despite being "on paper the richest country on the continent on a per capita basis, on a par with many European nations", he told The Guardian in 2014, Equatorial Guinea has "one of the highest income and standard of living disparities. ...
The reason for the absence of human-rights or anti-corruption groups, he has explained, is that the country is small, and any institution, such as a church, "that the government perceives as sufficiently powerful is immediately co-opted" or "completely undermined".
John Bennett, former U.S. ambassador to Equatorial Guinea, stated that U.S. authorities had "turned a blind eye" to Obiang's corruption and repression because of its dependence on the country for natural resources.
"[32] Speaking in Congress on September 26, 2006, Senator Carl Levin blamed the failure of the U.S. to act thus far against flagrant official corruption in Equatorial Guinea on the U.S. oil industry's ties to that country's leaders.
[21] In three civil cases, the first of which was filed in 2011, the U.S. Justice Department accused Teodorin, whose official annual salary is about $100,000, of buying a long list of expensive items with money stolen from Equatorial Guinea.
In an October 2014 settlement, filed in a Los Angeles district court, Teodorin gave the U.S. government less than half of what it wanted, including his Malibu mansion, a Ferrari, and "six life-size Michael Jackson statues".
[35] In September 2012, Equatorial Guinea sued France in the International Criminal Court after French police raided a Paris mansion owned by Teodorin and found luxury goods worth millions of Euros.
[41] In 2008, the Pro Human Rights Association of Spain filed a criminal complaint in that country against the government of Equatorial Guinea for money laundering, citing over $26 million in transfers of funds from Riggs Bank to Banco Santander in Madrid between 2000 and 2003.
[36] To counteract reporting about corruption in Equatorial Guinea, Obiang retains U.S. lobbyists and PR experts, notably Lanny Davis, former counsel to U.S. President Bill Clinton.
