Why is equatorial guinea so rich

They highlight a poor country struggling under the reign of the longest standing president in the world and one of the most ruthlessly sly dictators today. An entangled mess of political corruption and repression that pulls the country back from its potential success. Photo: Flickr. Corruption Runs Amuck Teodoro Nguema Obiang Mangue, vice president of the country and son of President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasago, currently stands trial in France on charges of corruption, money-laundering and embezzlement.

November 12, 0. Abogo reiterated that a couple of months ago, they organised the third national economic conference with the view of establishing a new development strategy with two huge ambitions: namely how to foster industrialization in Equatorial Guinea and how to consolidate the social gains they have achieved over the last ten to fifteen years. The small country in the Gulf of Guinea has taken a leading role on the international stage by joining OPEC , assisting in stabilizing the market and leading efforts for pan-African cooperation in the oil and gas sector.

Welcome to Africanews Please select your experience. Watch Live. Breaking News Close. This focus helps enable intergovernmental human rights mechanisms, such as the UN, and national and international NGOs, monitor governments' compliance with their economic, social and cultural rights obligations. The latest available socioeconomic data is used, taken either from international sources such as the World Bank or the UNDP, or national sources, such as national statistics bureaus.

This data is displayed using graphs and charts, and then analyzed and interpreted. Half of children who begin primary school never complete it and fewer than one-quarter go on to middle school. Part of the reason that Equatorial Guinea's health and education indicators often lag far behind its much poorer neighbors is the vast personal fortunes that senior government officials have amassed during the oil boom and because of how the country invests—or doesn't invest—in itself.

Overseas spending sprees by the son of President Teodoro Obiang Nguema have triggered money-laundering investigations that have uncovered a mountain of evidence suggesting systemic corruption across the country's government. While there are many ways that officials siphon off public oil wealth, public infrastructure projects appear to be a major driver of corruption.

The government pours nearly all its oil revenues into construction projects and often awards these contracts to companies that are at least partially owned by high-level officials, including the president.

International Monetary Fund IMF reports and high-level interviews conducted over the course of an American money-laundering investigation show that the conflicts of interest allegedly led to inflated contract prices and dubious investments in "white elephant" projects with questionable social value.

The government, indefensibly, insists that there are no conflicts of interest when senior officials profit from the state. But the country's people pay dearly for this self-dealing, since stratospheric spending on infrastructure leaves little left over for health and education.

The government's budgets are not public and do not track health and education spending, so only selective data is available in reports by the International Monetary Fund and World Bank. But here is what we know.