In Cameroon, Fighting Corruption, Building Integrity

By Lane Hartill

Nobody usually asks for a bribe in Cameroon. But they have code words for it. A policeman will tell you he can't eat your driver's license and registration. A little choko or dammé—that's what Cameroonians call bribes here—would help clear things up. Officials will make you sit. And wait. And wait. Until the sweat and lateness force you to hand something over. It's so open now that some police will even give you change.

Cameroon has become synonymous with corruption. It is always among the top of the heap in corruption watchdog Transparency International's list of most corrupt countries. In fact, for two years in a row in the late 1990s, it was one of the worst in the world.

"Cameroon was champion," says Father Jean Claude Ekobena, the national secretary for Catholic education in Cameroon. "You want to be champion in football, not corruption."

Cameroon never used to be this way. The rule of law—at times severe—was enforced. People who stole were shamed and beaten by society. But in the 1980s, as the economy faltered and it became more difficult to find work, bribery started to show up in order to find employment and break through the official bottlenecks.

This affects everything from the GDP to high school diplomas. Everything, it seems, can be bought for a price.

"We call them sexually transmitted grades," says Marie Bernadette Enguene, a teacher and supervisor of the Integrity Club at the College de la Retraite, a 2,500-student, junior-and-senior high school in Yaoundé. She says that male teachers at the school would improve grades if females slept with them. Or, a simple one-time payment could also do the trick.

Out of Control

The Catholic Church was so disturbed by the depth of the corruption that it was prompted to act. Knowing that it's hard to change entrenched mentalities among adults, the Church—in conjunction with the Ministry of Education—launched in 2003 the Fight Against Corruption Through Schools Program (FACTS), which Catholic Relief Services supports. In 88 Catholic schools across the country, through a combination of lectures, examples and skits, students learn right and wrong in addition to fighting against corruption.

Prior to the program, the students were spinning out of control. Marie Bernadette said the theft of everything from pens to money had reached disturbing levels. Girls hid stolen money in their underwear; boys hid money in their shoes. Marie Bernadette turned into a one-man private investigator, culling tips from students and conducting investigations.

Another problem: cell phones. Media-savvy kids downloaded pornography and passed it around at school. The teachers, too, weren't setting a good example. They would receive personal calls on their cell phones in the middle of class. They would chat, as the class descended into chaos.

As anywhere in the United States, it comes down to parenting. "Parents don't even have time to take care of their kids," says Polycarpe Enyegue, the national president of the Catholic parent-teacher association. "In order to survive, parents have to work all day and all night."

The FACTS program aimed to stop all this. The class is taught once every two weeks. Students in all classes learn why integrity is important. Scenarios are played out. They perform sketches, sometimes based on real-life events.

Here's one: A woman was going to visit her daughter and her daughter's new husband. As she was on the way to their house, a policeman stopped the bus in which she was traveling. He told her the goat she was bringing to her new son-in-law didn't have a permit. She complained, saying that it didn't need one. He didn't budge. She relented. When she arrived at her daughter's house, her new son-in-law opened the door. He was the policeman who had stopped her.

'A Reversal of Morals'

"We've had a reversal of morals in the country," says Sylvain Mbeza Enouh, who works with the program. "Corruption is the real reason our country has been paralyzed."

Because Catholic schools routinely produce the country's future ministers and government officials, the hope is to mold their minds when they are young. But Marie Bernadette's integrity education didn't sit well with the other teachers. Several confronted her angrily, telling her she had to stop the program. She received a poor evaluation. She was even told that she shouldn't eat with the other teachers because she may be poisoned. "I'm telling you," she says. "I cried in this office."

Marie Bernadette dug in. A handwritten student newspaper was started. Its current editor, Megane Richard, a sixth-grader, is a fledgling investigative reporter. She catches wind of something on the playground—something that goes against the rules of the school—and she writes it up in the paper and it's read aloud at the Monday morning assembly. No names are used.

Junior Noah, the president of the Integrity Club, says that teachers still take personal calls in class. "Students don't dare say anything," he says. They can take your notebooks and give you a bad grade, he says. Or they can give you a detention. Three detentions and you are kicked out of school. The best method for denouncing the teachers: Megane's newspaper.

Marie Bernadette lays into the teachers if she finds out they've been talking on the phone. "The classroom is like a Mass. Have you ever seen a priest stop Mass and take out his cell phone? [Whoever does this] that's a sign of a bad teacher."

The curriculum is working. "We've seen a big change in their behavior, their integrity," Marie Bernadette says. It's been so successful, in fact, other schools are interested in adopting it. Theft has plunged. Students now bring her as little as a penny if they find it. Students are even lecturing their parents on why they shouldn't give bribes.

"We are now expanding into all four private school systems—Catholic, Protestant, Islamic and secular," says Oliver Mokom, CRS Cameroon's head of programs. In fact, the Ministry of Secondary Education plans to use the FACTS curriculum in some classes starting next school year. In addition, the FACTS integrity manuals are now on the official booklist of the three upper classes of secondary schools nationwide.

Marie Bernadette hasn't let up. She's still an enforcer. And she isn't afraid of some intimidation during the Monday morning assembly. The cell phones that she confiscated during the past week are brought out, dropped in a can, doused with gasoline, and, with the entire student body looking on, she burns them black.

Lane Hartill is the West Africa regional information officer for Catholic Relief Services. He is based in Dakar, Senegal.