e. unbalanced domestic factor allocation, overappreciated currency and excessive debt from procyclical fiscal spending after the burst of a local export commodity bubble like falling global oil prices (Frankel 2010: 33)
Guinea has more advantageous resource, location and geographic assets The Republic of Guinea, also called interchangeably Equatorial Guinea and Equatroguinea, is located on the Gulf of Guinea while Chad is entirely landlocked. The Guinean oil deposits are located offshore, which allows for access to international inputs and markets, whereas Chadian access to external markets have been dependent on a pipeline to the Atlantic through Cameroon, although an infant refining industry has come online within Chad that should fulfill domestic demand, mitigating consumer prices and supply disruption (Ladd 2011: n
The basic political difference between these two nations reduces to a known, existing threat to resource transparency in a military dictatorship (Chad), versus unknown risk in a new, democratic but struggling and fractured political system recovering from military overthrow in Guinea. What is to prevent the Guinean system from transforming into a Chadian-type closed, basically private, only superficially democratic autocracy based on violent repression? That seems to be the prior situation only recently (McSherry 2006: 24)
Both Chad and Guinea have in fact shown the procyclical tendency to increase government wage bills on rising oil revenue which Frankel (2010) and others include as symptomatic of this basket of economic policy mistakes (21). Guinea at least seems to have repented this common mistake (Nabe and Yansane 2011: n
Chad is spending too much, unwisely Chad on the other hand spent more on infrastructure than it agreed to and less on social welfare. Noland and Ghura (2011) cite the World Bank's Public Expenditure Review in Chad's IMF Article IV Consultation published October 2011, claiming that from 2004-2009, " budget execution during that period did not reflect strategic priorities set in Chad's Poverty Reduction Strategies," and actually "hampered delivery of public services in health and education and other areas critical for economic and social development" (Noland and Ghura 2011: 12)
Chad has stronger financial balance sheet fundamentals, particularly regarding inflation, but faces significant structural challenges absent in Guinea, foremost of which is concentration of power in the executive, where such centralization has already presented obstacles to international monitoring and oversight, specifically the President rewriting the constitution to remove democratic checks and balances. As IMF staff point out in a June 2011 technical assessment regarding disarray in Guinean financial and monetary data, "[r]eal sector statistics are incomplete, and published with insufficient timeliness to support economic policymaking" (Ross and Martijn 2011: Likewise while Chad's balance sheet information shows continuity over a greater period of years than Guinea's, if there is reason to suspect the government tells investors and global authorities whatever it wants them to think, comparing balance sheets too specifically results in a discussion of inaccurate data to inadequate data
Much of this increased income coincided at least with increased arms imports (Winters & Gould 2011: 240), no-bid contracts awarded to tribal Deby allies, pork projects like a new stadium and "inferior goods purchased at inflated prices" (Winters & Gould 2011: 236). The Bank itself admits its objective of "reducing poverty and improving governance in Chad" with the revenues from the pipeline "was not achieved" (Thomas 2009: n
Chad-Cameroon Pipeline may have contributed to reduced oil transparency "Today, Chad remains a corrupt and unstable authoritarian state with little hope for political liberalization." (Winters & Gould 2011: 230) In 2000, the World Bank signed off on roughly $70 million in loans to finance a 1000-km pipeline from oil deposits in southwestern Chad, through Cameroon to the Gulf of Guinea, under the justification that a significant share of the royalties would be earmarked to reduce extreme and widespread poverty in Chad
With limitless corporate political spending, and no transparency with respect to that spending, it can be difficult for the media and by extension the general public to know whether politicians are acting in an impartial manner with the laws that they pass. This is the reason why campaign finance laws were passed in the first place, if for nothing else than to assure public confidence in their government, and the recent end of campaign finance regulations all but destroys that confidence (Kang, 2012)
However, when political actions serve the interests of those who are wealthy and powerful, in general there is a trade-off and those who lack this wealth and power pay the cost. Evidence suggests that corporate political activity is positively correlated with financial performance (Lux, Crook and Woehr, 2011)
The increasing healthcare costs have in turn acted as a catalyst for call for improved transparency in research, pricing, and marketing of medical products. Secondly, this greater demand for transparency has been brought by lack of financial transparency in this sector (Wechsler, 2009, p
The increasing healthcare costs have in turn acted as a catalyst for call for improved transparency in research, pricing, and marketing of medical products. Secondly, this greater demand for transparency has been brought by lack of financial transparency in this sector (Wechsler, 2009, p