Equatorial Guinea

Visited: May 2011

Duration of visit: 4 days

Capital city: Malabo

Population: 1.0 million (2011)

Estimated reading time: 7 minutes

• Participating at a trade show in Malabo, where local businessmen and tired public employees fell asleep during my presentation.
• Meeting at the Ministry of Internal Affairs.
• Extraordinary infrastructure built for the African Cup, while people live in poverty struggling to fulfil basic needs.
• Visiting expats night bars in Malabo, where uninspired foreigners mingle with local girls.

I visited Equatorial Guinea in 2011 on a business trip, while working as commercial director for a security documents company based in Slovenia. It was one of those adventures when you don’t know if it is a complete waste of time or you might find an opportunity to create a business relationship that would render profits. In Africa everything is possible.

The only Spanish speaking country in Africa used to be a Spanish colony until 1968. Equatorial Guinea consists of two parts: an insular island of Bioko and a mainland region. Even though the mainland region is bigger in size, the main economic and political activities take place in the island, where the country’s capital Malabo is located. The northern third of the island has a number of small villages along the coast, but most of the island is still covered with rainforest.

Equatorial Guinea’s government is authoritarian and has one of the worst human rights records in the world.

According to the yearly Freedom in the World survey, which measures political and civil rights, Equatorial Guinea has a ranking of 7 out of 7 (least free).

Equatorial Guinea is also the third largest oil producer in Africa. As a result of increase in the extraction of petroleum, the country’s economy has grown significantly.

Its GDP per capita is among the highest in the world, but the wealth is not distributed to average people.

The constant lack of civil rights, corruption and despotism has been ignored by international community on a big scale. It seems that the power of money that has been used to contract international companies, foreign bank accounts and luxury goods purchased in Western Europe are too tempting for international society to implement sanctions against the leader of Equatorial Guinea and his family.

Current president, Teodoro Obiang, is one of the longest-serving presidents in Africa, serving since 1979. He has been accused of corruption by many and, despite more than a dozen attempts to depose him, he has clung to power.

We landed at Malabo Airport in the late evening. It is only 10 kilometers drive to the commercial and financial center of the country, but I immediately noticed that a completely new, perfectly lit and notably oversized highway was entirely vacant of any cars. Its size and the amount of driving lanes has nothing to do with the impoverished reality around it.

We were passing small villages with basic wooden houses, where dimly lit bulbs were poorly lightening the surroundings. Locals live in basic huts, while we are transported in luxury cars only a short distance away.

The country had been pouring millions of dollars into infrastructure to host the most important football tournament in Africa, while widespread poverty was visible on every corner. New stadiums, hotels, villas, highways, presidential guesthouse and an $830 million conference center, huge resort and artificial beach have been raised in the recent years to host the 28^th African Cup of Nations in 2012.

The main purpose to visit Equatorial Guinea was a trade show in the capital city Malabo where we exhibited our products in order to find local companies or government institutions to do business in the future. The show took place in a new trade fair and exhibition center.

We soon realized that most of our well-prepared presentations, perfectly translated to Spanish, were not going to be appreciated by important government representatives, nor local businessmen.

It actually seemed that anyone who had enough money and ingenuity to print economical business cards could become a businessman in Equatorial Guinea.

Most attendees fell asleep during presentations and visitors were interested only in basic goods, such as eggs, processed food and simple agricultural machinery instead of high-tech products and technologies.

I was disappointed with the outcome after the second day and asked the organizer to get more personalized meetings at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs or the Ministry of Internal Affairs to discuss possibilities about providing solutions for security documents and technology.

We were scheduled to have a meeting at 2:00pm at the Ministry of Internal affairs, where the Minister himself was going to attend. I am fluent in Spanish and that was a big opportunity to talk to the decisionmaker, presenting him the necessity to upgrade their technology and the perfect solution for them.

We arrived to the Ministry 15 minutes before the scheduled time and were sat down in the reception of the Minister’s office. He was busy; employees, security guards, police officers and his secretary were coming in and out of his office.

There were guns and arms everywhere. Two of the guards were extremely exhausted and fell asleep right in front of me on a sofa. They were sleeping like babies on their duty in an extremely uncomfortable position for more than an hour.

Every 30 minutes we asked when we were going to be received by the Minister. He never came out of the office, but his secretary kept saying it would take just a few minutes more.

After two hours of waiting, all of a sudden, two security guards in front of me woke up, opened a metallic closet, took out machineguns, munitions, bombs and entered to the Minister office.

The secretary assured us, that everything was going to be OK. I heard the Minister’s office being locked from inside, when suddenly the secretary and us were the only people around.

Ten minutes later she grabbed her purse, put on sunglasses and started to walk out of the office saying:

“See you tomorrow!”

The three of us were shocked and didn’t know if we should laugh or cry to what just happened to us.

The Minister escaped through the back door with his bodyguards, everybody made a fool of us once again. We knew that our best opportunity was gone and there would be no meeting tomorrow – Saturday, since we were flying back home.

It was Friday afternoon and we went to an upscale bar, Buddha Nights, the hottest gathering point for expats in Malabo. It was fun and sarcastic when explaining to our friends about the experience in the afternoon.

One day was dedicated to explore the island of Bioko. The whole group of businessmen and TV crew was squeezed into a bus. We had a stop at a nice beach, Playa de Alena, and a small waterfall. Most of attractions are actually in Malabo area. The country is especially proud of new restaurants, stadium, luxury residential areas and other facilities that will host African Cup.

The Regional Parliament of the Economic and Monetary Community of Central Africa (CEMAC) was officially inaugurated. We were invited to a formal session of CEMAC Parliament, which is composed of 30 deputies, five per member states, who were currently selected among national Parliamentarians. Apart from its representative role, the CEMAC Parliament oversights and controls, acts in advisor functions combined with a quite limited legislative role. Another institution for corrupted politicians with limited power and hardly any responsibility.

As the consequence of the meeting intent at Ministry of Internal Affairs and further persistence of the main initiator of the whole trade show, a few years later people that continued my activities on behalf of the company managed to close down an important project in security documents sector.

This business trip will remain in my memory as one of the most unusual experiences of my career. It serves as a prime illustration of the unpredictability in Africa.

And that’s probably one of the most important reasons why I like to return back to Africa to explore it more and more, … but never again on a business trip.

Equatorial Guinea is one of the most mysterious countries on African continent. Due to a brutal dictator, who is responsible for thousands of deaths and leads the nation with authoritarian government, the country is holding one of the worst human rights records in the world.

Fortune based on oil money has brought immense wealth to the elite, who can do whatever they want, bypassing the world’s legal order and rules. Tourism is not a priority and the restrictive visa policy doesn’t promise to make Equatorial Guinea more popular to visit in the near future.