Referendum 2024: colossal expenditure, more than opaque financing
Referendum 2024: an opaque budget that raises questions
An internal Gab'Oil document, signed by Landry Bongo Ondimba, reveals a budget of 46.2 million CFA francs dedicated to the 2024 constitutional referendum. This figure raises questions, but it also raises a major question: what was the real cost of this election? Who are the other financial contributors? Where was this money spent, and for whose benefit? Did it contribute to clientelist practices? These questions are all the more troubling since this amount seems to be completely absent from the official budget communicated to the Gabonese people.
Why did a company like Gabon Oil release funds to finance demonstrations for the referendum campaign??? pic.twitter.com/5pw8yCYVJv
— SW (@SWDecrypte) November 19, 2024
The analysis of this document shows budget lines covering logistics, propaganda and accommodation, but without any precise explanation. Added to this is a worrying opacity, reflecting a clear contempt for citizens. As if those in charge were implicitly saying : "We don't even need to justify ourselves anymore."
The Bongos still in the works: the irony of the Oligui system
The signing of Landry Bongo Ondimba is not insignificant. It illustrates a blatant continuity: that of a dynasty which, despite the promises of rupture made after the transition, remains firmly anchored in the upper echelons of management. This paradox raises a burning question: why do the most controversial figures of the Bongo clan continue to occupy strategic positions, while others, with recognized skills, are systematically sidelined?
In the current system, it is not qualifications that count, but connections. A management where personal loyalty seems to be more valuable than expertise, silencing real potential reformers. Members of the Bongo family with recognized skills do exist, but they probably have no place in Oligui's false transition, which prefers loyal or even servile people over truly independent skills.
Landry Bongo Ondimba at the heart of a financial scandal at the Gabon Oil Company - Gabon Info https://t.co/mwUld5YGhg
— Gabon Infos (@GabonInfos1) November 19, 2024
The Ridiculousness of an Already Compromised Election
This leak accentuates the feeling of an election that was played from the start. Between financial opacity, the maintenance of the same controversial figures, and unjustified income and expenditure, the electoral process seems to serve private interests more than the long-awaited democratic renewal.
The question remains how much the referendum really cost and who benefited from it. This scandal, in a country where questionable practices multiply without consequences, reflects a systemic problem. How long will the Gabonese people tolerate these abuses, without demanding accountability? Elsewhere, in true democracies, such revelations would have caused the political downfall of an entire system. But here, inertia seems to reign, and the cycle of impunity continues.
