African Nation Has Oil, Empty Lands : Wealthy Gabon Is Hoping for a Population Explosion

Guy Mallett was sunning himself on the beach last election day when some soldiers came along, demanding to know if he had voted. Mallett, an American working for a British bank here, said he had not, pointing out that he wasn’t a citizen of Gabon.

“Doesn’t matter,” one soldier told him. So Mallett dutifully got dressed and cast his vote.

Gabon may be the only country where foreigners are encouraged to vote--several times if they don’t mind. The country is sensitive about its small population, officially 1.2 million but actually less than 1 million and possibly as low as 700,000.

While the rest of Africa fights a population explosion, Gabon encourages it. The Libreville high school uniform comes in a maternity size, worn with pride. Pregnant women receive a package of baby supplies, courtesy of the government.

Some think this country pines for a large population because it doesn’t want to appear weak to its neighbors. Others say Gabon needs more people to do all the work the nation requires.

Whatever the reason, Gabon can afford a few more people. This country on the equatorial west coast of Africa is one of the continent’s richest, with large reserves of oil, uranium and manganese as well as a jungle full of Okoume trees, used for making plywood.

Oil proceeds built office buildings in downtown Libreville, fancy hotels in the provinces and a 400-mile-long railroad across the largely uninhabited jungle interior. The Gabonese boast more airports per acre than any other African country, and they also claim the largest supermarket on the continent.

For years the government operated without a budget. It had so much money it didn’t need one. Anything was possible in Gabon.

But pretty soon the government payroll, salaries and prices began to swell.

Now nearly half the work force is in the civil service. President Omar Bongo’s Cabinet has 45 members, each earning $200,000 or more a year. In contrast, President Reagan has 13 Cabinet members, each earning $99,500 a year.

Gabon has 40 embassies abroad. By comparison, Kenya, with a population 20 times larger, has only 32.

With so much money, Gabon hasn’t had to produce anything. It imports nearly all of its food, from onions and salad greens to flour and hamburger meat. The milk comes from France, in powder, and is mixed here.

Outrageous Prices

All that food sells at outrageous prices to willing buyers. Libreville, the oceanside capital of about 300,000 people, was recently ranked the fourth most expensive city in the world.

At the Mbolo Supermarket here the other day, Marie Asseko, a 34-year-old mother of three, examined a $4 head of lettuce, flown in from France.

“I’m horrified by these prices,” she said. “If I was alone, I could make sacrifices. But I have children and we have to feed them.” She put the head of lettuce in her cart, next to a fatty cut of pork, also imported, priced at $7 a pound.

Nearby, broccoli was selling for $8 a pound, cauliflower $15 a head, carrots $2 a pound and peaches $10 a pound. A 10-pound bag of potatoes was $6.

Maryse Ivanga, 38, and her daughter, Mahine, 9, sifted through imported white onions marked down to $1 a pound.

Local Production Lacking

“People don’t produce enough locally,” she said. “That’s the problem in Gabon.” Ivanga should know; her husband is a consultant with the Ministry of Agriculture.

Agricultural self-sufficiency is a primary goal of most countries. Before oil was discovered here, most Gabonese found what they needed to eat in the jungle or the rivers. They never had to clear a piece of land, plant seeds or harvest crops.

“Gabon started in the forest and all of a sudden it had a lot of money,” a Western diplomat here said. “It went from the bush to the Mercedes without passing through the stage of agricultural advancements.”

The government has been trying to encourage agriculture, but so far the country only produces its own chickens, eggs, palm oil, soap and, of all things, bottled mineral water. Agriculture accounts for less than 4% of the gross national product.

Thousands of Gabonese still live by hunting and fishing in the forest that covers three-fourths of the steamy nation. But the life style of the wealthier urbanites these days includes video recorders, frozen pizzas and Camembert cheese. Meetings in government offices still occasionally begin with a glass of $60-a-bottle French champagne.

‘Not Without Money’

Those who aren’t rich often have a relative who is. “There are a lot of people without jobs in Gabon, but there are not a lot of people without money,” says one French worker.

“The cake here is quite big,” a Gabonese teacher says. “A few people take the biggest pieces, but even the crumbs are enough. We are still better off than our neighbors.”

The per-capita income of Gabon is about $3,500 a year, second in Africa only to Libya’s $7,500. Ethiopia’s per-capita income, for example, is $115 a year and Chad’s is $88.

The Gabonese themselves account for a little over half the population, and most lower-paying jobs are held by foreigners. Nearly all of the fishermen out on the Atlantic Ocean before first light are Nigerians. Taxi drivers, gardeners, cooks and night watchmen come from Senegal, Cameroon--all over West Africa.

One economist describes the Gabonese work ethic as “collective lethargy.” However, Laurent Owondo, a Gabonese novelist, points out that many foreigners are working for less than the government-set minimum wage, something few Gabonese would be willing to do.

A Belief They Are Rich

“The Gabonese see a lot of money around, and they have the idea put into their heads that they are rich,” Owondo said.

These days there is much moaning about the sad state of the economy. Folks here call it the conjoncture , the circumstances, although the government recently banned the word. (Some time ago, the government also banned mamadoo , a tribal word for rich man that literally translates as “one who has cars.”)

The conjoncture has been caused by the tumble of oil prices on the world market and the falling value of the dollar, the currency in which oil is sold. Oil accounted for about 80% of Gabon’s export earnings, which have been cut in half.

Construction projects have been postponed, the once-brimming hotels now are nearly empty, and most government salaries have been reduced by about 20%. But the austerity measures generally have been mild.

“What they’ve done is take some of the fat, but that doesn’t cut even close to the bone,” a Western diplomat here says.

Recession Seen as Good

Economic analysts say the recession is good for the nation because it forces Gabon to spend money more carefully. “On the other hand, the Gabonese always believe there’s a bonanza on the horizon,” says Guy Mallett, a Barclay’s Bank official here.

In this case, a bonanza already has appeared. A large new oil field, recently discovered in southern Gabon, will increase petroleum production by 50% within a few years. The nation’s reserves now are expected to last at least three decades.

Most Western diplomats give Gabon generally high marks for the way it has spent its oil money. A decade of oil revenue in Nigeria, for example, was leeched by corruption, leaving an economy that recently had to start over from scratch.

President Bongo spent $150 million on a telecommunications system. He built the trans-Gabon railway, one of the largest modern-day rail construction projects in the world, over the objections of Western financial experts. Economists still say the $2-billion railway, which took a dozen years to finish, probably won’t pay off. But they add that it will help unify the country and reduce Gabon’s dependence on the Congo, its southern neighbor, for transporting minerals to the coast.

Medical Research Center

In Franceville, the last stop on the railway and capital of Bongo’s home province, the president also built the$26-million International Center for Medical Research to study infertility, one cause of Gabon’s slow population growth rate.

The center found that Gabon has the highest rates of female infertility in Africa. About 1 in 10 of the women here are sterile, compared to about 1 in 100 in the United States, and the problem here is particularly prevalent in isolated villages.

Most of the infertility was caused by venereal diseases, especially chlamydia, according to the researchers. They say sexual activity for women begins early, often before puberty, and young girls with the infections often did not seek medical attention. As a result, they were sterile before they reached child-bearing age.

With improved medical care in rural areas, “these diseases now are being treated earlier, and we hope to see some improvement in the coming years,” said Dr. Georges Roelants, deputy director of the center. The center recently has shifted its research to tropical diseases and acquired immune deficiency syndrome.