While Discordia’s revenues from Diamonds has been falling and no new discoveries have been made (despite claims by the government of a new mine being created), 60% of the revenue from diamond exports are unaccounted for. Further, education and medical services received less than 40% of the funds budgeted for them in 2004. Looking more toward social concerns, apparently 2005 per-capita income was reported 20-30% higher than actual. Finally, the Discordian President has personally profited from the granting of import and export licenses, and the Finance Minister (Ambrose Stephenson) has a private villa on the Ivory Coast.
Considering the $1.6 to $3.7b of new government revenues expected from the Cromwell E&P deal, where are these revenues expected to go? While we hope they are distributed responsibly, past behavior points to the contrary. The history of corruption of Discordian officials goes far to explain why they would not want an NGO such as Open Books to audit their records; however, it also calls out why openness is so critical moving forward.
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