CAR ‘repats’ unfazed by poverty, conflict
“When I decided to come back, my friends took me for a fool,” recounts Clement Ndotizo, who spent a decade in France before returning to settle in his native Central African Republic, one of the world’s least-developed and most dangerous countries. But a “fool”, he is not. Like other CAR “repatriates”, Ndotizo used skills and experience acquired abroad to carve out success in the country, even as it spiralled further into conflict and poverty.
In his huge villa with swimming pool and sweeping views over the river Oubangui, Ndotizo tells his story with evident pride. After founding Fox Private Security in France, Ndotizo returned to the CAR in 1993 to create the same firm in the capital Bangui. It quickly became one of the most important businesses in the war-torn country, with more than 1,500 agents. “In France at the time we were a small company, there was competition,” he told AFP. “I saw that it could not go further,” added the businessman, who became a member of parliament in 1996.
On the face of it, CAR is not the most promising of business environments. The landlocked country is rich in natural resources - including diamonds, uranium, timber, gold, and oil - but has been brought to its knees by conflict. CAR plunged into chaos after mainly Muslim insurgents called the Seleka overthrew President Francois Bozize, a Christian, in 2013, sparking the bloodiest sectarian violence in the country’s history. Since then thousands have been killed and a quarter of the population of 4.5 million have fled their homes.
While the country has seen a modest economic recovery in recent years as fighting stabilized, it remains among the poorest in the world. In 2017, about 75 percent of the population lived below the international poverty line ($1.90 per day), according to World Bank projections based on gross domestic product per capita. “You quickly realize that the fact of having worked abroad is an advantage,” said Auguste Ogoula, who moved back to CAR in 2008. “I came back on holiday. I never intended to return to do business here,” he said. At that time he lived in Britain where he had, over the years, taken up an array of professions - postman, guard, gardener. “It was when I arrived that I became aware of the opportunities,” he said.
Since then he has opened a bar and music venue, a bakery and a catering service. And his latest project seems to be the one that he holds most dear: Developing agricultural land inherited from his family some 30 km from Bangui. The previously-abandoned plot now has a cottage surrounded by tropical flowers, fields of corn and cassava, a pigsty, a hen house, and a huge fish farm pond. — AFP