Equatorial Guinea opposition leader scathing after summit

President Teodoro Obiang Nguema cares nothing for the people of Equatorial Guinea, says main opposition leader Placido Mico after the African Union summit for which the government spent millions of euros. How is Sipopo, the site built for last week's two-day summit outside the capital Malabo, going to benefit the population, asked the leader of the Convergence for Social Democracy (CPDS) party and only opposition member of parliament. The government says it spent around 600 million euros on Sipopo, a vast, seaside complex of conference centres, a hotel and villas. Mico said the cost would have been much more. According to the state investment budget of last year, Equatorial Guinea spent 2.7 billion euros more than planned, he said. But he pointed to lists of projects related to agriculture, health and education that he says have not been completed. On the mainland, there is a similar project to Sipopo: Oyala is the start of a new housing complex. "Projects like Sipopo or Oyala are not helping development. At Oyala, there are only a few boxes (small houses), no electricity, no school, no hospital. This project is mad," he said. About Brazil's new capital, he said: "When Brasilia was built, to was relieve congestion in the capital. And they already had running water in Rio and Sao Paulo." "We are a country of 700,000 people. Are we going to move everyone to Oyala?" he asked. About Sipopo and the African Union meeting -- for which the government would also have had to buy in fleets of cars, equipment and other material -- Mico said: "It is scandalous." "How can we spend that much money in Equatorial Guinea when 80 percent of people are without power, where at schools children sit on the floor, there is no materials, books?" Information minister and government spokesman Jeronimo Osa Osa Ecoro said the opposition leader is only "criticising for the sake of criticising". "We have a thought-out investment policy... we have launched dozens of projects to build schools, universities. There is a programme to get water to everyone. "In four or five years, everyone will have water and electricity. In four or five years, Mico will have nothing to say," he said. But the opposition leader believes the plan is to fool the international community into thinking that Equatorial Guinea's oil wealth is going towards building the underdeveloped country. Instead it is enriching the regime faithful who are earning big commissions on the construction projects, he alleged. "Obiang prefers to keep the population in underdevelopment and misery -- that allows him to control them better," he said. About a constitutional reform process launched in March and meant to limit the number of presidential terms, create a Senate and an audit court, he is suspicious. "Lies," he said. "There is no freedom of expression or association, no unions. They are creating a Senate to secure votes, give jobs," he said. Bringing in people is one of Obiang's ways of keeping them on his side, he said. "In 1990 there were about 30 members of government. Today there are 69," he said, adding there were another around 20 advisers. "An auditing court to 'fight against corruption' -- there is already the penal code and there have never been any trials," he said. The information minister dismissed the criticisms. "We are a democracy. The proof is that Mr Mico can say what he told you. As good democrats, we respect his opinion but what he says is wrong," he said. The opposition leader says the only reason he is not arrested is that the government wants to avoid an international scandal. The state media meanwhile never relays any of speeches in parliament or elsewhere, he said. Obiang's other method of ensuring support, of the kind that won him 95 percent of votes in the 2009 election after being in power since his 1979 coup, is "repression and fear," Mica said. "If you have a friend, a brother, a cousin who belongs to the CPDS, they are going to say -- why do you see him? If you do not stop, you are fired," he said. Again the minister differed. "The truth is that the population supports president Obiang. His accomplishments give them confidence in him. People see that things are changing," Osa Osa Ekoro said.