Cameroon: Cameroon activists accuse World Bank of double standards over pipeline project

Amid the forest greenery and yellow and purple flowers near Nkol-Ntara, central Cameroon, the scene is disturbed by a sign a few feet high showing an oil derrick and petrol pump . It reads: "Caution: oil pipeline." The notice gives instructions to call a number in case of emergency or before starting to dig. This in a country where the World Bank estimates 30 per cent of adults are illiterate and there is less than one telephone for every 20 people. As attention focuses on the fate of Chad's oil money, however, Cameroonian activists are critical of what they say are double standards in the World Bank - allowing the government to remain opaque and unaccountable despite Cameroon's reputation for corruption.