(Bloomberg) -- Equatorial Guinea named Manuel Osa Nsue Nsua as prime minister, three weeks after the previous government was dismissed for its failure to tackle the country’s economic woes including government corruption.
President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, who has ruled for the central African nation for four decades, signed the decree late on Friday appointing Osa, who was head of Banco Nacional de Guinea Ecuatorial, the only private lender with headquarters in the country. He replaces Manuela Roka Botey, the country’s first woman prime minister, who resigned with her government last month after only 18 months in the post.
His appointment comes as authorities look to reverse an economic slump largely caused by a drop in oil output to roughly a fifth of its peak. Economic growth has plunged to only 0.5% this year, making Equatorial Guinea among the world’s worst performers, according to available data from the International Monetary Fund.
Average annual growth for the next five years is estimated at 0.1%, IMF said on July 24, urging authorities to increase transparency in the hydrocarbon sector, which represents 42% of the country’s output, and finalize an asset declarations scheme for senior public officials.
Corruption and the misuse of resources had led to “an unprecedented economic crisis that threatens the stability of the government,” Obiang said when accepting the former administration’s resignation on July 26.
During Osa’s time at Banco Nacional de Guinea Ecuatorial, authorities launched a fraud investigation of the lender, forcing it to return 700 million francs ($1.2 million) to customers. The audit was suspended by Obiang’s son and the country’s vice president, Teodoro Nguema Obiang Mangue, in September.
The Obiang family have been accused of squandering the central African country’s oil wealth by the US and Human Rights Watch.
Teodorin, as the vice president is also known, has been the subject of lawsuits in the US and France. In 2014, he agreed to turn over more than $30 million in assets, including a hilltop mansion in Malibu, California, to the US Department of Justice. In 2021, a Paris court upheld his conviction in absentia of embezzlement in France, ordering the seizure of more than €100 million of his assets, including a mansion near the Champs-Elysees.
Teodorin, 56, is first in line to succeed his 82-year-old father, who has ruled the central African nation since 1979. The country is ranked 172 out of 180 in a public corruption study conducted that same year by Transparency International.
--With assistance from Paul Burkhardt.
(Updates with description of bank in second graph, IMF comments in fourth paragraph. An earlier version of the story was corrected to fix the figure returned by Banco Nacional de Guinea Ecuatorial.)
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