Two reports you won't believe!

An astonishing report from Transparency International. The anti-corruption group claims that oil wealth 'can cause corruption.'

The report estimates that billions of dollars are lost to bribery in public purchasing, citing the oil sector in many nations as a particular problem, adds the BBC. Angola, Azerbaijan, Chad, Ecuador, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Kazakhstan, Libya, Nigeria, Russia, Sudan, Venezuela and Yemen all had low scores.

TI's chief Peter Eigen notes that in the worst affected countries, "public contracting in the oil sector is plagued by revenues vanishing into the pockets of Western oil executives, middlemen and local officials."

Corruption and the oil industry?

Oil revenues not trickling down to benefit the lives of ordinary people?

It strains credulity!

Speaking of unbelievable reports, an audit in the Democratic Republic of the Congo revealed that managers of state companies earn up to $25,000 a month. A BBC correspondent in the capital, Kinshasa, says that most workers earn about $50 a month and many have not been paid for up to three years.

Corruption? In what was until recently Mobutu's Zaire?

You don't say!

On Monday, the foreign minister of Belgium, the former colonial power, said that he doubted whether DR Congo's political class were capable of ending corruption and organising elections due next year.

The foreign minister is really going out on a limb here, wouldn't you say?