中兴通讯被尼日利亚政府调查

过去十年，中国在发展中国家的投资，一直是美国商业观察人士焦虑的源头——这些投资象征着中国在全世界日益强大的影响力，也代表了美国企业丧失的机会。

然而，一个被誉为这类投资典范的大型项目最终却遭受激烈的抨击，甚至成为国会听证调查的对象。这则故事表明，这些投资往往与围绕其进行的大肆炒作（或焦虑）不相匹配。

2010年，尼日利亚授权中国中兴公司安装安全通信网络。该项目包括阿布贾和拉各斯的闭路电视系统(CCTV)，旨在加强两地的反恐监控。博科圣地等恐怖组织每天都在威胁着这些城市。但6年过去了，这个造价高达4.7亿美元的国家公共安全通信系统却成为泡影，该系统从未完工，其实已经被搁置。在无人监督的情况下，恐怖袭击和犯罪仍在肆虐。

1月末，尼日利亚国会专家组开始举行听证会，以确定到底是什么原因导致这个近5亿美元的项目变成烂尾项目，只剩下一堆爆炸的电池和无用的闭路电视。听证会上，双方各执一词，一方指责中兴不负责任，另一方则指责尼日利亚政府拒绝提供资金和进行系统维护。

虽然目前尚无任何官方调查结果出炉，但尼日利亚媒体已经将矛头指向尼日利亚领导层，指责他们没有进行尽职调查，并且多年来一直隐瞒施工不合格和物资短缺的证据。

据了解，尼日利亚政府与中兴签订的合同，并未经过竞争性招标，并且有报道称，合同中包括禁止公开讨论项目许多方面的规定。中兴公司没有回应《财富》杂志的置评请求。

帮助跨国公司在非洲开展业务的顾问艾德·马什表示，安防项目烂尾显示出，腐败已经成为尼日利亚升级公路、电网和数据服务的基础设施的绊脚石。

马什表示：“到目前为止，那些声称用于基础设施建设的资金，均已被挥霍一空，鲜有例外。建成的项目似乎只是为了给官员提供貌似合理的托词。”

尼日利亚是非洲最大的经济体，中产阶级人数日益增多，该国有蓬勃发展的电影业（著名的诺莱坞）和前途光明的科技行业。马什表示，如果线缆和公路能够更加可靠，许多大型公司会愿意在该国开展业务。

马什认为，不靠谱的电力供应，导致公司很难进行基本的运算，即使高端的城市酒店也存在同样的问题。许多尼日利亚人会随身携带多部手机，因为服务提供商的信号塔可能会突然倒塌。不论是城市还是农村，交通系统均破败不堪。

多年以来，中国投资一度被视为解决这些问题的答案。但尼日利亚安防系统并不是唯一的失败案例。中国在安哥拉修建的医院，在建成仅4年后便出现了严重的结构问题；中国在赞比亚投资兴建的一条公路也很快变得崎岖不平；华为被判定在阿尔及利亚的一个电信项目中存在腐败行为，被禁止两年内不得参与合同招标。此外，由于腐败问题，中国公司也被禁止参与世界银行项目的招标。

据《经济学人》报道，某些非洲国家本土的腐败文化和中国“置规则与监管于不顾的”商业文化之间，似乎有一种危险的协同效应。不论在中国大陆还是非洲，系统性腐败和“问题建筑”时有出现。美国法律严格禁止美国公司参与海外腐败，因此美国公司一直很难在非洲打开局面。

虽然中国公司的表现参差不齐，但非洲似乎离不开中国，这在很大程度上是因为中国在非洲投资的许多项目都依赖中国进出口银行提供的巨额贷款。有时候，中国进出口银行的资金甚至超过了世界银行，对于资金紧张的发展中国家来说，它有着难以抗拒的吸引力。

赞比亚电脑协会分析师阿莫斯·卡伦加告诉《PC Advisor》杂志：“非洲政府没有资金建设电信项目，所以中国通过贷款，利用财政实力获得了合同。”尼日利亚的安防项目就是由中国进出口银行提供贷款资金的。

马什认为，尼日利亚雄心勃勃的都市居民，已经开始要求更高标准的基础设施项目和监管，因为他们清楚，发展对于所有人的未来都至关重要。

马什说道：“日益都市化的年轻中产阶级，已经品尝到了机遇带来的好处。他们不会轻易放弃。”

这种情绪最切实的体现就是，2015年3月份穆罕默杜·布哈里当选为总统。他的诚实为他树立了强大的声望。他确实非常强大，他曾是上世纪80年代中期尼日利亚的军事独裁者。

目前，布哈里已经推出了一系列反腐措施。对中兴的调查结果，或许将成为检验布哈里改革成效的试金石。(财富中文网)

译者：刘进龙/汪皓

审校：任文科

Chinese investment across the developing world has been a source of angst for U.S. business watchers over the past decade— a symbol of China’s growing global reach, and a tally of what can look like missed opportunities. But the story of one major project’s descent from friendly photo-ops to acrimony and legislative hearings shows that those investment efforts often don’t match the hype (or anxiety) surrounding them.

In 2010, Nigeria contracted China’s ZTE Corporation to install a security communications network. The project included closed-circuit cameras intended to improve anti-terror monitoring in Abuja and Lagos, where attacks from groups like Boko Haram are a looming daily threat. But six years later, the $470 million National Public Security Communication System has come to next to nothing, with the system incomplete and effectively mothballed. Terror attacks and crime have continued, unmonitored.

In late January, a Nigerian congressional panel began hearings to determine what turned the half-billion dollar effort into a boondoggle of exploding batteries and cameras that see nothing. They heard he said-she said testimony faulting, on the one hand, slipshod work by ZTE, and on the other, government refusal to fund and maintain the system.

Though no official findings have yet emerged, the Nigerian media have pointed fingers at Nigerian leadership who both neglected due diligence and covered up evidence of substandard work and missing supplies for years. The government’s agreement with ZTE was reached without a competitive bidding process, and reportedly contained language prohibiting public discussion of many aspects of the project. (ZTE did not respond to Fortune’s request for comment on this story.)

According to Ed Marsh, a consultant who helps global companies work in Africa, the CCTV scandal shows how corruption has hampered Nigeria’s efforts to upgrade unreliable roads, power grids, and data services.

“Up to this point, with very few exceptions,” says Marsh, “The money that has been putatively earmarked for infrastructure has been squandered. There’s often [just] enough [built] to provide plausible deniability.”

Nigeria is Africa’s biggest economy, with a growing middle class, booming film industry (known as Nollywood), and a promising tech sector. It’s a place, Marsh attests, that many major companies would like to operate—if the wires and roads were more reliable. Marsh describes inconsistent power making basic computing difficult, even in high-end urban hotels. Many Nigerians carry multiple cell phones, because any one provider’s towers might go out unexpectedly. Both urban and rural transportation systems are chaotic and decrepit.

For a time, it seemed like Chinese investment could be the answer. But Nigeria’s security system isn’t the only case in which that dream has gone sour. A Chinese-built hospital in Angola developed serious structural problems only four years after construction, and a Zambian road crumbled just as quickly. Huawei was convicted of bribery in connection with a telecom project in Algeria, and banned from bidding on contracts there for two years. Chinese firms have also been banned from bidding on World Bank projects because of corrupt practices.

There’s a dangerous synergy, it seems, between some African countries’ own endemic corruption and a Chinese business culture that, the Economist writes, “cares little about rules and regulations.” Both systemic corruption and the collapse of substandard roads and buildings are as common on mainland China as they are in Africa. Strict U.S. laws against engaging in corruption abroad are part of why U.S. companies have been slower to do business on the continent.

Despite that spotty track record, it seems Africa just can’t quit China, largely because many Chinese projects in Africa are funded by large loans from China’s Export-Import (Exim) Bank. Chinese Exim funds have at times exceeded those of the World Bank, and can be simply irresistible to cash-strapped developing nations.

“African governments have no money for telecom projects and so China is using its financial muscle to get the contracts through loans,” Amos Kalunga, an analyst for the Computer Society of Zambia, told PC Advisor. The Nigerian CCTV project was backed by a Chinese Exim loan.

But Marsh says that Nigeria’s ambitious urbanites are beginning to demand a higher standard for infrastructure projects and oversight, because they know development is crucial to their global future.

“A young, increasingly urbane middle class population has tasted the opportunity,” says Marsh, “And they don’t want to give it up.”

The most concrete sign of this sentiment is the election last March of President Muhammadu Buhari, who has a strong reputation for honesty (literally strong—he was briefly the nation’s military dictator in the mid-‘80s) and has kicked off a broad anticorruption initiative. The findings of the ZTE inquiry may become an early measure of Buhari’s effectiveness at changing the game.