The Sages of Abidjan

Many of the 5,000,000 citizens of the Ivory Coast are devout animists who revere the crocodile as a sacred beast. So President Felix Houphouet-Boigny, himself a Roman Catholic, does little to quash the widespread belief that he keeps the palace pond well stocked with the respected reptiles and consults them regularly.

Western businessmen may laugh, but such crocodilian cunning has allowed Houphouet to weld 60 backward tribes into one of Black Africa's most prosperous countries--and its most striking anomaly. Tanzania, Guinea and other young nations are nationalizing foreign holdings, restricting foreign investment and turning to socialism for solutions to their development problems. Houphouet has entrusted the development of the Ivory Coast's economy to Western capitalists, most of them French. While some of his neighbors expelled their former colonial masters, Houphouet, 66, a onetime member of Charles de Gaulle's cabinet, retained them as honored guests.

A Lot of Coffee. Because it welcomes foreign capital, the Ivory Coast maintains an annual economic growth rate of 11%, the highest in Black Africa. Farm production has increased 8% in each of the past four years, making Houphouet's bustling republic the world's third largest producer of coffee and Africa's largest exporter of timber. Industrial investment is rising by 20% a year. Firms of the caliber of Renault, Esso and Union Carbide are pouring into the country to take advantage of liberal tax holidays and virtually unlimited repatriation of profits. Per capita income is expected to reach $300 in 1971, which is steep for Africa.

In Abidjan, the country's handsome high-rise capital, real estate is bought within hours after it goes on the market. Black immigrants, who make up nearly a third of the Ivory Coast's population, flock to the city from other African countries to take jobs. There are 20,000 Frenchmen in the Ivory Coast today, six times as many as a decade ago. French President Georges Pompidou visited the city last month, took one look at the clover-leafed expressways, tree-shaded boulevards, sidewalk cafes and miniskirted girls--and pronounced the Ivory Coast "a model for all Africa."

Black Riviera. If a wise crocodile once whispered to Houphouet that the secret of prosperity is to encourage foreign investment, the sage should have specified that the price was foreign domination. Four-fifths of the country's 360 major businesses are French-owned: only two are entirely controlled by Ivorians. In addition, four-fifths of the top-and middle-level jobs are held by foreigners, mostly French. The government is permeated with French technical advisers. Many of them are left over from colonial days, and some are suspected of helping French firms win trade contracts. Political opposition to Houphouet is almost nonexistent, but more and more unemployed university graduates have become bitter that the plush jobs usually go to Europeans.

To give his people a larger share of the wealth, Houphouet has started a program of "Ivorization." He has forbidden French doctors, lawyers and other professionals to open new practices. In the past three years he has trimmed French imports by a fifth (but they still account for 50% of all imports). The government urges company chiefs to put more blacks in high-level jobs and gives Ivorian businessmen easy loans to start new enterprises.

The most promising attempts at Ivorization are two giant development programs undertaken without French help. One is a $105 million dam that will double the country's power capacity by 1976. When the French, who own all of the Ivory Coast's present power plants, opposed the scheme, Houphouet turned to the U.S. and Italy for financing. The other project is a $2 billion "African Riviera" development intended to make Abidjan the tourist capital of the continent. By 1980, the development is scheduled to have 15 hotels, four shopping centers, a 27-hole golf course, housing for 60,000 people of all income levels, and a zoo that will no doubt feature flotillas of crocodiles.

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