An aborted oil sector audit exposes the gulf between Chad’s commitments and its willingness to investigate powerful interests.

On 12 August, Chad’s National State Security Agency arrested an audit team from the country’s Independent Anti-Corruption Authority (AILC). The AILC had been investigating the management by Chad’s state-owned National Hydrocarbons Company (SHT) of crude oil bought by Glencore.

The Swiss natural resources trading giant has been linked to corruption scandals relating to oil contracts in several African countries. In 2022, Glencore pleaded guilty and agreed to pay over US$1-billion in fines for bribery in Cameroon, Equatorial Guinea, Côte d’Ivoire, Nigeria, and South Sudan.

Two days after the audit team arrests, the AILC’s leadership was dismissed, its premises were searched, and documents were seized. After his dismissal, AILC controller general Ousmane Abdéramane Inna-djougourou claimed that the investigation had uncovered serious irregularities in the management and marketing of oil resources.

The timing of the action against the AILC prompts questions about what is being concealed and who is being shielded. It damages the agency’s credibility and echoes the failures of past anti-corruption initiatives.

When Chad launched its oil sector, legislative and institutional regulatory measures were implemented with World Bank support, notably the Petroleum Revenue Oversight and Control Committee, established in 1999. But most of these measures were abolished in 2018.

Because oil accounts for around 90% of the country’s total export earnings, it requires sound management. However, statements by former AILC leaders reveal major gaps between declared and international selling prices, directly implicating top authorities in covering up irregularities at SHT to avoid legal accountability.

The latest incident occurs against a backdrop of deeply embedded public sector corruption, as attested by global metrics that consistently rank Chad among the most corrupt countries in the world.

Transparency International data regularly place Chad near the bottom of its global and sub-Saharan corruption perception index, where 0 is highly corrupt and 100 is clean. In the past decade, Chad’s score has ranged from 19 to 22, placing it among the 20 most corrupt countries in the world. Despite marginal improvements between 2022 and 2024, the country continues to lag well behind the sub-Saharan African average.

In 2024 Chad scored 2.0 out of 6 for transparency, accountability and corruption in the public sector, according to the World Bank. This score reflects persistent institutional weaknesses and systemic corruption. Also in 2024, the Mo Ibrahim Foundation classified Chad in the ‘warning signal’ category, indicating a deterioration of governance, despite a trend towards overall improvement over the past decade.

Public perception confirms this reality. The latest Afrobarometer survey indicates that 64% of Chadians believe corruption has increased over the past 12 months. The president of the Chadian Anti-Corruption Organisation, a national civil society organisation fighting corruption, told ISS Today that corruption was endemic and increasingly normalised in Chad.

Corruption was discussed during Chad’s 2022 inclusive national dialogue, which recommended strengthening and creating robust mechanisms for controlling public assets. But the pervasiveness of graft persists despite regular formal recognition by authorities and the country’s many international legal obligations.

Chad ratified the African Union Convention on Preventing and Combating Corruption in 2015 and the United Nations Convention against Corruption in 2018. It also joined the Action Group Against Money Laundering in Central Africa in 2000. As a member of the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative, Chad is required to publicly disclose contracts and revenue payments in the oil and mining sectors.

All these commitments obligate the country to prevent and criminalise corruption, money laundering and terrorism financing, while ensuring transparency and international cooperation.

At the national level, Chad has set up several promising high-level structures since 2000 to address state and private sector corruption, including a ministry of ethics and good governance and other related institutions. But these initiatives have consistently delivered mixed, if not limited, results.

The AILC was created in 2023 to ‘combat corruption and related practices and promote good governance and sound management of public resources.’ It is designed as an independent agency with an autonomous budget, headed by two officials appointed by the president and under his direct supervision. This direct link to the Presidency is a key limitation, since Presidential approval is required to investigate certain matters.

Political manoeuvring has also severely constrained the AILC’s effectiveness, limiting its ability to investigate and take action against corruption. The disruptions surrounding the SHT audit severely damage the agency’s credibility and cast doubt on its capacity to dismantle entrenched political networks, despite its statutory independence.

Beyond institutional failure, chronic corruption deprives Chad of national and international resources crucial to its development. It exacerbates poverty and inequality and erodes the social contract. The disruption of the AILC’s work also sends a negative signal to foreign investors and international partners, threatening the Chad Connection 2030 strategy to enhance the country’s attractiveness to investors. Anti-corruption efforts are central to the strategy.

Similar negative sentiment is likely to persist as Chad prepares for the 25 September 2026 Paris Business Forum, aimed at attracting investment. The country needs to demonstrate a genuine commitment to transparency and reassure international partners and investors.

Safeguarding public integrity requires insulating the AILC from political pressure, freeing it from executive control, and making it a truly autonomous institution. Patronage-based appointments should be replaced with independent, highly competent leadership. State authorities also need to support the independent work of civil society actors and whistleblowers who take action against corruption and ill governance.

Written by Remadji Hoinathy, Senior Researcher, Central Africa and Lake Chad Basin, ISS