Libreville is one of the most expensive cities in the world
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"We used to laugh at our neighbours," Parfait Cherubim said as he showed us around the docks in the capital of Gabon, Libreville.
"The Cameroonians and the Equatorial Guineans - we used to mock them because they were not as rich as us.
"Now we have unemployment, inflation and beggars on the streets," he said.
In the 1980s Gabon was Africa's lucky country.
Massive reserves of oil and a population of just one million prompted unguarded optimists to make comparisons with Kuwait and Saudi Arabia.
The boom years saw massive building projects in Libreville.
New ministries mushroomed, providing plush office suites for the country's expanding civil service.
The nation's president since 1967, Omar Bongo, started constructing an ambitious and ferociously expensive rail line that bisected the nation.
Libreville boasted fine hotels, French cuisine and the world's highest per capita consumption of champagne.
But the oil boom has left Gabon with a splitting hangover.
Flood of imports
One cause was obvious as Mr Cherubim, a food importer, showed us the goods being unloaded at Libreville's seaport.
"Chicken legs, pork and fish from Europe, these things come from France, Holland and Asian countries," he told us, as a fork-lift truck loaded pallets onto a creaking truck.
Far from kick-starting sustainable economic growth, Gabon's oil wealth has fuelled a flood of imports.
It is easier - even cheaper - to buy foreign goods rather than products grown or made in Gabon because oil is paid for in dollars.
Over the past three decades Gabonese farming and industry have withered away.
The seas off Gabon teem with fish, yet entrepreneurs like Mr Cherubim are investing in cold stores to house imported seafood rather than fishing boats to catch their own. Fish has become an expensive luxury.
Corruption
The boom has left another bitter after-taste.
Oil prices fluctuate wildly from year to year - even month to month - which means the government's impressive infrastructure projects have been thrown into confusion.
When the price per barrel went down, so did government income, and ministers borrowed foreign cash to complete construction.
Soon the country was accelerating down the fast-lane to international debt.
Today about half the government's income is swallowed up by interest payments.
And then there is corruption.
President Omar Bongo: "Africa's president for life"
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The nation's Oil Minister, Richard-Auguste Onouviet, laughed off suggestions of government impropriety when we met him inside the impressive ministry building.
Gabon's oil money had been quite properly expended on building the nation's infrastructure, he insisted.
"There's nothing to regret," he assured us.
"Gabon is facing up to the continuing challenge of economic development, which of course is a very long process."
Painful reforms
But the trial of executives with the French oil company Elf, which concluded in Paris last year told a story of slush funds and misappropriation going back decades.
Despite Mr Onouviet's insouciance, oil may not be able to do much for Gabon's long-term development.
Production has fallen by nearly one third since it reached its peak in 1996.
Increased oil prices have softened the blow, but government revenues have fallen.
The International Monetary Fund prescribe a programme of privatisation, spending cuts and industrial diversification to reduce reliance on the diminishing oil reserves.
Eco-tourism, forestry, mining and agriculture could be the industries of the future.
US ambassador Kenneth Moorefield says the only option for the country's veteran President Bongo is economic reform - and it is not going to be easy for the people of Gabon.
"If they make the right choices and commitments, they can bring about a reformed economy and maintain the admirable stability and respect for human rights that they have managed to sustain here," he said.
"The consequences of faltering... are that you are going to see increasing instability and dislocation here, social unrest, and political destabilisation," he added.
Business people like Mr Cherubim seem almost bewildered by the end of the boom - and they are left wondering how the country has benefited from its heady three decades as a petro-state.
"We thought it would never end," he said.
"People used to say that Gabon was a blessed country - they used to say that this oil will never dry up.
"Even our leaders were telling us there was a lot of oil," he added.
"But now I can tell you that we have lost that former dignity and we are living in poverty."
The first programme in a series for BBC World Service will be broadcast on Monday 11 October.
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We have lost that former dignity and we are living in poverty
