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WEST AFRICA: IRIN-WA Weekly Round-up 310 covering 24 - 30 December 2005 COTE D IVOIRE: New government announced after weeks of haggling GUINEA: Ruling party wins landslide in pivotal local elections CHAD: Parliament defies World Bank, scraps future generations oil fund MAURITANIA: Junta announces anti-corruption pay hikes for civil servants GUINEA-BISSAU: Government says cholera crisis over CHAD-SUDAN: President Deby, Sudanese envoy meet with Obasanjo over tensions COTE D IVOIRE: New government announced after weeks of haggling After weeks of negotiations war-torn Cote dIvoires new prime minister has formed a transitional government that has 10 months to reunite the country, disarm fighters and hold presidential elections. Prime Minister Charles Konan Banny late Wednesday announced his trimmed 32-member cabinet, which brings together representatives of the ruling party, the rebels and the political opposition. I wanted Ivorians to recognise themselves in this government, Banny told reporters after the presentation of the cabinet. This government has an important and fundamental mission. We have to remove all weapons from our territory, we have to reunify the country, we have to identify the population We have to learn to solve our own problems. Warring parties have failed to deliver on key targets laid out in the three-year-old Marcoussis peace deal, including disarmament of rebel and pro-government militias and resolving the sensitive issue of who is entitled to citizenship. Elections scheduled for 30 October had to be cancelled. A succession of international mediators have blamed the intransigence of the rival factions, saying they have displayed a lack of political will to end the no war no peace stand-off. The country remains divided between a rebel-held north and government-controlled south. Banny has created a new position for rebel leader Guillaume Soro, named minister for reconstruction and reinsertion. It is the second highest position in the cabinet after the prime minister. Soros remit is likely to include disarmament and the redeployment of government administration in rebel-held territories, according to analysts. http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=50892&SelectRegion=West_Africa&SelectCountry=COTE_D_IVOIRE GUINEA: Ruling party wins landslide in pivotal local elections More than a week after nationwide municipal elections, regarded by many as a test of Guineas democracy, the results are finally in and the ruling party looks as strong as ever. Results were delivered in a marathon three-hour broadcast by the minister in charge of organising the elections, Kiridi Bangouraon, on Tuesday night. The ruling Party of Unity and Progress (PUP) retained the vast majority of the more than 300 ridings, according to his final tally. The poll was closely watched by the international community, which has been highly critical of Guinea in the past over a perception of corruption and lack of democracy. The West African nation one of the worlds poorest despite its wealth of water and mineral resources has a history of polls marred by violence and boycotted by the opposition. But this time, international donors backed the poll and the opposition participated in an electoral process billed as a trial run for the prime ministers ongoing reform programme. http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=50878&SelectRegion=West_Africa&SelectCountry=GUINEA CHAD: Parliament defies World Bank, scraps future generations oil fund The Chadian parliament on Thursday voted to scrap a fund set up to safeguard a portion of the countrys petrodollars for future generations, in a move the World Bank has called a material breach of a ground-breaking contract with donors. The trust fund was one pillar of a model plan aimed to ensure that oil revenues be used to reduce poverty an effort to buck the trend of other African oil-producers where black gold has enriched none but an elite few. Parliamentarians approved the changes by a 119 to 13 vote with one abstention, following a debate in which deputies repeatedly evoked the issue of Chads sovereignty in the oil project scheme. The World Bank provided essential backing for the Chad-Cameroon oil pipeline on condition that the government set up the future generations fund. As a condition for its support for the project, the Bank worked with the Government of Chad to help it establish an unprecedented system of safeguards assuring that the revenues are used to reduce poverty, a Bank document says. The new law, once signed by President Idriss Deby, would mean that some US $30 million currently stashed in the future generations fund would go into the state coffers. http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=50903&SelectRegion=West_Africa&SelectCountry=CHAD MAURITANIA: Junta announces anti-corruption pay hikes for civil servants Civil servants will be able to celebrate the New Year in Mauritania safe in the knowledge that their pay packets will be 50 percent thicker come 1 January. The Mauritanian head of state, Ely Ould Mohamed Vall, announced the wage adjustments on Wednesday. The pay rises are intended to crack down on corruption, he said. The changes are intended to create adequate conditions for the establishment of social justice and the implementation of the principle of good governance for a more equitable distribution of the national wealth, said Vall. The government has also promised to slash a 30 percent income tax, known locally as the ITS tax. That tax is levied on salaries of all government and private sector employees. Civil servant and military pensions will also be increased by 15 percent. In March, former president Maaouya Ould Taya announced a six-fold pay rise back-dated to January for government ministers, also in a bid to tackle corruption, he said. But this failed to do the trick and the military government that ousted Taya in an August coup cited government corruption as their main motivation. Valls junta has promised to restore democracy to the Islamic Republic and scheduled elections for March 2007. http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=50877&SelectRegion=West_Africa&SelectCountry=MAURITANIA GUINEA-BISSAU: Government says cholera crisis over Guinea-Bissaus government has declared that the worst of the cholera epidemic, which ravaged the country in the second half of this year, is over - for now. The cholera threat in our country is passing but we have to remain vigilant if we want to avoid a resurgence in Guinea-Bissau, said Public Health Minister Antonia Mendes Teixeira, at the countrys biggest hospital on Tuesday. She said that the last three weeks have brought no new cases of the disease, which according to a new health ministry report, affected 25,111 people and killed 399 since the epidemic began in June. Nevertheless, special medical teams deployed to each of the countrys health districts to help stem the tide of the disease will remain in place. Cholera, which thrives in poor sanitary conditions, is a recurring problem in much of West Africa but was particularly devastating this year because of the regions unusually heavy rainy season. http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=50859&SelectRegion=West_Africa&SelectCountry=GUINEA-BISSAU CHAD-SUDAN: President Deby, Sudanese envoy meet with Obasanjo over tensions President Idriss Deby of Chad met with Olusegun Obasanjo, Nigerian president and head of the African Union, in Nigeria on Tuesday, as part of efforts to defuse tensions between Chad and neighbouring Sudan. The meeting comes days after the Chadian government declared a state of belligerence between itself and Sudan following a deadly border attack Chad blamed on the Sudanese government. Debys visit as a guest at Obasanjos farm in southwestern Nigeria coincided with a visit by a Sudanese special envoy, Obasanjos spokesperson Remi Oyo told IRIN. In his capacity as AU chairman, [Obasanjo] held separate talks with both Idriss Deby and the Sudanese presidents special envoy on issues that appear to be the areas of conflict between the two neighbours, Oyo said. Chad and Sudan have long traded accusations, each side saying the other is supporting rebel movements. Most recently, Chad blamed Sudan for a 18 December attack on the eastern Chadian town of Adre. http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=50858&SelectRegion=West_Africa&SelectCountry=CHAD-SUDAN [ENDS] This is non-reply e-mail. Please do not hesitate to contact us at [EMAIL PROTECTED] IRIN-WA Tel:+221 867.27.30 Fax: +221 867.25.85 Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Principal donors: IRIN is generously supported by Australia, Canada, Denmark, ECHO, Japan, Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and the United States of America. For more information, go to: http://www.IRINnews.org/donors [This item comes to you via IRIN, a UN humanitarian news and information service, but may not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations or its agencies. All IRIN material may be reposted or reprinted free-of-charge; refer to the copyright page (Http://www.irinnews.org/copyright ) for conditions of use. IRIN is a project of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.] To make changes to or cancel your subscription visit: http://www.irinnews.org/subscriptions/subslogin.asp Subscriber: [email protected] Keyword: West Africa
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