U N I T E D   N A T I O N S
Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs
Integrated Regional Information Network for West Africa

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e-mail: irin-wa@irin.ci


WEST AFRICA
IRIN-WA Weekly Round-Up 310
24 - 30 December 2005


CONTENTS:

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 d'Ivoire's 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=85We 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.

Soro's 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 Guinea's 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 world's 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
minister's 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 country's 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 Chad's '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. Vall's 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-Bissau's 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 country's 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 country's
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 region's 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.

Deby's visit - as a guest at Obasanjo's farm in southwestern Nigeria -
coincided with a visit by a Sudanese special envoy, Obasanjo's
spokesperson Remi Oyo told IRIN.

"In his capacity as AU chairman, [Obasanjo] held separate talks with
both Idriss Deby and the Sudanese president's 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


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