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<< Cote d'Ivoire junta, alleging corruption, halts debt payments
ABIDJAN, Jan 5 (AFP) - The head of the new junta in Cote d'Ivoire,
General
Robert Guei, said Wednesday that the country was temporarily suspending its
foreign debt repayments because of "immense and systematic looting."
In a speech to the transition government his junta set up on Tuesday,
Guei
said: "The coffers are totally empty," alleging that the government he
ousted
on December 24 had indulged in "huge, systematic looting" of state funds.
The new government had to perform "a thousand gymnastics" in order to pay
civil service salaries, which had only been possible "because we have
temporarily suspended the settlement of our external obligations," he said.
"We will do everything we can to make them cough up, I promise," the
general added.
Guei was holding his first session with ministers in the transitional
government, which includes three ministers from the main opposition party,
the
Rally of Republicans (RDR), led by ex-premier Alassane Ouattara.
Economy and Finance Minister N'Golo Coulibaly, an RDR member, speaking
after the meeting, said Guei had made the gravity of the situation
understood,
and undertook to ensure Cote d'Ivoire did not become isolated
internationally.
"Given the current state of things, our priority is to restore order to
our
public finances," he said, adding that he undertook personally to restore
links with the international financial community.
Cote d'Ivoire's foreign debt currently stands at 9,000 billion CFA francs
(14.2 billion dollars).
"Cote d'Ivoire cannot allow itself to become isolated," he said.
"We are going to find out about the whole situation and I think his
orders
will prevail," Coulibaly said.
Coulibaly is close to Ouattara, an ex-deputy director of the
International
Monetary Fund (IMF) who returned home last year and said that he would take
on
then president Henri Konan Bedie in polls scheduled for October 2000.
Ouattara went abroad again in September amid a row over his nationality
and
legal proceedings as Bedie's Cote d'Ivoire Democratic Party (PDCI) sought to
prevent him from standing.
Days after Guei toppled Bedie, Ouattara returned from exile. The make-up
of
the current government has fuelled accusations that the junta wants to sneak
Ouattara into power, but the PDCI and the socialist opposition have also
eschewed the new regime despite overtures to all parties.
The national assembly in mid-December voted to spend nearly 40 percent of
the national budget on foreign debt repayments, but that was before the
government was overthrown by the junta on Christmas Eve.
The IMF and the World Bank cut off aid payments to Cote d'Ivoire nearly a
year ago, citing irregularities in the management of public finances. The
European Union halted its payments in December 1998.
Last year, Abidjan collected only 10 percent of the total aid it was
expecting.
so/sa/kc/nb
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