In a message dated 1/6/00 9:47:03 AM Central Standard Time, [log in to unmask]
writes:

<< 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

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

To unsubscribe/subscribe or view archives of postings, go to the Gambia-L
Web interface at: http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/archives/gambia-l.html

----------------------------------------------------------------------------