By Ali Idrissou-Toure
COTONOU, Mar 27 2006 (IPS)

Benin is preparing to swear in a new leader, this after a former head of the West African Development Bank won the second round of presidential elections held earlier this month in the West African country.

Results issued by the National Autonomous Electoral Commission showed that Boni Yayi garnered an overwhelming majority of votes: 74.51 percent. His challenger, attorney Adrien Houngbedji, received only 25.49 percent. This was reportedly the first time a presidential candidate had won by such a large margin.

Over 67 percent of voters participated in the second round of elections, and about 76 percent in the first round.

Without waiting for Benin’s constitutional court to confirm the results, Houngbedji appeared on television moments after the provisional outcome was announced, saying he had already called the 54-year-old Yayi to congratulate him – and express his “sincerest hopes for (Yayi’s) success as president of Benin”.

Yayi is now scheduled to take an oath of office on Apr. 6 to succeed Mathieu Kerekou, who served two five-year terms as Benin’s leader.

The election of Yayi, a political novice, is being seen as a rejection of “politics as usual” in the country, both in the way public affairs are managed and as concerns the behaviour of politicians.

“The people of Benin want change. To accomplish that, they chose an unknown from outside the political class, which it has been left by the wayside. It’s important that the political class think hard about that…” stated Adrien Ahanhanzo-Glele, president of the local chapter of Transparency International, a Berlin-based non-governmental organisation dedicated to fighting corruption.

Now, the hope is that Yayi will avoid appointing members of that selfsame class to his administration.

“With Dr Boni Yayi, we have an historic occasion to retire those who have governed us so fruitlessly over the past 40 years,” said activists in an open letter published on the internet the day before the second round of elections.

Civic leader Roger Gbegnonvi expressed similar sentiments.

“The people democratically carried out their duty. It’s now up to the new president to carry out his, and to carry it out completely. He needs to confirm the people’s desire for change by being as vigilant against an unaccountable political class as he is against plague and cholera,” he noted.

Gbegnonvi also requested the new president to “serve the people who elected him with a clear and precise mission: clean up the Augean stables and get the country going.” Yayi, he added, needs to “boost development without shilly-shallying, with real and ethical change.”

The president-elect has formulated an economic plan to achieve this. The programme aims to hoist Benin into the ranks of emerging economies, accelerating growth. The goal is to have a two-digit growth rate by 2010; the present rate is approximately three percent.

The programme also seeks to “promote true industrialisation based on the processing of raw materials and the development of business-model agriculture, by promoting small- and medium-sized agricultural enterprises, which are non-existent in (the) country.”

In addition, it emphasises the development of micro-finance, fighting poverty – and tackling corruption.

Youth employment, women’s rights, access to medical care, education and training are – in turn – scheduled to receive attention.

“It’s true that Boni Yayi’s program is apt, but the Beninese people will also have to get to work. The new president is not going to be able to straighten out a country whose economy has been moribund for several years all by himself,” Issa Mondi-Mondi, an analyst based in the Beninese financial capital, Cotonou, told IPS.

Excerpt:

By Ali Idrissou-Toure
COTONOU, Jul 16 2005 (IPS)

Most people in this tiny West African nation of Benin seem pleased that President Mathieu Kerekou has given up plans to run for another term of office in 2006. But they are wondering if he has done so voluntarily.

Kerekou’s counterpart, Yoweri Museveni of Uganda, has not given up. Recently, the parliament passed a law authorising amending the constitution to allow Museveni to run for a third term next year.

Uganda’s move comes after a referendum in Chad last month ratified a law passed a year ago by the National Assembly to allow President Idriss Deby to run for a third five-year term in 2006.

Benin, Uganda and Chad all held presidential elections between March and May 2001. And they all re-elected Kerekou, Museveni and Deby to their second and last terms, in conformity with each country’s constitution. Kerekou announced his decision not to run during a meeting with a teacher group July 11. Over the past two years, debate about a constitutional amendment had raged in the media, and split the nation down the middle between pro and anti-amendment camps.

Kerekou officially ended the debate when he stated: ”The constitution says you’re president for five years, renewable once. You’ve embarked on an adventure. If God should allow you to make it through even one term, by the end of the second, you’re really at the end of your tether.”

He added: ”If you persist in wanting to amend the constitution, you’re not respecting the will of God”. When Kerekou returned to power in 1996, after having been beaten by Nicephore Soglo in 1991 and after serving as a military ruler between 1972 and 1989, he promised to place his mandate under ”the will of God”.

The present constitution, which limits the presidency to two five-year terms, was written by the National Conference in February 1990 and approved in a popular referendum in December of the same year. It sets 70 as the age limit for presidential aspirants. Kerekou will be 73, and Soglo 72, in 2006. The two thus realise that they will be excluded from the race.

During the two years that Kerekou’s intentions to change the constitution were debated, he never gave an official statement on the matter in Benin. The only time he ever alluded to it was in Niamey, Niger, in February, on the sidelines of the ECOWAS summit.

Jokingly, he said: ”Anyone who thinks I’m interested in changing the constitution has to first make me younger.”

ECOWAS is the Economic Community of West African States.

While Kerekou himself was silent on the matter, many people suspected he wanted to amend the constitution because some of his advisors went on national television to justify the need for such a change.

One of them, Sebastien Azondekon, an advisor on economic affairs, suggested in April that it was more economical, given Benin’s meagre resources, to allow Kerekou to remain in power until at least 2008 so that the presidential, legislative and local elections could all be held at the same time.

The presidential poll is scheduled for 2006, the legislative for 2007 and the local election for 2008.

Even after the president denied interest in a constitutional change, Karim da-Silva, a septuagenarian businessman close to Kerekou, urged the head of state to ”reconsider his decision.”

Several private newspapers have run stories saying that, while they approved of Kerekou’s decision, he did not come to it voluntarily. They said Kerekou tried to change the constitution through various means, but he was confronted by ”a fiercely opposed public, which was mobilised against such a move.”

Editorial writers pointed out that a four-fifths majority of deputies or a referendum was necessary for constitutional amendments.

Kerekou himself alluded to the problems of amending the constitution. He said Benin did not have the 17 million dollars necessary to hold a referendum. He also hinted that he did not trust all the deputies who claim to be loyal to him but ”sabotage government programmes.”

He said: ”Since I know in advance what’s going to happen why try to make a fool of myself?”

”In fact, if Kerekou had been sure he could obtain a four-fifths majority of deputies, he would have tried to amend the constitution,” said Issa Mondi-Mondi, an analyst in Cotonou, Benin’s commercial hub.

Civil society groups have remained skeptical about Kerekou’s plan to throw in the towel. ”If civil society had not unified their voice, I think the constitution would’ve been amended a long time ago,” Roger Gbegnonvi, a spokesperson for a coalition of civil society groups, said.

”It’s possible that Kerekou did not want to amend or that he wanted to but changed his mind mid-stream,” said Reckya Madougou, president of the non-governmental organisation ELAN. ”What’s important for us is that every time the overriding interest of the nation is at stake, civil society should remain mobilised. We’re proud of having fought this battle which has borne fruit.”

Civil society groups have called on citizens to remain vigilant, given President Kerekou’s unpredictability. The media nicknamed him "the chameleon" during the years he ruled by fiat, since chameleons change colour according their surroundings.

If he had succeeded, Kerekou would have followed former president Gnassigbe Eyadema of Togo, Ben Ali of Tunisia, Omar Bongo of Gabon, and Lansana Conte of Guinea, who have changed their constitutions so they can run for at least one more term, if not more.

Excerpt:

By Ali Idrissou-Toure
COTONOU, Jul 7 2005 (IPS)

Some may see it as a just reward for years of fiscal discipline. For others, it is a gesture that will ultimately do little to address poverty in Benin. What there is no disputing, is that the debt relief given to Benin last month by the Group of Eight (G8) is as much a source of controversy as satisfaction.

The West African country is among 18 chosen to benefit from a debt forgiveness package amounting to 40 billion dollars. The deal was crafted under intense global pressure for the G8 (comprising the world’s eight leading industrialized nations) to take steps towards poverty reduction in Africa – this ahead of the group’s annual summit, currently underway in the Scottish town of Gleneagles. Fourteen of the 18 countries included in the package are in Africa.

According to government sources in Benin, more than 800 million dollars owed by the country to the World Bank, International Monetary Fund (IMF) and African Development Bank has been cancelled under the G8 proposal. This figure amounts to just over 63 percent of the country’s total foreign debt.

As with the other 17 states named by the G8, Benin’s selection derives from its adherence to the World Bank’s Heavily Indebted Poor Countries Initiative – perhaps better known by its acronym, HIPC.

This programme was introduced after it became clear that the debt burden of poor countries such as Benin had become unsustainable – even after the application of rigorous economic policies put forward by the World Bank and IMF during the 1980s and 1990s.

Thanks to HIPC, a certain amount of debt relief has already been awarded to Benin – almost 90 percent of which was allocated to health and education in the 2004 budget.

This included 5.6 million dollars for subsidizing primary school fees, particularly for girls. Under the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), agreed on by world leaders at the United Nations Millennium Summit in 2000, developing countries aim to achieve universal primary education by 2015.

Government figures also show that 2.4 million dollars of money that might otherwise have been spent on debt repayments was allocated to malaria and AIDS programmes in the 2004 budget. The MDGs – which tackle key aspects of poverty and under-development – call for the spread of malaria, AIDS and other serious illnesses to have been reversed by 2015.

In terms of the G8 deal, “The beneficiary countries will still need to find the resources necessary to pay their debts,” says Yaya Orou-Guidou, an economist based in Cotonou, Benin’s financial capital. “But, they (the resources) will no longer be paid to the creditors but used to fight poverty, and build schools, hospitals, and health centres.”

According to government economist Alidou Adebi, it appears that money that would previously have been spent on debt relief is now to be paid into a special fund; officials and donors will then decide jointly how this fund should be spent. Calls have also been made for parliament, local government and civil society to have a voice in the allocation of monies freed up by debt forgiveness.

However, Adebi warns that “Debt relief does not necessarily translate into a reduction in poverty.”

“If Benin struggles to pay its debt service and be solvent, it does not – on the other hand – have enough means to insure investments, for which it needs foreign resources. The latter unfortunately come in dribs and drabs,” he notes.

In 1970, the UN proposed that wealthy countries should spend 0.7 percent of their gross national product on aid to developing nations. To date, only five states have managed to attain this goal: Denmark, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway and Sweden.

The Gleneagles summit is considering a proposal by British Prime Minister Tony Blair for wealthy nations to double their collective aid to Africa to 50 billion dollars by 2010.

For his part, Orou-Guidou believes Benin will need to start processing the raw materials it produces if it is to escape the poverty trap.

“A prime material kept in Africa for processing in our factories is one less thing for Western factories to earn money on,” he notes. But, if “we content ourselves with selling our agricultural or mining products in their raw states, they will always feed Western factories which provide jobs for (the West’s) own people.”

Benin currently produces about 350,000 tonnes of cotton seed every year, practically all of which is sent abroad for processing. Cotton production in the country has also been undermined by the subsidies the United States gives to its own cotton farmers.

“If our products commanded a price dictated by their true value, we could very well go without aid. But…are we ourselves trying to exit this vicious cycle?” asks Orou-Guidou.

Excerpt:

By Ali Idrissou-Toure
COTONOU, Feb 11 2005 (IPS)

Reports from the Togolese capital, Lome, say police on Friday used teargas to halt a protest against the recent appointment of Faure Eyadema as the country’s new head of state.

Eyadema’s nomination, by the Togolese army, came shortly after the Feb. 5 death of his father, Gnassingbe – and has been described by various observers as a military coup.

In terms of Togo’s constitution, the speaker of the national assembly – Fambare Natchaba – should have become head of state on Saturday, to govern the country for two months while a presidential election was organised.

However, legislators altered the constitution after Faure Eyadema’s appointment to legitimise it. He had previously served as a minister in his father’s government.

A further change to the constitution allows the younger Eyadema to govern Togo until 2008, when his father’s term in office would have ended – rather than for an interim period of two months. Gnassingbe Eyadema was re-elected for five years in a controversial 2003 poll, this after he himself altered the constitution to allow for a three-term presidency.

Natchaba, who was in Paris at the time of Eyadema’s death, immediately boarded a flight back to Togo – but was refused entry to the country. All borders were closed by authorities as soon as news of the president’s death became public.

As a result, the speaker’s plane was diverted to Benin, where he is currently exiled.

The clashes in Lome come after another plane – this one carrying a delegation of Nigerian officials – was prevented from landing in Togo, Thursday. The mission was to have prepared for regional talks on resolving the political crisis in the country.

Five West African leaders, including those from Benin, Ghana, Mali and Niger, had planned to follow the Nigerian team to Togo under the auspices of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS). Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo was also scheduled to participate in talks with Togo, but has now said he will not be traveling to the country.

According to reports, Togo blamed its refusal to allow the plane to land on a misunderstanding sparked by the decision to move talks from Lome to Kara, a city in the north.

ECOWAS has threatened to suspend Togo from all of its structures unless the country restores “normal constitutional order”.

“I asked them (Togolese officials) to relent in their actions, which will not be acceptable to ECOWAS, the African Union or the international community,” said Senegalese President Abdoulaye Wade, who participated in an ECOWAS summit on Togo that was held in Niger’s capital – Niamey – Wednesday. Niger is currently chair of the regional body.

A proposal was apparently put forward at this meeting by Benin and Ghana to allow Togo a two- to six-month transition period for return to constitutional rule – this on the grounds that pressure from the international community might harden the attitude of authorities in Togo, and lead to widespread violence.

In 1992, a series of demonstrations in the country was brutally suppressed, prompting almost 300,000 people to seek refuge in neighbouring Benin and Ghana. As a result, the European Union (EU) suspended aid to Togo a year later.

“Togo’s neighbors’ more moderate option would maybe have the advantage of calming the present situation a bit, and better preparing the way for a freer and more transparent presidential election,” a Beninese analyst who spoke on condition of anonymity told IPS.

However, the notion of a transition period is said to have been rejected by delegates in Niamey.

In South Africa, President Thabo Mbeki on Friday described events in Togo as an “unconstitutional charade”. As part of the New Partnership for Africa’s Development, the South African leader has spearheaded efforts to attract increased investment to Africa in exchange for good governance.

For his part, Faure Gnassingbe has said that he is open to dialogue, and “ready to hold elections as soon as possible”.

However, Communications Minister Pitang Tchalla later indicated that the new head of state had been referring to legislative elections, which the EU requested be held in order for the body to resume aid to Togo.

Before his departure for Wednesday’s summit in Niger, Beninese President Matthieu Kerekou expressed concern that the situation in Togo might deteriorate into “another Ivory Coast”. This West African country has effectively been divided in two as a result of fighting between government and rebel forces.

Former Beninese president Nicephore Soglo believes that French leader Jacques Chirac, a long-time friend of Gnassingbe Eyadema, will have a key role to play in resolving the Togolese crisis – along with opposition leader Gilchrist Olympio.

Olympio has been the fiercest critic of Togo’s government. His father, Sylvanus Olympio, was the first president to govern the country after independence.

However, the elder Olympio was assassinated in 1963 by a group of soldiers which included Gnassingbe Eyadema – later to assume power after a further coup in 1967. Eyadema remained in office until his death last week, by which time he had become Africa’s longest-serving leader.

Excerpt:

By Ali Idrissou-Toure
COTONOU, Jan 16 2005 (IPS)

For International Action Against Female Genital Mutilation, a German group active in Benin and other African countries, 2005 will be a year in which past successes in the fight against mutilation are celebrated – and efforts to eradicate it continue with renewed vigour.

A ‘No More Excisions’ festival is planned for Benin in April. President Mathieu Kerekou, who first suggested 2005 as a deadline for rooting out female genital mutilation (FGM) in the country, is expected to attend this event.

International Action Against Female Genital Mutilation (INTACT) operates with the assistance of local non-governmental organisations (NGOs) that are also active in trying to eliminate FGM, sometimes referred to as female circumcision. In Benin, INTACT works with five NGOs: Dignite Feminine, Apem, Moritz, Potal Men and Ti-Winti.

As part of its strategy to eradicate FGM, INTACT tries to provide practitioners with alternative sources of income.

Between 2000 and 2005, 228 practitioners were persuaded to give up their FGM activities and take up other occupations.

Fifty-six women who worked as intermediaries, putting practitioners in contact with parents who wanted their daughters circumcised, were also convinced to abandon the practice. In addition, 30 traditional healers renounced FGM.

Of these 314 individuals, 129 received loans to embark on new trades.

Since it was founded in 1996, the same year it financed its first project in Benin, INTACT says it has spent almost 600,000 dollars in the fight against FGM in this West African country.

A landmark event in the fight against circumcision took place in 2003, when a man called Tampobre who had previously performed a substantial number of circumcisions in the north-east and south-west of Benin, went on tour to announce that he no longer condoned the practice. His tour included a visit to the region of Atacora – one of the regions of Benin where support for FGM is strongest.

A law was also passed in March 2003 outlawing all forms of FGM, and making the practice punishable with heavy fines and jail terms of up to five years. If the girl who has been circumcised dies, then an even steeper fine is imposed, while the FGM practitioner is imprisoned for up to 10 years.

“Many things have happened in the past five years and we’ve made a lot of progress in our campaign, although we still need to keep up the fight,” says Honorine Attikpa, president of Dignite Feminine (“Female Dignity”).

According to Toussaint N’Djonoufa, INTACT’s representative in Benin, “The no-interest loan (given to former FGM practitioners) is for 120,000 CFA francs (about 250 dollars) with the repayment schedule set up however the receiver would like it.”

“Repayment and renewal of the loan allows each NGO to maintain a relationship with the former excisor who has the loan, and to monitor the person,” N’Djonoufa told IPS. “Credit is a contract of confidence that the individual will abandon this practice (of excision).”

Many of those who receive loans apparently turn to agriculture to replace the income they had earned from carrying out circumcisions. The former FGM practitioners start growing cotton, manioc, corn and other cereals – such as millet – which form part of the basic diet in Benin. Still others speculate with buying corn or shea-tree nuts, and selling these commodities when their prices rise.

NGO workers go door-to-door in their effort to raise awareness of the dangers of FGM, approaching families with the assistance of respected community members. Village meetings are also held to discuss the practice, and to designate people to serve on committees which monitor FGM.

In addition, activists make use of films that warn about the side effects of circumcision.

FGM involves the removal of part, or all of the female genitals: the clitoris, and folds of skin around the openings of the urethra and the vagina. The wounds created by these excisions are then stitched up, leaving an opening for the excretion of urine and menstrual blood.

The age group of girls and women on whom the practice is carried out differs widely, and the reasons for practicing FGM are varied. Some communities see it as an initiation into adulthood, while certain Muslim leaders believe it is a religious requirement.

There is a also a popular belief that FGM reduces a women’s desire for sex – and that a circumcised woman is thus more likely to remain faithful to her partner.

In addition to causing an assortment of physical complications – which can even lead to death – the practice may complicate sexual intercourse and childbirth. The use of the same instruments to circumcise different girls and women also puts FGM victims at risk of contracting HIV.

No reliable statistics are available in Benin as to the number of girls and women who may have died as a result of circumcision-related ailments, as officials are rarely notified of these deaths.

Given that FGM practitioners often ply their trade in remote locations, the better to escape the scrutiny of rights activists, it is also difficult to gauge the exact extent to which the practice is observed in Benin.

In July 2003, an African Union summit held in Mozambique adopted a protocol which calls for the banning of FGM: the ‘Maputo Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa’. However, this protocol still needs to be endorsed by several states before it can enter into force.

A New York-based group, No Peace Without Justice, says about two million girls and women undergo FGM every year, and that most circumcisions are carried out in sub-Saharan Africa and countries in the Arab peninsula.

Excerpt:

By Ali Idrissou-Toure
COTONOU, Oct 19 2004 (IPS)

The privatisation of state-owned enterprises is often fraught with difficulties – witness developments at Benin’s National Society for Agricultural Advancement (Société nationale pour la promotion agricole, SONAPRA), a cotton-processing firm.

Privatisation of the debt-ridden SONAPRA began over a year ago in June 2003, but has stalled several times – prompting unions and the media to allege that corruption has taken root in the process.

A ruling earlier this month by the Technical Commission for Denationalisation (Commission technique de denationalization, CTD), has spurred hopes that backroom wheeling and dealing over SONAPRA may have come to an end, however. The CTD oversees all privatisations in Benin.

The cotton firm’s 40 gin plants are being sold off in four equal lots. By last month, four companies had been identified as possible buyers of these lots: Société cotonnière intégrée (SCI-Kagnassy), Promodec-Talon, CDI-Christophel and Jefect Becot Industries (JBI SA).

The companies had until Sep. 30 to present the CTD with bank guarantees of their offers. One, JBI SA, failed to meet the deadline.

On Oct. 5, the commission declined to give the firm an extension. This was despite the fact that JBI SA presented it with a letter from President Mathieu Kerekou’s office insisting that the company receive an additional 20 days to obtain the necessary documentation.

A copy of the letter, dated Sep. 30, was published in a privately-owned daily called ‘The New Tribune’ on Oct. 7. In part, it reads: the “president of the republic asks that upon receipt of this letter, you, the Technical Commission for Denationalisation, grant an additional twenty (20) days so that the provisional successful bidder, JBI SA, can provide you with the documents required in your letter of notification…”

“It is extremely important to the country’s highest authority…that you closely follow these instructions,” the letter adds.

Sources in the cotton industry who have requested anonymity claim that Kerekou has ties with one of the partners in JBI SA, and that he has thrown his weight behind the company in support of this individual.

Some wonder how the president will react to the CTD’s refusal to give JBI SA more time; nonetheless, the commission’s announcement has been welcomed.

“The decision of the commission is a victory for economic transparency over scheming and corruption in the highest reaches of power,” a member of the Inter-Professional Cotton Association (Association interprofessionnelle du cotton, AIC), told IPS. (The association groups people who work in Benin’s cotton industry.)

Added Evelyne Dossou, an employee of a private cotton company located in the financial capital of Cotonou, “The commission did its job well and took a courageous stand. If only all our institutions functioned so independently.”

While SONAPRA’s assets were initially expected to bring in about 62 million dollars, reports now indicate that government may earn almost 80 million dollars from the sale.

The main two unions active in SONAPRA contend that the firm’s assets could fetch almost 190 million dollars, however – and that officials are being bribed to accept below-market prices for the company.

The leader of the Ultra-SONAPRA union, Theodule Affo, further claims that the “debt of 20 billion CFA francs (almost 38 million dollars) of SONAPRA does not justify hasty privatisation.”

He says that some of the companies which have successfully bid to take over SONAPRA already owe about 34 million dollars to the firm. If they have the funds to purchase its assets, why not the money to repay SONAPRA, asks Affo.

During a press conference held Jul. 27 in Cotonou, the unions questioned why a provision that disqualified bidders who owed SONAPRA money had apparently been disregarded in the privatisation process.

Sofidec-Tankpinou, the company which appears likely to replace JBI SA as the buyer of a quarter of SONAPRA, is said to be in debt to the cotton company. JBI SA was itself reported to owe SONAPRA a substantial amount of money.

However, the AIC source says that Sofidec-Tankpinou has obtained funds from other businesspeople in the cotton sector to help it repay SONAPRA and purchase some of the firm’s assets.

The unions are also concerned about the rights of SONAPRA workers, many of whom risk losing their jobs. The four companies that are taking over SONAPRA will each inherit about 500 employees. According to one estimate, only 130 of these workers will be retained.

In a related development, the World Bank – widely viewed as having pushed for the privatisation of SONAPRA – has also taken steps to counter this perception.

A source at the bank’s Cotonou office, quoted in the Oct. 4 edition of the ‘Friendship’ daily, stated that the body never demanded the sale of SONAPRA.

Instead, said the bank official, the suggestion was put forward by various government ministers on the grounds that SONAPRA’s debt might prevent donors from extending further aid to Benin.

Whatever the outcome of the privatisation squabbles, many view them as just the latest in a series of misadventures at SONAPRA.

Since 1996, no less than seven directors-general have taken the helm of the organisation. With little managerial continuity, SONAPRA’s performance has not been distinguished.

Excerpt:

By Ali Idrissou-Toure
COTONOU, Sep 10 2004 (IPS)

Government’s attempt to control the illegal sale of petroleum products in Benin is meeting with failure due to widespread unemployment in the country. The products, which include gasoline and diesel, are often smuggled in from neighboring Nigeria.

As a result of the illicit trade, fuel distribution companies have lost an estimated 50 percent share of the Beninese market. Government is also out of pocket “15 billion CFA francs (about 28 million dollars) in uncollected taxes,” says Soumanou Moudjaido, chair of the national commission charged with cleaning up the market for petroleum products.

Besides the economic reasons for abolishing illicit fuel sales, authorities also cite health concerns.

“Since black market products are poorly refined, they release into the atmosphere enormous quantities of toxic vapors which people are then forced to breathe,” said Moudjaido recently, during a press conference held in the economic hub of Cotonou.

In addition, lives have been lost in fires which broke out amongst fuel containers stored in houses with flammable roofs.

Black market gasoline is widely referred to as “kpayo” (which means “poor quality” in the local ’Goun language). Even so, most motorists and motorcyclists use it because it is cheaper than fuel sold at service stations. While gasoline costs about 66 cents at the pump, only 52 to 56 cents is needed to buy the same amount of fuel on the black market.

Efforts by authorities to clamp down on the sale of kpayo have met with vigorous resistance from vendors – who have few alternative means of earning a living. Last month, these sellers took to the streets of the capital – Porto-Novo.

Some protestors barricaded the city’s main roads, burned tires in intersections and hurled stones at police.

They also smashed traffic lights and police vehicles, and partially burned down the home of Fatiou Akplogan, the minister of trade, industry and job promotion who supervises the commission that aims to regulate the petroleum sector more closely.

Two people were killed and several injured in clashes with police who – according to officials – were obliged to use force to disperse the crowd. Many people were taken in for questioning during the incident, and large numbers of 50-litre gas tanks confiscated. (Porto-Novo – just 100 kilometers from Nigeria, sub-Saharan Africa’s largest oil producer – is an important source for the black market fuel which is sold in Benin.)

Despite the role of certain vendors in the violence, public sympathy appears to be on their side. Many people believe that government should have tried to negotiate with the sellers, who serve as breadwinners for thousands of families hard-hit by unemployment.

Even Porto-Novo’s mayor, Bernard Dossou, chipped in on behalf of the fuel vendors.

“We could have avoided these incidents if we’d had alternate employment ideas to propose to the vendors, who are entirely dependent on this trade to survive,” he stated on Golfe-FM, a privately-owned radio station.

Ever since the economic crisis of 1988 and 1989, when poverty and unemployment in Benin took a turn for the worse, illicit fuel sales had been tolerated by the authorities. While there are no official statistics on the exact number of kpayo sellers, rough estimates put their number in the tens of thousands.

Black market fuel became so widely available that the National Petroleum Product Merchandising Company (SONACOP) was unable to build enough service stations for the country. The 1999 privatisation of SONACOP and the liberalization of the petroleum sector do not appear to have made a dent in illegal petrol sales.

Porto-Novo still makes do with just four petrol stations, while not one exists along the 30-kilometre road linking the capital to Cotonou. Instead, the road is literally flooded with informal vendors.

“The government for so long had a laissez-faire attitude toward this illegal activity, which feeds thousands of families, that it would now be…difficult to suddenly do away with it,” Assouman Aboudou, a member of parliament, told IPS.

More than 50 percent of Benin’s 6.7 million people live below the poverty line of a dollar a day, according to the National Institute of Statistics and Economic Analysis. Certain economists argue that the number of poor is actually much higher.

Excerpt:

By Ali Idrissou-Toure
COTONOU, Jun 21 2004 (IPS)

The merits of monogamy and polygamy have come under vigorous discussion in Benin recently, with the passage of a law that encourages the first – but tolerates the second.

The ‘Personal and Family Code of Law’ was voted on by parliament last Monday, Jun. 14, in the Beninese capital, Porto-Novo. Although the bill was initially adopted by parliament two years ago, judges later declared certain aspects of it unconstitutional – choosing to view monogamy as the only legal form of marriage in the West African country.

Several legislators opposed the Constitutional Court on this matter, saying it had overstepped its bounds.

Theophile Nata of the Movement for Development and Progress (l’Impulsion pour le développement et le progress, IPD) argues that “the code, such as it is, is not in accordance with our customs.” (Interestingly, no legislators voted against the law – and only eight chose to abstain from last week’s vote. The code was ultimately passed by 57 votes.)

The parliamentarians have also taken aim at women’s rights groups, accusing them of using the law to impose western matrimonial practices on Benin. According to Epiphane Quenum of the Renaissance of Benin party (Renaissance du Bénin, RB), “The women’s intelligentsia is trying to take the disadvantaged classes hostage.”

Although the court recognised that polygamy is permitted by certain traditions and religions observed in Benin (about a fifth of the population is Muslim, according to one source), it noted that the country was primarily a secular state.

While polygamous marriages are still allowed, they will not enjoy the same legal protections and benefits as monogamous unions – notably the right to inheritance.

“You can marry 40 women if you want, but just be aware that if you die, it’ll only be the one you married at the registry office who will enjoy the right of inheritance. The others will get nothing,” said RB representative Rosine Vieyra-Soglo, adding “I feel offended when I hear deputies say that they don’t accept monogamy.”

The court’s decision was also based on arguments that the initial draft of the law violated the principle of equality between men and women, by allowing men to be polygamous – but not women.

Some have welcomed the clarity which the new law brings to the matter of inheritance.

In a commentary published in the privately-owned daily ‘Fraternite’ on Tuesday, Jun. 15, observer Andre Dossa expressed the hope that there would be “fewer problems for widows who, right after their spouses die, used to have to do battle with their in-laws for the couple’s possessions û which the parents frequently believe is their inheritance.”

Before the passage of last week’s law men were able to marry two or three women – with all of these unions being recognised under the law. Frequent disputes between co-wives over the matter of inheritance were reported, some of them violent. However, the law now recognizes the right to inheritance of all children born in the context of polygamous marriages.

Assouman Aboudou of the Union for Democracy and Solidarity (l’Union pour la démocratie et la solidarité, UDS) has also noted that the law “is not only about monogamy…It also accords other very important rights to women, especially by abolishing forced marriage and the levirate: two traditional practices that they have long been victimized by.” (The levirate is a biblical institution that obliges a man to marry the widow of his childless brother, to ensure that the brother’s blood line is continued.)

In addition, the law authorizes women to add their maiden names to those of their husbands – something that was not permitted previously.

Human rights groups that have long worked for the adoption of the new family code were visibly satisfied by the outcome of last week’s vote.

“The code was created for the youth, for the future – contrary to what some people may think,” Marie Elise Gbedo, President of the Association of Women Jurists of Benin, told IPS.

Genevieve Boko-Nadjo, President of WILDAF-Benin – a non-governmental organisation that promotes legal reforms which benefit women – congratulated legislators “who were keen to demonstrate that the polygamy issue was not the most important thing in the law, and their need to resolutely look toward the future they must build for their children.”

But, much work remains to acquaint citizens with the voluminous, 1,033-article law. Boko-Nadjo says her organisation is aware that a campaign needs to be conducted to “clarify the various provisions of the text, (to help) avoid any misinterpretations.”

Excerpt:

By Ali Idrissou-Toure
COTONOU, Jun 10 2004 (IPS)

The concept of amending constitutions so that national leaders can remain in office for extended periods of time has come under increasing criticism in recent years.

This did not prevent Chadian legislators from voting last month to allow President Idriss Deby to run for a third five-year term in 2006, however. Now there are concerns that this vote might encourage the proponents of similar constitutional reform in Benin.

Although Chad and Benin are dissimilar in many respects, both are governed by heads of state whose second and final term in office is scheduled to end in 2006.

In the 2001 electoral campaign, Deby promised not to run in 2006. However, observers believe that development of Chad’s enormous oil resources has caused him to rethink this position.

On May 26, 110 parliamentarians from the ruling Patriotic Security Movement joined 13 deputies from smaller parties in voting to revise Chad’s constitution. The measure was adopted without any real debate after 30 opposition legislators left the floor to protest against an alleged violation of parliamentary rules.

Even though the revised constitution still needs to be given the green light in a national referendum, there seems little doubt that it will be adopted.

These events have been watched with keen interest in Benin, where a debate on amending the constitution has been raging in the media for a year – even though no changes have yet been proposed in parliament. This debate has split the country into pro- and anti-amendment camps.

Leaders from various small political parties in Benin have formed a group known as the ‘Noyau dur pour la révision de la constitution’ (which roughly translates as the Hard line Group for Constitutional Reform) to press for changes that would allow President Mathieu Kerekou to stay in office.

For several months, the group has conducted a campaign in which it claims that “only the revision of the constitution will allow us to preserve peace, freedom, national unity and especially stability in our country.”

Those in the opposing camp accuse these parties, which have no representation in parliament, of having an ulterior motive in pushing for Kerekou to stay on – and they maintain that peace cannot be guaranteed by tampering with the constitution.

They also fear that an amendment would open the door to a succession of ‘presidents for life’ in Benin.

In a column published earlier this month (Jun. 1) in the privately-owned daily ‘La Nouvelle Tribune’, Roger Gbegnonvi – a professor of French at the University of Abomey-Calavi – called for Beninese citizens to “stand up as one against this moneymaking revision of the constitution.” Abomey-Calavi is located near the West African country’s capital, Cotonou.

Benin’s political history has been marked by a series of coups staged after independence in 1960. The last of these, in 1972, instituted a Marxist-Leninist regime which led the country into economic collapse and bankruptcy. As a result, the regime was forced to organise a national conference in February 1990, which ushered in multi-party politics.

The conference also drew up Benin’s present constitution, which was adopted by popular vote in December 1990, and which limits the presidential term of office to two periods of five years. It further sets a 70-year age limit for presidential candidates. Kerekou will be 73 in 2006.

But, whatever else might be said of them, Beninese deputies of all stripes are unlikely to allow constitutional amendments to slip through easily. Kerekou’s critics are also speaking up on the matter.

According to Victor Topanou, a law professor at the University of Abomey-Calavi, “A president who has not been able to realise his ambitions for the country in ten years, will not be able to do it in 15 or even more years. That being the case, he would be wise to turn over his spot to a more inspired and more capable new team.”

Adds Moise Bossou, another law professor at the university, “The present debate over the revision of the constitution is…a false debate. (Its) goal is to replace the democratic presidential republic – one of whose founding principles was a changeover in political power – by a president for life.”

Both men have reiterated this view in articles published during the past two months in another privately-owned daily, ‘Le Matinal’.

Other ‘anti-revisionists’ have also appealed to Beninese legislators to “freely and courageously reject, even if it means rejecting their own self-enrichment”, any plan to change the constitution. They draw inspiration from events in Malawi, where law makers dismissed a 2002 bid for the constitution to be amended so that President Bakili Muluzi could run for a third term in office.

Unfortunately, leaders in West Africa have not been checked in this fashion.

President Gnassingbe Eyadema of Togo, in power for some forty years, forced a constitutional revision in 2003 so that he could remain in office for a third term. This was despite giving a personal undertaking to France’s president a year earlier that he would leave power at the end of his constitutionally-approved second term.

Presidents Omar Bongo of Gabon, and Lansana Conte of Guinea have also altered constitutions to allow them to run for a third term in office. And their supporters – eager to reap the benefits of having patrons in high positions – are almost certain to help rig elections in these states to ensure the amendments are put to good use.

The fact that French President Jacques Chirac failed to condemn events in Togo – even congratulating Eyadema on his re-election in 2003 – has been viewed with bitterness by many. This bitterness deepened when Xavier Darcos, France’s Minister with Special Responsibility for Cooperation, visited Chad shortly after the constitutional vote, making a statement on national radio which some viewed as being in support of the May amendment.

Chad’s oil resources were again suspected to have played a role. “France needs economic growth, so its Minister of Cooperation came to bless this constitutional swindle,” observed Gbegnonvi.

Excerpt:

By Ali Idrissou-Toure
COTONOU, Aug 20 2003 (IPS)

Africans are fighting a new war: president-for-life syndrome.

While Nelson Mandela of South Africa has stepped down voluntarily just after one term of office, his colleague Robert Mugabe, who has been in office since 1980, shows no sign of retiring from active politics in neighbouring Zimbabwe.

In Zambia, it took the fury of the public to force Frederick Chiluba to climb down from seeking a third term of office in 2001. Malawians, shackled for 27 years by dictator Kamuzu Banda, also rejected Bakili Muluzi’s bid for a third term early this year.

But such successes are rare, particularly where the civil society is weak. A point in case is Namibia, where Sam Nujoma is trying to change the constitution to allow him to run again. Even where the civil society is strong like in Uganda, President Yoweri Museveni, who has ruled the East African country for 17 years, is still trying to bulldoze his ways and seek another term of office.

Ugandans, opposed to Museveni’s third term, remember the reign of Idi Amin, who died, aged 80, in exile in Saudi Arabia last week. Amin appointed himself president-for-life during his chaotic rule between 1971 and 1979.

Heated debate is also in progress in Benin where the public is resisting attempts to change the country’s constitution to allow President Mathieu Kerekou to run for a third term of office in 2006.

”We must fight with all the means at our disposal for change in Benin and the rest of Africa,” says Albert Tevoedjre, former minister of planning in Benin.

Benin’s 1990 constitution provides “for a five-year term, renewable only once”. It also sets out 70 as the maximum age for a person to run for the country’s highest office.

Kerekou, whose two terms of office ends in 2006 when he will be 73 years old, has ruled Benin for 28 years, including the period he seized power in 1972.

Those who have joined the debate in Benin include former president Emile Derlin Zinsou, 85, as well as former ministers Theodore Holo and Kouboura Osseni.

Much of the Beninois press also opposes changing the constitution.

In Gabon, the constitution has just been revised so that president Omar Bongo may run as long as he likes. It will be up to the voters to decide whether to retain or vote him out of office.

Bongo has ruled the oil-rich Gabon for 36 years.

The constitution of Togo has also been changed to allow President Gnassingbe Eyadema to run next year, after 36 years in office.

Some Togolese argue that ”no one else can maintain stability in Togo except Eyadema”. Others, however, wonder ”what would happen if Eyadema should die?”.

In Guinea, President Lansana Conte has also been ‘granted’ opportunity to run as long as he likes.

The problem is the same in north Africa, where Tunisia’s constitution has undergone modification to allow President Zine Abidine Ben Ali to run in 2004 for a fourth term. This is the same Ben Ali who promised, upon defeating Tunisia’s first president, Habib Bourguiba in 1987, to put an end to the practice of ”president-for-life” syndrome.

The ruling parties in Africa hardly pay attention to the opposition, since they enjoy the monopoly of the state-owned media.

To justify their claims to power, African governments often refer to former colonial powers Britain and France where no limitations exist on the number of terms of office the president may serve, nor the age of the candidates.

But African leaders also ignore the fact that even if French President Jacque Chirac runs for a third term in 2007 in spite of his advanced age (he will be 75), he cannot count, certainly, on automatic re-election.

When Eyadema, Bongo, Conte, Ben Ali, or Kerekou campaign for constitutional reforms, they are always sure that they will be re-elected. Their supporters will employ ”election technology to insure their victory”, including the illegal use of government resources, according to a columnist in the privately-owned Beninois daily, La Nouvelle Tribune.

The electoral processes in most African countries are flawed.

The practice of ill-timed constitutional reforms weakens and discredits Africa’s young democracies, and poses the risk of violence and attempts at coups d’etat. As UN Secretary General Koffi Annan recently warned, there can be no democracy without a change of power.

This is a challenge for South Africa’s President Thabo Mbeki and his Nigerian counterpart Olusegun Obasanjo who have committed themselves, through the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD), a blueprint for Africa’s recovery, to sell Africa to investors in exchange for better governance.

Last week the two leaders persuaded Charles Taylor of Liberia to step down and go into exile in Nigeria.

Excerpt:

By Ali Idrissou-Toure
COTONOU, Apr 9 2003 (IPS)

Private newspapers in Benin are planning to hold demonstrations this week to protest police brutality against four journalists, including the editor of Le Telegramme, a daily newspaper, published in Cotonou, the country’s economic capital.

The journalists, who will hold the demonstrations in Cotonou, will be calling for ”press freedom in Benin”.

Agapit Maforikan, president of the Union of Private Newspapers of Benin, says three Le Telegramme reporters were ”arrested, brutalised, handcuffed and taken to Cotonou’s Central Police Station” on Apr 1 on orders of the police commissioner, Raymond Fadonougbo.

As soon as Maforikan and Edouard Loko, his counterpart at the Watchdog Group on Ethics and Professional Practice in the Media, heard the news, they rushed to the police station to try to free their three colleagues. But, according to Maforikan, the police commissioner insisted first on seeing Etienne Houessou, Le Telegramme’s editor.

The two agreed to bring Houessou to the police station as long as they received guarantees that he would not be harmed. To their surprise, Houessou was whisked away as soon as he set foot in the station, beaten up and thrown into a cell for several hours. ”Even worse, the police commissioner himself took a few jabs at him,” Maforikan claims. The four journalists were released only after a stormy meeting between police officers and the two media representatives.

Police commissioner Fadonougbo said he summoned the four journalists to the police station because of their ”continual slanders and threats” published in the newspaper. He urged Benin’s media watchdog groups to ”discipline the journalists, especially the editor of Le Telegramme, who, in every edition", he claimed, ”persists in attacking the police even though it is an institution people should respect, after all”.

The two media representatives responded that even if their colleague at Le Telegramme ”had not observed professional ethics, the police has no business attacking journalists”.

Maforikan acknowledged that Le Telegramme had run a series of articles "attacking the police commissioner” and one of his associates. These articles, which police officers have described as ”personal attacks and repeated insults, have created an unhealthy climate between the police and the newspaper”, he explains.

”We live in a law abiding nation and you can’t rough up a journalist just because you don’t like what he writes,” says Maforikan. ”The police commissioner deserves lavish condemnation for his deplorable attempt at taking the law into his own hands by using methods of force at his disposal”.

”Indeed, according to the laws of Benin, there is no such thing as detention to scare off journalists,” he says.

On his part, Soumaila Mama, president of the Association of Journalists of Benin, issued a statement ”condemning the police brutality".

”While recognising that our colleagues in question did commit errors of professional ethics”, their errors ”do not justify, in any way, shape or form, the aggression and assault perpetrated by members of the security force, whose behaviour, on this occasion, is nothing less than a genuine human rights violation,” the statement said.

Media watchdog groups have urged the four journalists to file complaints against the police commissioner for the ”attack, assault and violation of the law”.

The incident has sparked debate across the country, although some Beninoirs say they do not always approve of the ”insulting and slanderous articles” written by some inexperienced journalists.

National Assembly legislator, Assouman Aboudou, believes the police commissioner ”who knows the law and people’s rights, should have controlled his anger and file a complaint against the paper in question”.

Antoine Ayivi, a community leader at Donaten, a suburb of Cotonou, thinks ”journalists have every right to protest. If they don’t, the police will think that they can beat up anyone as they please”.

Last year, the international media watchdog, Reporters Sans Frontieres, based in Paris, said out of 139 countries, Benin ranked 21st in terms of press freedom. Among African countries, it topped the list.

On Monday, Benin’s15 private newspapers shut down their businesses to protest the police brutality against their four colleagues.

In solidarity with the private newspapers, radio and television stations across Benin ran only limited programmes, interspersed with music. The only newspaper that appeared on Monday was the state-owned daily, La Nation.

Excerpt:

By Ali Idrissou-Toure
COTONOU, Jan 29 2003 (IPS)

Rights groups have welcomed a new law, banning all forms of female genital mutilation in Benin.

”I am pleased with the passage of the law, because, of all the countries in the sub-region, Benin was the last to outlaw female genital mutilation,” says Genevieve Boko Nadjo, president of WILDAF-Benin, a non-governmental organisation (NGO) dealing with women issues.

Nadjo says the new law should be ”accepted as the first step – to fill a legal void in Benin, where female genital mutilation was not even considered to be a crime”.

The law, which was passed by parliament on Jan 21, prohibits ”All forms of female genital mutilation”.

Under the law, an offender, who removes women genitalia, is handed a prison term of between six months and three years, and a fine of between one and two million CFA francs (about 1,613 and 3,226 U.S. dollars). When the crime is against a minor under 18 years of age, the punishment is increased from three to five years of prison, and a fine as high as three million CFA (about 4,839 U.S. dollars).

If the victim died in the process of circumcision, the perpetrator gets between five and ten years in prison, and fines of up to six million CFA (about 9,678 U.S. dollars).

Legislator Alassane Zoumarou, who sponsored the bill, says ”female genital mutilation is one of the old socio-cultural practices of our country ”.

There are generally three different types of circumcision: clitoridectomy, the amputation of the clitoris; excision of the labia minora as well as the clitoris; and infibulation, the removal all external genitalia including the labia majora, after which the edges of the wound are stitched together, allowing for only a tiny opening.

Female genital mutilation causes haemorrhages or infections such as tetanus and HIV/AIDS transmission, medical doctors say.

Marie Elise Gbedo, vice president of the Association of Women Jurists of Benin, says the tiny West African country, with a population of about 6.4 million, ”has just taken a major step to combat a sensitive problem, where habits are the product of tradition.”

Gbedo believes ”awareness campaigns by government and civil society are necessary since the new law concerns women’s reproductive health”.

During a campaign against sexual harassment in a school in Kalale, northeast Benin, in December, Nadjo says she discovered that mothers allow their daughters to be sent away to little villages, on the border with Nigeria, to be circumcised. ”Once they are isolated, the girls are excised and remain in those little remote villages until their wounds have completely healed before they return home,” she says.

”Another consequence is that, since the methods are not sterile, healing takes time and the girls lose the rest of their school year,” explains Nadjo.

Rights groups say some 200 girls selected for circumcision in Tanguieta, northeast Benin, last year were also sent to remote villages. But, just before the ceremony, WILDAF-Benin alerted the public through the local press, causing a wave of an uproar.

Victorine Odounlami, president of the Inter-African Committee Against Traditional Practices Impacting the Health of Women and Children, says ” after fighting this harmful practice for several years, the vote on this law comes just at the right time”.

For her, the fight is not yet over, as her group is planning a series of awareness campaigns across Benin.

”Education is important before enforcing the new law,” she says.

Female genital mutilation is a problem, which affects over 100 million women around the world. The practice is done for reasons, which include religion and economics on girls in various parts of Africa and the Middle East.

In Africa, female genital mutilation is practiced in the majority of the continent including Benin, Kenya, Nigeria, Mali, Upper Volta, Ivory Coast, Egypt, Mozambique, and Sudan.

Excerpt:

By Ali Idrissou-Toure
COTONOU, Jun 19 2002 (IPS)

Benin’s new “Family and Personal Code”, passed by Parliament this month, accords women new rights and outlaws traditional practices, such as forced marriage and wife inheritance.

The code, adopted in a 44-0 vote, culminated a month of frenzied work in the National Assembly. Nearly half the deputies were absent during the voting.

Wife inheritance, which is practised in much of Africa, is the tradition where a widow becomes the wife of one of her husband’s brothers, or relations. The rationale behind this ancestral custom is to keep the widow within her husband’s family and to prevent her from having children with a ‘stranger’.

Women’s non-governmental organisations (NGOs) have described this practice as “abusive and degrading”.

The new code also gives women the right to keep their surnames on all their official documents, in addition to their husbands’ names.

Women’s NGOs exerted tremendous pressure on the National Assembly, which has been in session in Porto-Novo, the country’s administrative capital, since Apr 12, to pass the bill. The bill had been blocked in parliament for seven years.

Benin’s 1931 Customary Law and 1958 Civil Code are both outdated. They also “contradict all modern legal instruments which guarantee the rights of women”, according to Pascaline Ahouilihoua Anani, president of the Benin-based Network for the Integration of Women in African NGOs and Associations.

During the debate in parliament, Rosine Soglo of the Benin Renaissance, an opposition party, criticised the provision that placed civil ceremony over religious marriage. The bill specified that only marriages conducted by a registry official (Mayor’s office) would enjoy legal status.

It also set marriage age at 18 for men and 16 for women.

Marie-Elise Gbedo, who ran for president in 2001 and became the first woman ever to compete for the top job in Benin, expressed her views on Golfe-FM, a private radio station based in Cotonou. “It’s very important that Beninoir people understand that anyone who only gets married in a religious ceremony has no legal protection and will not be considered married.

“Religious marriages alone do not give one legal status. In such instances, if one’s spouse should die, the other would have no right whatsoever to his or her property,” she warned.

Following public outcry, the deputies amended the provision, allowing couples to be married in a religious ceremony prior to civil registration. As part of her contribution to the debate, Beatrice Lakoussan of the ruling party called for laws that would prevent “60-year-old men from marrying 12-year-old girls”, under the guise of religion.

Lakoussan, a judge, is the former wife of Beninoir president, Mathieu Kerekou.

Religion plays a major role in Benin, where followers of indigenous beliefs make up 68 percent, Christians 17 percent and Muslims 15 percent of the country’s six million people.

Some legislators have suggested that the voluminous document, which contains 1,033 articles, should be translated into the country’s main languages — Fon, Yoruba, Bariba and Dendi — so that it could be accessible to the average citizen.

Excerpt:

By Ali Idrissou-Toure
COTONOU, Jun 19 2002 (IPS)

Benin’s new “Family and Personal Code”, passed by Parliament this month, accords women new rights and outlaws traditional practices, such as forced marriage and wife inheritance.

The code, adopted in a 44-0 vote, culminated a month of frenzied work in the National Assembly. Nearly half the deputies were absent during the voting.

Wife inheritance, which is practised in much of Africa, is the tradition where a widow becomes the wife of one of her husband’s brothers, or relations. The rationale behind this ancestral custom is to keep the widow within her husband’s family and to prevent her from having children with a ‘stranger’.

Women’s non-governmental organisations (NGOs) have described this practice as “abusive and degrading”.

The new code also gives women the right to keep their surnames on all their official documents, in addition to their husbands’ names.

Women’s NGOs exerted tremendous pressure on the National Assembly, which has been in session in Porto-Novo, the country’s administrative capital, since Apr 12, to pass the bill. The bill had been blocked in parliament for seven years.

Benin’s 1931 Customary Law and 1958 Civil Code are both outdated. They also “contradict all modern legal instruments which guarantee the rights of women”, according to Pascaline Ahouilihoua Anani, president of the Benin-based Network for the Integration of Women in African NGOs and Associations.

During the debate in parliament, Rosine Soglo of the Benin Renaissance, an opposition party, criticised the provision that placed civil ceremony over religious marriage. The bill specified that only marriages conducted by a registry official (Mayor’s office) would enjoy legal status.

It also set marriage age at 18 for men and 16 for women.

Marie-Elise Gbedo, who ran for president in 2001 and became the first woman ever to compete for the top job in Benin, expressed her views on Golfe-FM, a private radio station based in Cotonou. “It’s very important that Beninoir people understand that anyone who only gets married in a religious ceremony has no legal protection and will not be considered married.

“Religious marriages alone do not give one legal status. In such instances, if one’s spouse should die, the other would have no right whatsoever to his or her property,” she warned.

Following public outcry, the deputies amended the provision, allowing couples to be married in a religious ceremony prior to civil registration. As part of her contribution to the debate, Beatrice Lakoussan of the ruling party called for laws that would prevent “60-year-old men from marrying 12-year-old girls”, under the guise of religion.

Lakoussan, a judge, is the former wife of Beninoir president, Mathieu Kerekou.

Religion plays a major role in Benin, where followers of indigenous beliefs make up 68 percent, Christians 17 percent and Muslims 15 percent of the country’s six million people.

Some legislators have suggested that the voluminous document, which contains 1,033 articles, should be translated into the country’s main languages — Fon, Yoruba, Bariba and Dendi — so that it could be accessible to the average citizen.

Excerpt:

By Ali Idrissou-Toure
COTONOU, May 20 2002 (IPS)

Panic has gripped West Africa over the circulation of fake 10,000 franc bank notes (each worth 14.2 U.S. dollars) since late March.

Some “100 million francs (around 142,857 U.S. dollars) in fake 10,000 franc bank notes have been withdrawn in all eight member countries of the West African Economic and Monetary Union (WAEMU) since Mar 23,” says Bakary Lansina.

Lansina, who is the manager of the Abidjan-based Central Bank of West African States, with French acronym BCEAO, says “in Cote d’Ivoire alone on Apr 30, they seized 13 million fake bank notes (worth around 18,571 U.S. dollars)”.

The first fake bank note bills were discovered in Cotonou, Benin on Mar 23 and later in Lome, Togo on 26, before being detected in other WAEMU countries.

WAEMU comprises Benin, Burkina Faso, Cote d’Ivoire, Guinea-Bissau, Mali, Niger, Senegal and Togo.

A total of 1,852 fake 10,000 franc bank notes, totalling 15.820 million francs (around 22,600 U.S. dollars) were identified in Lome by the country’s Central Bank when Ecobank-Togo was depositing funds.

Shortly thereafter, Ali Nassr, a Lebanese national, was picked up in Lome where he — according to police — confessed to having shipped 52 million francs (around 74,285.7 U.S. dollars) to Benin.

Another Lebanese citizen, Mahmoud Toufic Rmeiti, suspected of being the ringleader of the counterfeit traffic, had operated in the region for several years, according to the police.

Police has accused Rmeiti, 38, of being behind the 1,852 counterfeit bills identified in Lome. He is also suspected of having deposited 15,220 million francs worth of fake bills (around 21,742.8 U.S. dollars) into his bank account on Mar 22, and of having withdrawn, shortly thereafter, 15,471 million francs (around 22,101 U.S. dollars).

Four days later, on Mar 26, he deposited 9,650 million francs worth of counterfeit bills (around 13,785.7 U.S. dollars) into his Lome bank account, and that he wanted to withdraw, a few hours later, 7.143 million francs (around 10,204 U.S. dollars).

Sought by both the Beninoir and Togolese police, Rmeiti fled to Europe before returning to Lebanon. On Apr 5, a Togolese judge issued an international warrant for his arrest.

From Lebanon, Rmeiti denied the accusations against him and blamed unnamed Lebanese compatriots in Benin for fabricating the story to fulfil ‘some vague desire to settle a score with me’. He claimed that he had not fled, and that he would “return to Benin to give his version of the story”.

“We’ve arrested 20 people of various nationalities who have been handed over to the authorities,” Raymond Koudouwovor, director general of Togo’s criminal investigation department said, while attending a meeting in Abidjan recently.

“Top officials from the criminal investigation department and the BCEAO attended the meeting. It was a strategy planning session for us, to study ways and means to effectively fight counterfeiters,” he added.

In Paris, an Ivorian woman and a Frenchman were arrested, while exchanging “hundreds” of fake 10,000 franc bank notes for Euros at hostels for immigrant workers returning to Africa on vacation.

The announcement that there were counterfeit bills in the market caused panic and refusal to accept 10,000 franc bank notes in cash transactions, especially in the markets.

Sarah Sant’anna, a secretary, says it is hard to go shopping now with 10,000 franc bills in Lome. “Traders refuse to take the notes because they don’t have counterfeit bill detectors,” she says.

Dede Ekoue, a trader at a Lome market, says, “I don’t accept 10,000 franc bills anymore”. She says a wholesaler got stuck with 210,000 francs worth of fake notes (around 300 U.S. dollars) after she made some purchases in her neighbourhood.

Marcel Gaba, a banker, says he has become “more vigilant than ever now”.

“In addition to a counterfeit detector, we check all identifying marks of the bills, the printing, the special paper, the security thread, the BCEAO emblem set into each side, etc.”.

In Niger, some 40 fake bills have turned up at the Central Bank in Niamey, the capital, according to the BCEAO manager for the country, Soumana Abdoulaye. He has urged Nigeriens “not to panic”, insisting that the BCEAO has “taken all necessary measures to dismantle the counterfeit ring’.

“It is not a large-scale phenomenon but it seemed so spectacular because the fake notes were introduced at the same time in practically all the WAEMU countries”, says Lansina, the BCEAO manager for Cote d’Ivoire. He notes that the only WAEMU country where the counterfeit money has not yet turned up is Guinea-Bissau.

“This is the first time our currency has been invaded by such an sophisticated counterfeiting scheme,” he states, indicating that people from rural areas are generally “most vulnerable” because of their inability to distinguish between authentic and fake notes. The 10,000 franc banknote was first issued by the BCEAO for circulation in Sep 1994.

Excerpt:

By Ali Idrissou-Toure
COTONOU, Apr 23 2002 (IPS)

The 24 Beninoir judges, detained for alleged fraud in September, have failed to raise the bail set for them and will remain in detention until their trial opens.

No date has been set for the trial yet.

The Department of Judiciary has charged the judges with “forgery, abetting the diversion of public monies, and aiding and abetting fraud”.

The judges allegedly stole around two billion CFA francs (around 2.9 million U.S. dollars) over a three-year period. Forty court clerks and treasury officials also have been charged for being accomplices in the scandal.

The judges are being held at Lokossa, about 100 kilometres from Cotonou, while the clerks and treasury officials have been detained in Cotonou, Benin’s commercial capital.

Supreme Court Judge, Gilbert Ahouandjinou set the bails between six million and 145 million CFA francs (8,571 and 207,143 U.S. dollars) respectively.

The detainees, who previously requested to be released while awaiting trial, were shocked by the amount of the bail. Judicial sources say the bails were set according to the perceived role that each judge played in the fraud.

Ahouandjinou, who is in charge of the case, will soon hear testimony from all the 24 judges involved in the alleged corruption, according to judicial sources. The investigation could last more than a year.

The case, involving mostly young magistrates, is considered to be one of the biggest corruption scandals in Benin since independence from France in 1960.

Some of the judges and clerks, who masterminded the scandal, “went as far as forging the signatures of their colleagues in order to implicate them”, according to a judicial source who requested anonymity.

Joseph Gnonlonfoun, the Minister of Justice, described the scandal as “an upheaval in the House of Justice”.

A columnist in ‘Le Matinal’, a private newspaper, said the behaviour of the detained judges was “a consequence of impunity, which is the gangrene of Beninoir society”.

“The public is now waiting to see what will happen in the judicial proceedings against these rogue judges, and what their punishment might be,” another columnist in ‘La Nouvelle Tribune’ wrote.

The scandal was uncovered when former Finance Minister Abdoulaye Bio-Tchane ordered the judiciary’s 1998-2000 books to be audited. After auditing, it was discovered that the judges and the treasury employees overcharged legal fees and divided up the loot among them.

Bio-Tchane, who became director of the International Monetary Fund’s Africa Department in March, wanted the accounts audited so as to help the authorities draft the long-awaited ‘payment’ laws in Benin. The laws were required for all members of the West African Economic and Monetary Union (UEMOA), based in Dakar, Senegal.

The embezzlement scheme was shrewdly organised by court officials and their financial branch accomplices from seven cities: Cotonou, Porto-Novo, Kandi, Parakou, Natitingou, Abomey and Ouidah.

In Kandi, 650 kilometres north of Cotonou, for example, local residents were surprised to see court officials amassing wealth, and becoming rich.

The officials could afford new mopeds, new vehicles, and new trucks for transporting goods. They also were buying plots of land to build fancy houses on.

Later, the residents of the seven cities discovered that a racket of judges and revenue collectors were swindling the court’s legal fees.

Excerpt:

By Ali Idrissou-Toure
COTONOU, Dec 1 1999 (IPS)

Benin’s cotton industry, the main source of export, is on the verge of collapse. Analysts say SONAPRA, the company which oversees all phases of cotton production, is having difficulties putting money together to pay farmers this year.

Next year’s cotton production campaign, which should have begun early November, has not yet started because all banks have refused to provide funding. SONAPRA needs at least 30 billion CFA francs to see the campaign through, according to the company’s union leaders.

One US Dollar is equal to 600 CFA francs.

Not only have the banks hesitated to finance the cotton production campaign because of debts, but SONAPRA is also owed large sums of money. From 1996 to 1999, its accounts rose to 42 billion CFA francs. Among those who owe it are members of the coalition government of President Mathieu Kerekou.

After a cabinet meeting, on Nov 3, the government made public a list of SONAPRA debtors. The union representing SONAPRA workers has asked the government, who owns the company, to sue the debtors.

Marius Ahyi, who is secretary general of workers union at SONAPRA, says poor management has caused the financial crisis in the cotton industry.

He says top SONAPRA officials have since 1996 demonstrated themselves to be “greedy, vote-catching, and overly-politicised racketeers”.

The company has suffered greatly from government interference in day-to-day management of the firm, which is supposed to be autonomous.

Ahyi singles out former Minister of Rural Development Jerome Sacca-Kina (1996-1998) for SONAPRA’s and the cotton industry’s current malaise. Sacca-Kina, who is a legislator, enjoys parliamentary immunity.

Ahyi has described Sacca-Kinna’s decision to encourage the establishment of raw cotton processing factories, immediately after he became minister in 1996, as unwise.

A total of five privately-owned new processing plants were established by the minister, as compared to three under the former regime of President Nicephore Soglo (1991-1996), in addition to eight SONAPRA-owned plants.

Critics believe that the increase in the number of plants to process more than 650,000 metric tonnes of raw cotton was unwise, since actual production was only 350,000 tonnes.

The minister’s second mistake, according to SONAPRA’s workers union, was the increase in the price of cotton paid to producers, which went up from 165 to 200 CFA francs per kilogramme in 1996, and to 225 CFA francs in 1997.

The two increases have been described by critics as “political prices to thank the producers after the election of President Mathieu Kerekou” in March, 1996.

“The consequence of this decision is the inability to control fluctuating prices” of cotton fiber on the world market, Ahyi claimed. World prices in cotton fiber are so low that it would be “suicidal for SONAPRA” to maintain the current price to producers at 225 CFA francs per kilogramme.

The union which, several months ago, demonstrated considerable distress discussing SONAPRA’s difficulties, is today ready for any solution which could help put the company back on track. The workers are even calling for privatisation, which might prevent the loss of jobs and salaries.

Ahyi says the workers agree that the buying price of cotton paid to producers should be lowered. He indicates that other countries in the sub-region have taken into account the world market price for cotton. Mali has set its price at 150 CFA francs and Burkina-Faso at 160 CFA francs.

SONAPRA workers expect the Beninois government to reduce the price and align itself more ith neighbours Mali and Burkina Faso, who are important cotton producers.

Excerpt:

By Ali Idrissou-Toure
COTONOU, Nov 13 1999 (IPS)

More and more girls are going to school in Benin’s southwestern region of Couffo, thanks to a World Food Programme (WFP) initiative which distributes “dry rations” to impoverished parents.

Known in Pakistan and Morocco as “Food for Learning”, and “Food Aid In The Service of Instruction”, the project, launched in Benin in November 1998, offers parents a 50-kilogramme bag of rice and a 4-litre can of cooking oil for every girl register at school.

Many poor parents, who normally would resist sending their daughters to school, are now enrolling four or five of them with the promise of food for each one. Some expressed astonishment at the large amount of food they receive, according to the WFP Representative in Benin, Hippolyte Togonou.

In just one school year (1998-1999), the number of girls enrolled in ten village schools under the WFP project rose considerably, even reversing the previous boy-girl ratio in favour of girls.

For example, the number of girls at the public primary school in Dohodji rose from 25 to 107, an increase of 328 percent. WFP’s educational campaign was particularly successful in this village.

In neighbouring villages of Gnigbandjime and Dekandji II, the number of girls rose from 19 to 72 and from 21 to 55, increases of 279 and 161.9 percent, respectively.

In the ten pilot schools where the WFP project was launched, inspired by the excellent results achieved in Morocco, the rate of attendance by girls had never before reached the 30 percent mark, or barely one girl for every four boys.

Some 92 percent of the 768 girls enrolled in school during the first trimester maintained the attendance required by the project for their families to continue receiving the dry rations benefit.

According to the 1998 WFP annual report, the project supported efforts by Beninois officials to break down certain traditional cultural barriers against the education of girls and their integration into modern society.

“For the hungriest and poorest parents, the promise of food assistance is sometimes the only way they’ll allow their girls to go to school”, says WFP’s executive director, Catherine Bertini.

Today, many parents in the ten villages where the programme is underway, the WFP says, would allow their daughters to continue school even if the free distribution of rations were to end.

Indeed, an increasing number of mothers now say they “no longer consider the education of their daughters as a waste of time and money, but as a step toward improving the quality of their lives”.

Togonou says WFP will continue to encourage girls’ school attendance in the ten villages in Couffo.

He says research to choose more pilot schools for the “food aid for the education of girls” programme is already underway in Atacora, another of Benin’s poorer regions, in the northwest, where the rate of enrollment of girls in school is even worse less than 20 percent.

Bertini hopes that once the practice to send girls to school becomes a habit, “the old prejudices will crumble, and girls will be able to pursue their education even further”. “The future for girls, women, their families and communities will continue to glow brighter and brighter”.

Excerpt:

By Ali Idrissou-Toure
COTONOU, Nov 13 1999 (IPS)

Stakeholders in Benin are counting the losses incurred during last week’s labour unrest.

The three-day strike (Nov 2-4) by customs agents was responsible for the loss in revenue of more than 500 million CFA francs per day, according to an official from one of the agents’ two unions.

One US Dollar is equal to 600 CFA francs.

But Abdoulaye Bio Tchane, Benin’s Minister of Finance and Economy, in an interview with a Cotonou newspaper, said the losses were more than that revealed by the unions.

“Economically, customs duties, taxes, bring in to the treasury an average of 900 million CFA francs a day”, he said.

Most customs units nationwide appeared to have Zinkpe, secretary-general of the National Union of Customs Workers (SYNTRAD), said merchandise remained in the warehouse during the unrest.

To ease the situation, during the strike, some airport officials were assigned to inspect traveller baggage, a job normally handled by customs officials.

Only two shipments of perishable goods received

Sinkpe said customs operations at the port alone net the government between 300 and 400 million CFA francs each day, a figure representing 85 percent of the customs receipts for the entire country.

The activities of trucking and was a gesture of solidarity with Benin’s five main civil service labour organisations, who recently embarked on strike to demand salary increment.

The two customs unions, among others, demanded he unions, the commission is composed not only of people unfamiliar with customs procedures, but also with those who meddle in their work. They accused the commission of being responsible for the 2 billion CFA francs drop in receipts for the month of September alone.

The unions also are demanding that “the execution of control and inspection operations” be carried out in the future “exclusively by the department of General Finance Inspection”.

Before the labour unrest, President Mathieu Kez/mn/99)

Excerpt:

By Ali Idrissou-Toure
COTONOU, Nov 12 1999 (IPS)

Stakeholders in Benin are counting the losses incurred during last week’s labour unrest.

The three-day strike (Nov 2-4) by customs agents was responsible for the loss in revenue of more than 500 million CFA francs per day, according to an official from one of the agents’ two unions.

One US Dollar is equal to 600 CFA francs.

But Abdoulaye Bio Tchane, Benin’s Minister of Finance and Economy, in an interview with a Cotonou newspaper, said the losses were more than that revealed by the unions.

“Economically, customs duties, taxes, bring in to the treasury an average of 900 million CFA francs a day”, he said.

Most customs units nationwide appeared to have observed the strike, especially at the port and airport of Cotonou, the country’s economic hub.

Emmanuel Zinkpe, secretary-general of the National Union of Customs Workers (SYNTRAD), said merchandise remained in the warehouse during the unrest.

To ease the situation, during the strike, some airport officials were assigned to inspect traveller baggage, a job normally handled by customs officials.

Only two shipments of perishable goods received special permission to be picked up from the port, according to sources close to customs administration.

Sinkpe said customs operations at the port alone net the government between 300 and 400 million CFA francs each day, a figure representing 85 percent of the customs receipts for the entire country.

The activities of trucking and storage companies at the port were also paralysed as a result of the unions’ strike.

The labour action was a gesture of solidarity with Benin’s five main civil service labour organisations, who recently embarked on strike to demand salary increment.

The two customs unions, among others, demanded the immediate cancellation of an Aug 17 presidential decree which created an “ad hoc commission in charge of investigating the existence of a smuggling ring among customs workers at the port of Cotonou”.

According to the unions, the commission is composed not only of people unfamiliar with customs procedures, but also with those who meddle in their work. They accused the commission of being responsible for the 2 billion CFA francs drop in receipts for the month of September alone.

The unions also are demanding that “the execution of control and inspection operations” be carried out in the future “exclusively by the department of General Finance Inspection”.

Before the labour unrest, President Mathieu Kerekou threatened to sack all the striking customs officials if they went ahead with their strike. He did not.

Excerpt:

By Ali Idrissou-Toure
COTONOU, Nov 11 1999 (IPS)

More and more girls are going to school in Benin’s southwestern region of Couffo, thanks to a World Food Programme (WFP) initiative which distributes “dry rations” to impoverished parents.

Known in Pakistan and Morocco as “Food for Learning”, and “Food Aid In The Service of Instruction”, the project, launched in Benin in November 1998, offers parents a 50-kilogramme bag of rice and a 4-litre can of cooking oil for every girl register at school.

Many poor parents, who normally would resist sending their daughters to school, are now enrolling four or five of them with the promise of food for each one. Some expressed astonishment at the large amount of food they receive, according to the WFP Representative in Benin, Hippolyte Togonou.

In just one school year (1998-1999), the number of girls enrolled in ten village schools under the WFP project rose considerably, even reversing the previous boy-girl ratio in favour of girls.

For example, the number of girls at the public primary school in Dohodji rose from 25 to 107, an increase of 328 percent. WFP’s educational campaign was particularly successful in this village.

In neighbouring villages of Gnigbandjime and Dekandji II, the number of girls rose from 19 to 72 and from 21 to 55, increases of 279 and 161.9 percent, respectively.

In the ten pilot schools where the WFP project was launched, inspired by the excellent results achieved in Morocco, the rate of attendance by girls had never before reached the 30 percent mark, or barely one girl for every four boys.

Some 92 percent of the 768 girls enrolled in school during the first trimester maintained the attendance required by the project for their families to continue receiving the dry rations benefit.

According to the 1998 WFP annual report, the project supported efforts by Beninois officials to break down certain traditional cultural barriers against the education of girls and their integration into modern society.

“For the hungriest and poorest parents, the promise of food assistance is sometimes the only way they’ll allow their girls to go to school”, says WFP’s executive director, Catherine Bertini.

Today, many parents in the ten villages where the programme is underway, the WFP says, would allow their daughters to continue school even if the free distribution of rations were to end.

Indeed, an increasing number of mothers now say they “no longer consider the education of their daughters as a waste of time and money, but as a step toward improving the quality of their lives”.

Togonou says WFP will continue to encourage girls’ school attendance in the ten villages in Couffo.

He says research to choose more pilot schools for the “food aid for the education of girls” programme is already underway in Atacora, another of Benin’s poorer regions, in the northwest, where the rate of enrollment of girls in school is even worse less than 20 percent.

Bertini hopes that once the practice to send girls to school becomes a habit, “the old prejudices will crumble, and girls will be able to pursue their education even further”. “The future for girls, women, their families and communities will continue to glow brighter and brighter”.

Excerpt:

By Ali Idrissou-Toure
COTONOU, Nov 10 1999 (IPS)

Stakeholders in Benin are counting the losses incurred during last week’s labour unrest.

The three-day strike (Nov 2-4) by customs agents was responsible for the loss in revenue of more than 500 million CFA francs per day, according to an official from one of the agents’ two unions.

One US Dollar is equal to 600 CFA francs.

But Abdoulaye Bio Tchane, Benin’s Minister of Finance and Economy, in an interview with a Cotonou newspaper, said the losses were more than that revealed by the unions.

“Economically, customs duties, taxes, bring in to the treasury an average of 900 million CFA francs a day”, he said.

Most customs units nationwide appeared to have Zinkpe, secretary-general of the National Union of Customs Workers (SYNTRAD), said merchandise remained in the warehouse during the unrest.

To ease the situation, during the strike, some airport officials were assigned to inspect traveller baggage, a job normally handled by customs officials.

Only two shipments of perishable goods received

Sinkpe said customs operations at the port alone net the government between 300 and 400 million CFA francs each day, a figure representing 85 percent of the customs receipts for the entire country.

The activities of trucking and was a gesture of solidarity with Benin’s five main civil service labour organisations, who recently embarked on strike to demand salary increment.

The two customs unions, among others, demanded he unions, the commission is composed not only of people unfamiliar with customs procedures, but also with those who meddle in their work. They accused the commission of being responsible for the 2 billion CFA francs drop in receipts for the month of September alone.

The unions also are demanding that “the execution of control and inspection operations” be carried out in the future “exclusively by the department of General Finance Inspection”.

Before the labour unrest, President Mathieu Kez/mn/99)

Excerpt:

By Ali Idrissou-Toure
COTONOU, Nov 3 1999 (IPS)

The Beninois government is facing social unrest as parliament begins to debate the 2000 budget.

According to an official statement, Benin’s provisional budget of 627.1 billion CFA francs, leaves “a 124.5-billion-CFA-franc deficit which will be covered by foreign aid”.

One US Dollar is equal to about 600 CFA francs.

The statement, made available to IPS this week, specifies the economic and financial constraints under which the government should operate. “The budget for the fiscal year 2000 is compatible with the macro-economic goals set by the Third Structural Adjustment Programme (PAS III),” it says.

But enraged labour groups, whose membership is estimated 32,000- strong, mainly civil servants, have already embarked on a series of strikes. They say they have had enough since the structural adjustment programme (SAP), which has affected workers’ living standards, was introduced in the impoverished West African nation ten years ago.

The unions are particularly enraged by the government’s decision to freeze contractual pay increases since 1994.

The government has offered to pay the 1994 raise only if the unions agree to a merit pay scheme. The law, relating to the controversial scheme, adopted by the National Assembly last year, is being contested by the unions.

The unions have refused to discuss the scheme with the government. The government claims the scheme has been imposed by the international funding organisations to save money to bridge Benin’s budget gap.

According to the Minister of Civil Service, Ousmane Batoko, the government has no money to pay benefits to public employees. The 1994 raise, for example, Batoko says, will cost the government “6 billion CFA francs”.

The government has, however, conceded to the other benefit — 2.5 billion CFA francs — for teachers, the police and health care workers.

“These benefits translate to an increase of about 11 percent in total wages, from 69.5 billion in 1999 to 77.2 billion in the year 2000”, the statement says.

The five main civil service labour confederations began a 72- hour strike on Monday.

While negotiations continue with the labour confederations, two customs unions, met last week in the capital Cotonou, and threatened to stage a three-day solidarity strike with the other workers, starting Nov 2.

The customs unions also have announced their decision to observe a second 72-hour strike starting Nov 8 to protest the deployment of untrained personnel in the collection of duties, which they say has resulted in a drop in revenues.

The customs unions are also demanding that a presidential decree which created an ad hoc commission to investigate rumours of a smuggling ring among customs agents and in the port of Cotonou be annulled.

The commission, the unions claim, has caused a drop in receipts, estimated at 2 billion CFA francs in September alone. Customs officials are upset.

At the university of Benin, an entire level of teaching staff on strike for several days successfully barred the release of second session examination results. The teachers are demanding that they be reclassified as assistant professors, after having gone through a probationary period in the early 1990s.

As 1999 comes to a close, Benin appears to be caught in a spiral of strikes for higher pay, while debate on the 2000 budget has barely begun in the National Assembly.

Excerpt:

By Ali Idrissou-Toure
COTONOU, Oct 28 1999 (IPS)

A new refugee camp, with a capacity to accommodate 1,200 persons, has been built in Kpomasse, about 40 kilometers southwest of the Beninois capital of Cotonou, for asylum seekers from around Africa.

Built on 11 hectares donated by the Beninois government, the centre is a permanent structure which cost 903 million CFA francs, financed in large part by the UN High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR).

One US Dollar is equal to 600 CFA francs.

Besides the government’s contribution of land, the state-run Beninois Water and Electricity Company (SBEE) installed water, electricity and other utility lines worth 212,310 CFA francs, as part of its contribution.

Additional financial aid to the tune of 95,189 million CFA francs was contributed by the Beninois-Belgian Development Fund. Another group, the Songhai Centre, a local non-governmental organisation, contributed by overseeing the work on the project.

The centre consists of 12 residential “villages”, each of which housing 100 refugees. According to a construction technician, the centre’s living quarters offer “all the conveniences of modern design and blend in keeping with natural surroundings”.

Though its optimal capacity is 1200 people, the centre could lodge, says the technician, up to 5,000 if tents, so common in refugee camps, were used.

In addition to housing, the centre includes vocational training facilities, a three-classroom elementary school module for refugee children, administrative offices, and complete plumbing and electrical installations, fed by two giant generators.

Also on site is a dispensary and a health centre, a complete computer setup connected to the Internet, and a recreational room.

Albert Alain Peters, the director of UNHCR’s Africa bureau, who co-officiated the inauguration ceremony last week, describes Kpomasse as “a transit centre designed for the social integration of our brothers and sisters in distress”.

Some 730 Congolese refugees from the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), 200 Nigerians, and some 100 Togolese live in Kpomasse. Some of the Congolese may eventually be resettled in the United States, a well-informed source told IPS.

Burundian, Rwandan, Sudanese and Omani refugees also live at the centre. They all participated in the colourful inauguration ceremonies and presented beautiful paintings and dances from their respective countries.

Through their dances and African rhythms, the refugees “succeeded in transforming the memories of the unfortunate victims of barbaric and blind violence” that they had left behind in their countries, says an observer, deeply moved.

According to Peters, Benin has welcomed the “unfortunate victims of violence and social injustice” since independence from France in 1960. The refugees include those who fled Nigeria’s Biafra war (1968-1972), the Togo unrest (1993) and the political disturbances in the Ogoniland in Nigeria (1995).

According to the Beninois Interior Minister, Daniel Tawema, who represented the government at the ceremonies, the refugee question “became a major problem for Benin in 1993, when 150,000 Togolese refugees were welcomed into Beninois homes”.

Tawema urged the refugees to live in “peace, and tranquility…in Kpomasse lodging centre”. He also appealed for their “patience, understanding, wisdom, and solidarity”.

As of January 1999, Africa counted some 3.3 million refugees and 2.1 million displaced people, making up about one-third of the world total of 16.8 million, according to the UNHCR.

Excerpt:

By Ali Idrissou-Toure
COTONOU, Oct 22 1999 (IPS)

More than 90 Beninois teachers, hired to teach French in Nigeria, have refused to return to the West African country, citing poor remuneration and poor conditions of living.

The teachers claim that they did not receive the benefit package they had been promised by the Beninois officials who sent them to Nigeria. They also claim they did not get health coverage which had been paid for by French and Belgian aid organisations.

Benin also did not pay its share of their contracted salary. The only money the teachers received, during the 1998-1999 academic year, was a salary advance from the Nigerian government.

Secondary school teachers in Nigeria receive humble remuneration of about 10,000 nairas, or about 100 US Dollars per month.

The Beninois teachers got through their first year with extreme difficulty, especially those placed in areas without government housing or potable water. Several among them fell ill.

Living and working conditions were so harsh that when the teachers returned to Benin for vacation, they spoke out publicly against their plight. The project had been initiated by former Nigerian president General Sani Abacha, and executed by Benin’s former Minister of Planning and Job Development, Albert Tevoedjre.

A month after students returned to school, the Beninois teachers are refusing to return to Nigeria. They have met Mathieu Kerekou, Benin’s head of state, who sympathised with them in the presence of several ministers and top journalists.

“You were left to fend for yourselves. The project was poorly planned and accorded little study”, Kerekou said. “Benin was looking to put its unemployed graduates to work but you were shunted off without serious preparation”.

Kerekou said Abacha requested French teachers after proclaiming French to be Nigeria’s second official language. He said Nigeria’s new president, Olusegun Obasanjo, had been caught unaware of the project and therefore had not included it in his budget.

Kerekou promised to contact his Nigerian counterpart and find a solution to the problem in order to allow the project to carry on.

Observers in Benin expressed surprise over Kerekou’s statement that the new Nigerian president had no knowledge of the project. In spite of administrative changes, governments always have mechanisms to provide continuity, they said.

A daily paper in Benin reprinted the joint communique signed and made public by Abacha’s successor, General Abdul Salami Abubakar, and Kerekou on Sept 13, 1998 after a visit by the Nigerian president.

In the communique, Abubakar expressed “keen desire” to witness the kick-off of the programme to send Beninois teachers to Nigeria as soon as the protocol for project was signed.

Many Nigerian intellectuals believe that Abacha got the idea to proclaim French Nigeria’s second official language as a reaction to Nigeria’s suspension from the Commonwealth, an organisation which groups former British colonies, when his government executed Ogoni writer Ken Saro Wiwa and eight of his colleagues in 1995.

Benin’s responsibility for the programme’s failure has also been challenged.

Meeting Beninois teachers last week, President Kerekou blamed the former Minister of Planning of having diverted Japanese aid money destined for the Nigerian French teaching programme.

In addition to their teacher training tuition, the Planning Minister said that the 90 teachers each received an equipment allowance of 200,000 CFA francs prior to leaving for Nigeria. While still in Benin, they also received, in 1997 the year they were hired an inclusive salary of between 66,000 and 77,000 CFA francs, depending on whether they possessed a bachelor’s or master’s degree.

One US Dollar is equal to 562 CFA francs.

At its inception, Abacha’s original vision was hugely ambitious. Not only was his goal to recruit 1000 Beninois teachers of French, but he also planned to bring in additional teachers from other French-speaking neighbours, Niger, Togo, and Chad.

Excerpt:

By Ali Idrissou-Toure
COTONOU, Oct 15 1999 (IPS)

The West African state of Benin has just concluded a joint contract to resume oil production after nearly a year’s hiatus.

The 44.5-million-dollar contract, approximately 27 billion CFA francs, was signed with the multinational Zetah Oil Company. It is estimated that approximately 22 million barrels worth of oil remain hidden underground in Seme, a region in southwest Benin.

Seme installation, Benin’s sole oilfield, was shut down in December 1998, after 16 years of unprofitable operations.

During the first 12 years of oil drilling, the installation incurred debts worth 28 billion CFA francs, which was written off, thanks to the donor community.

From 1982 to 1998, 22 million barrels of crude oil produced brought in a total 138.9 billion CFA francs, of which Benin only kept 2.6 billion CFA francs.

The industry ran at a deficit during the past few years, it’s income not even sufficient to cover expenses. With broken underwater pipelines, 97 percent of extraction consisted of water, and, the remaining three percent oil, toward the end of last year.

A deficit of more than a billion CFA francs was posted by the now defunct state-run Seme Petroleum Project (PPS) in 1998, the last year of operation before it was closed down in 1998. Benin paid 300 million CFA francs of that debt, while Zetah has agreed to write off the balance of the 700 million CFA francs, according to the terms of the new contract.

While officials in Benin were looking for funds to dismantle the dilapidated Seme fields and to rehabilitate the environment, Zetah made known its interest in the remaining oil deposits.

The 25-year contract, signed with Zetah, seems to be a last- ditch effort to salvage Benin’s offshore oil operation.

Zetah, based in Cote d’Ivoire, and enjoys oil interests in Republic of Congo and Gabon, will provide the 44.5 million dollars necessary to rehabilitate the Seme installation.

According to the contract, Seme’s platform and the marine pipelines will all be rebuilt, and the 2,000-metre-deep wells reconditioned.

Zetah’s chief, Denis Christian Tetegan, says he expects future production to average 2,500 to 5,000 barrels daily.

As soon as the oil starts flowing to the market, Benin will receive 22 percent of the profits, according to the contract. This optimism stems from the rising price of oil on the world market, which has jumped to 20 dollars per barrel from only six several years ago.

In addition to paying the PPS’s old debt, the contract will provide additional economic incentives for Benin. Felix Essou Dansou, Benin’s Minister of Energy, says the accord holds other immediate financial benefits as well, most notably, the promise of “additional financial resources”.

He says the contract will create jobs and allow for the recruitment and training of personnel, including those laid off by the PPS.

Other advantages include Zetah’s provision of dismantling costs at the end of the contract period, special oilfield technical installations to ensure safe maritime navigation and prevent explosions and petroleum contamination of the ocean environment. The value of the dismantling programme is estimated at some 18 million US Dollars.

The resumption of drilling at Seme will help improve the country’s standing in the Association of African Oil Producers (APPA), which is based in Benin.

According to Tetegan, Zetah is a new oil company operating mostly in the “marginal oil fields” of several African countries. The contract, signed in Cotonou, provides for natural gas exploration as well, with an eye toward eventual extraction.

Petroleum provides only a small fraction of Benin’s total economy, which is heavily dependent on the export of cotton.

Excerpt:

By Ali Idrissou-Toure
COTONOU, Sep 24 1999 (IPS)

A network of women’s non-governmental groups have criticised the delay in the implementation of Benin’s decentralisation plan, announced by officials five years ago.

“We lament the fact there’s been a huge delay in beginning decentralisation in Benin,” said Solange Legonou, coordinator of the Programme to Integrate Women in the Process of Sustainable Development (PIFED), the umbrella group for four Beninese NGOs.

According to Legonou, four of the five laws necessary for the decentralisation plan to go into effect were voted on by the National Assembly a year ago and promulgated by the president. Only the fifth law, the one regarding the electoral law for municipalities, is still stalled in Parliament.

“People are beginning to wonder about the delay on voting for this final law, which is holding up the entire decentralisation process,” added Legonou, who is a jurist and sociologist.

Once put into effect, decentralisation would mean that most of the prerogatives for the administrative and financial management of local communities, which now depend on the central government in Cotonou, would be handed over to Benin’s 77 administrative districts.

Therefore, it is necessary to decentralise government for local communities to create and manage their own resources. This will give the localities greater self-sufficiency and facilitate better and more sustainable development, Legonou said.

The four NGOs have been working for quite awhile at involving women in the decentralisation process, and are anxious to see it come to fruition.

Last August, the PIFED organised a four day workshop in Cotonou to train both NGO officials and organisers on “the participation of women in the decentralisation of Benin”.

The workshop aimed to give the NGOs, which have day-to-day contact with the population, a “better understanding of the place and role of women in the decentralisation process.

“In addition, it afforded women with an opportunity to better grasp the language of decentralisation, so they could explain it better and pass the message along to all the women out there,” said the programme’s coordinator.

“For we women, decentralisation is a windfall, an opportunity we’re being offered by the country to jumpstart sustainable and organised development,” according to Legonou.

“Our programme’s main mission is to give women the chance to speak their minds and find their rightful places in development projects,”she added.

“Women have always contributed to the development of the country, but without being recognised. If they can be involved in the decision-making process, they’ll be better able to master the ins and outs of decentralisation and they’ll be able to take part with both pride and enthusiasm,” Legonou said.

After the training workshop, the PIFED began a month-long public opinion poll throughout Benin to “take stock of women’s problems related to decision-making processes at every level – at home, in the community, and in the nation,” explained the programme coordinator.

The programme intends to draw up a platform which will be based on the results of the poll. “This platform will be a tool that the NGO network will use as a basis for telling political decision- makers what women’s vision of decentralisation is”.

Legonou said that 70 women’s groups scattered throughout Benin were interviewed by teams created especially for conducting the poll.

This information will be presented during a special workshop, where each of the polled groups will be represented, and to officials and organisers from the network NGOs.

The PIFED programme, according to the coordinator, is the African branch of an American programme called “Global Women in Politics”(GWIP), which had a special interest in starting a project in Benin.

The four NGOs working in PIFED are Dignity for Women, the African NGO and Association Network for the Integration of Women (RIFONGA), the Research Organisation for Human Development (ORDH), and the Organisation of Women for Energy Management, the Environment and the Promotion of Integrated Development (OFEDI). The programme is financed by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).

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By Ali Idrissou-Toure
COTONOU, Jul 28 1999 (IPS)

An army of black caterpillars have invaded farmlands in northern Benin, leaving behind a trail of destruction and tears.

The caterpillars, commonly known as “legionnaire”, measure between five and 10 centimetres and have the capability of devastating a square metre of cornfield in just 30 minutes, according to a rural development officer at Kobrikonto, a village 25 kilometers west of the northern city of Parakou.

“These worms can destroy an entire field full of crops in just one day,” says the Association of Journalists for Environmental Education, a non-governmental organisation (ngo), based in Cotonou, the capital of Benin.

The Association has warned that the worms will spread beyond the affected region, if urgent measures are not taken to stop their spread.

“These black caterpillars attack corn, sorghum, rice and all edible vegetation. But they’re not interested in yams, and certain types of beans,” explains a plant protection officer at Kobrikonto.

Worou Soro, a farmer in the village, complains that the caterpillars “have the appetite of a horse”.

His colleague, Worou Alassane, agrees. “These nasty pests come on like a marauding army all dressed in black. When they start in on a field, they often attack the plants as a group”.

“In no time the field looks as if nothing had ever been planted there”, she says.

The most affected areas include Kouande, Pehunco, Djougou, N’Dali, Tchaourou and Parakou. The pace of the infestation has been described by farmers and local agriculture officials as fascinating.

“I was in my courtyard last Saturday at about 5 PM local time when I saw one of the caterpillars. Between the time I went into my bedroom and came out again, they were everywhere, all over the ground and the walls… And they don’t even have wings”, says a local agriculture official in the region.

The caterpillar can travel approximately 10 kilometers in four days, according to the official, who declined to be named. An excited farmer told IPS that, “In my 40 years in Kobrikonto, I have never seen such a thing.”

The Association has called upon the government to eliminate the worms immediately. It says grain production would be seriously effected, if no action is taken against the caterpillars.

The Association also has urged Benin to introduce an early warning system to monitor and inform farmers about potential invasion by the worms in the future.

According to the state-run Beninois plant protection service, the agriculture officials in the affected region were only informed of the invasion three weeks ago. Since then, two teams have been dispatched to Borgou and Atacora to monitor the situation.

The teams have been charged with identifying and destroying the worms, mostly with insecticides which have been proven to be effective against the caterpillars, whose lifespan is estimated to be about three days.

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By Ali Idrissou-Toure
COTONOU, Jul 22 1999 (IPS)

A confirmation by a leading Beninois rights group that more than 100 dead bodies have been spotted along the coast of Benin and Togo strengthens Amnesty International’s claims of state involvement in the murder of dissidents and army personnel.

The London-based human rights watchdog, Amnesty International, claims in a May report, titled “Togo: State of Terror”, that hundreds of people were summarily executed by the dreaded secret police, during Togo’s presidential election campaign in June 1998.

“Bodies were found on the beaches of Togo and Benin, and corpses were seen floating in the Atlantic Ocean during at least four days off the coast of Benin”, the report alleges.

At the end of a six-week investigation, the League for the Defence of Human Rights of Benin says the bodies have, indeed, been discovered off the Benin coast, validating the accusation which has pitted Amnesty International against the Togolese government.

According to the League, fishermen acknowledged having seen “some 60 corpses being tossed about by the waves.”

“The bodies resembled a troupe of floating sheep. They were clothed only in their underwear”, it says.

“The local community organised many funeral ceremonies required by local customs prior to burying the bodies washed up by the water”, says the League’s chairperson, Julien Togbadja, who supplied photographs to back up their claims of the graves.

“We’ve seen the graves where they were buried; there are many corroborating accounts and some revelations too; there were so many individuals checking things out during our probe that we had no problem confirming Amnesty International’s contentions”, says Togbadja.

The report says the League gathered information in every Beninois village on the Atlantic coast where bodies might have washed up or been seen drifting in the waters nearby. The investigators questioned everyone who might have been able to provide reliable information, it says.

Togbadja, however, acknowledges that the investigation had not been easy, as local people were wary of reprisals and intimidation from Beninois and Togolese authorities, and were not immediately eager to cooperate.

The league says the discovery of the bodies dates back to 1993, a year marked by political crisis in Togo and an influx of Togolese refugees in Benin and to 1998, during the June presidential election.

The Togolese government challenged the Amnesty International report and initiated a lawsuit against its secretary-general, Pierre Sane.

Beninois Defence Minister, Pierre Osho, has also refuted the report, claiming that local Beninois officials have not been made aware of any bodies washed up on their beaches.

The state-run Beninois Commission on Human Rights only mentioned, in its July 6 report, bodies of victims drowning, due to accidents. However, the League argues that some of the bodies were discovered and buried in the presence of local authorities.

Togbadja says Beninois officials have also been invited to Togo, where they were received by head of state Gnassigbe Eyadema. After their discussion, Togbadja claims, the officials denied on Togolese television that bodies had washed up along their coasts “for a sum of 30,000 CFA francs each”.

One US dollar is equal to 550 CFA francs.

The League has demanded to be included in the proposed international commission of inquiry, which will, among its brief, open up the graves and try to match buried objects with the belongings of those washed up on shore.

The commission will also “search the files of the secret police in both Benin and Togo…and do a breakdown of Togolese servicemen. In particular, it will match the number of Togolese army personnel stationed in Lome before and after the 1998 presidential elections.”

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By Ali Idrissou-Toure
COTONOU, Jul 13 1999 (IPS)

Sefou Fagbohoun, a Beninois businessman, who is also the president of Continental Petroleum and Investment Company (CPI), has become a majority shareholder in Benin’s largest National Society of Petroleum Product Marketing (SONACOP).

CPI, a subsidiary of the Fagbohoun Group, settled its remaining installment of 8.25 billion CFA francs for a 55-percent share of SONACOP, on June 30.

One US Dollar is equal to 550 CFA francs.

The Group also acquired a 10-percent share, worth 1.5 billion CFA francs, reserved for SONACOP’s 400 employees, which the new company plans to retain. The government will continue to hold 35 percent of SONACOP’s shares.

Dieudonne Lokossou, a top SONACOP union official, welcomes the CPI’s decision to acquire the company. For the 400 employees, the purchase means that “SONACOP’s money will stay in Benin”.

“SONACOP is a high-return company”, says Lokossou. Created in December 1974, the state-owned enterprise had a turnover of 66.546 billion CFA francs in 1998, before remitting 17.466 billion in taxes, he notes.

The Minister of Finance and Economy, Abdoulaye Bio Tchane, urged the CPI “to increase SONACOP’s turnover” so as to raise more tax for government.

After winning the bid, Fagbohoun says, “it’s not Fagbohoun who has come out on top, but all Beninois.”

“If I fail,” he says, “it’ll be all Benin who would have failed.”

The Minister of State, in charge of Planning, Economic and Job Creation, Bruno Amoussou, also welcomed SONACOP’s takeover by “a native Beninois”.

“No country has ever been able to develop when its decision- making centres are based abroad”, Amoussou says. “It’s the only way our economy will get a chance to take off in this global competition.”

Since Benin and the World Bank signed the 1995 Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP), obliging the government to privatise SONACOP, the West African state has witnessed a wave of activities to privatise the country’s loss-making, state-owned corporations.

SONACOP beat out eight other petroleum companies: Oryx-Benin, Mobil, Total-Outre-Mer, Elf Oil Africa, Shell, Tamoil, Texaco, and Sonangol.

Benin’s Technical and Denationalisation Commission, which oversees privatisation of state-owned enterprises, says bidders were obliged to meet a number of requirements, including references, a five-year development plan, a detailed wage plan, and a proposed timetable and conditions for carrying out the operation.

After the evaluation of the bidders’ offers by Beninois officials, CPI and the ELF-TOTAL, a French multinational corporation, were chosen as the front-runners on Dec 1.

SONACOP workers had feared that ELF-TOTAL would take over the company.

But a press statement, issued by the Council of Ministers, said the government rejected ELF-TOTAL’s bid for demanding a revision in price structure and insisting upon a minimum 15-percent profit after taxes.

CPI’s offer was accepted because it “was comprehensive and conformed to the rules of the invitation to tender”. In addition, CPI advocated a policy of a joint local venture, tapping the technical assistance of two international firms (in Switzerland and France), the press statement said.

The government said the TOTAL Group had, in March 1998, offered 4.4 billion CFA francs for 55 percent of the capital, during the first round of bidding, which was rejected.

The flambouyant Fagbohoun is not only a businessman but also a politician, close to President Mathieu Kerekou. He is the leader of the African Movement for Democracy and Progress (MADEP), which has six deputies in Parliament and a government minister.

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By Ali Idrissou-Toure
COTONOU, Jul 12 1999 (IPS)

Some 70 billion CFA francs have disappeared from the state coffers in the West African state of Benin in the past three years, a report by a presidential commission has revealed.

One US Dollar is equal to about 550 CFA francs.

The commission, which concluded its investigation on Jul 1, has delivered a batch of dossiers to President Mathieu Kerekou, bearing the acronyms of the ministries suspected to have been involved in the graft. The commission did not provide any details.

But Leontine Idohou, the commission’s vice-president, discloses that 167 files have been compiled, and that the financial losses have amounted to some 70 billion CFA francs.

Local newspapers say suspected legislators and government officials will soon be investigated. However, no names have been mentioned yet.

According to sources close to the commission, the biggest financial discrepancies were found in the books of two major state- owned companies: the National Agricultural Promotion Society (SONAPRA), and the National Petroleum Product Marketing Society (SONACOP), both of which were privatised on June 30.

A half dozen director-generals were dismissed from large, state- owned enterprises between 1997 and 1998 for “bad management”. Those sacked were mainly from SONAPRA and SONACOP.

The 22-member commission, which had five support staff, was charged with probing the graft, beginning from April 9, 1996 to April 19, 1999. This period covers the first three years of Kerekou’s 5-year term presidency.

Kerekou, a former military leader, ruled Benin between 1986 and 1990.

The commission’s mandate was to take stock of all cases of missing funds at all levels of government and the state-controlled enterprises and agencies. Each case will be either submitted to the Council of Discipline, or to the Council of Ministers, or the Justice Department.

The commission was also charged with probing all cases of diverted funds still pending, either as a result of bureaucratic delays, or legal action.

Kerekou pledged during his election campaign to rid Benin of graft.

“My government is ready to get down to the task of checking and finalising all investigated cases of misappropriated funds between April 9, 1996 and April 19, 1999, with a view to instituting legal proceedings against the perpetrators in the appropriate courts”, he said in April.

Despite the fanfare, Beninois have remained sceptical about bringing the suspects to book. Most of those involved in the graft are already, publicly, known. And it is doubtful whether Kerekou will ever follow through on his threats.

This is mainly because none of the commissions he established between 1986 and 1990 had yielded any results. When former President Nicephore Soglo, who ruled Benin between 1990 and 1991, came to power, he, too, promised he would “restitute the property stolen by the grave-diggers of our national economy.”

However, the promise turned out to be a hollow one.

Sceptics believe that pressure from friends and relatives could result in a stifling of the commission’s conclusions, thus weakening the chances to bring the suspects, who siphon funds earmarked for development projects and salary, to justice.

On average, Benin, with a population of about 6 million people, spends 3 billion CFA francs each month to pay the salary of public employees.

The 1999 budget, estimated at some 335 billion francs, has a 100 billion franc deficit. To bridge the gap, the government is seeking assistance from the international banking community.

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By Ali Idrissou-Toure
COTONOU, Jun 23 1999 (IPS)

Farmers in Benin have refused to grow cotton unless last season’s remuneration, which amounts to 7 billion CFA franc, has been settled by the state-owned National Agricultural Promotion Company (SONAPRA).

One US Dollar is equal to 550 CFA francs.

According to sources close to the SONAPRA, cotton producers have barely put in their crop this season. By mid-June, only five percent of fields had been sown, compared to the usual 20 to 25 percent planted this time of the year.

The 450,000 tonnes of cotton, which Benin produces annually, is the country’s principal source of foreign currency revenue. It is also the state’s biggest source of funds, but which has been falling in the past few years.

In January, SONAPRA’s contribution to state coffers was only 3 billion CFA francs, or less than half the 6.7 billion budget for last year, according to the National Assembly’s budgetary committee.

SONAPRA, which invites tender for fertilizer order and markets cotton seed, also owes almost 3 billion CFA francs to local transporters.

A few months ago, the debt burden was even worse. The government was forced to borrow from European banks to help wipe out at least part of the slate clean.

SONAPRA claims it itself is a victim of clients who refuse to pay bills, totalling some 35 billion CFA francs, according to a recent official estimate.

The local media claim the root of SONAPRA’s problems are bad management. According to newspapers, the company handed over large quantities of cotton fiber to shady businessmen, providing no financial security.

Inoussa Yabara, the general director of SONAPRA, tried, in a statement on June 14, to “reassure the public, and farmers in particular of an ongoing and encouraging audit of SONAPRA’s debts vis-à-vis cotton seed producers”.

The statement attests that the bank loans made for this agricultural season are being managed well, even though, as the general director acknowledges, the on-going negotiations have been “very difficult”.

The company’s financial situation has barely improved, even though the Beninois head of state, Mathieu Kerekou, requested the assistance of consultants from Cote d’Ivoire to sort out the mess.

Kerekou chaired a meeting in April of all SONAPRA’s debtors, where a debt-recovery committee was created. However, no information has been made available on the committee’s progress, leaving many Beninois skeptical.

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