A Kenyan minister, whose suspension over corruption claims threw the government into chaos, has launched an attack on Prime Minister Raila Odinga.

Agriculture Minister William Ruto told the BBC he was not to blame for a huge scam involving illegal sales of maize.

He suggested Mr Odinga bore as much responsibility for the scandal.

The prime minister suspended him on Sunday only for President Mwai Kibaki to reverse the decision hours later – sparking a bitter power struggle.

The row threatens to tear apart the unity government, which was formed to end deadly riots after the 2007 election.

Mr Ruto had been an ally of Mr Odinga, but the two men have fallen out and are now bitter foes.

ICC inquiry welcomed

Officials in the agriculture ministry have been accused of illegally selling maize outside the country.

A recent audit found that $26m (£16.5m) was siphoned off from illegal sales.

But Mr Ruto told the BBC’s Focus on Africa programme he had nothing to hide, and suggested Mr Odinga was just as much to blame for the scandal.

“It must be understood that the prime minister himself was the chair of the sub-committee of cabinet that decided over the importation, the sale and the distribution of the maize,” he said.

“How come today that the prime minister can turn around and say that he wants to suspend me?”

A local rights group has named Mr Ruto as one of those suspected of orchestrating the post-election violence, which hit his Eldoret constituency particularly hard.

The International Criminal Court (ICC) has said it will investigate the riots, and Mr Ruto welcomed the inquiry.

“I am among the people who think the ICC should go ahead and investigate everybody, including myself,” he said.

The fighting began between supporters of Mr Odinga, who claimed he had been cheated out of victory, and those of Mr Kibaki, who won the election.

The violence went on for weeks, resulting in the deaths of 1,300 people and displacing tens of thousands.

President Jacob Zuma has appointed the current South African ambassador Welile Nhlapo as his new National Security Special Adviser and former transport minister Mac Maharaj as Special Envoy.

Zuma’s office, making the announcement on Friday, said the Presidency “will be greatly strengthened by these appointments. Both individuals bring to their positions extensive experience, expertise and knowledge.”

Nhlapo has previously served as Special Envoy to Burundi. He was the head of the technical team that assisted then-Deputy President Zuma in peace negotiations there.

After going went into exile in Botswana in 1974, Nhlapo served as the ANC Chief Representative in Botswana and joined the Department of Foreign Affairs in 1994.

In 1995 he was appointed South African Ambassador to Ethiopia and Permanent Representative to the Organisation of African Unity and the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa.

The Presidency notes in a potted biography that in 1998 he was appointed Deputy Director-General responsible for Africa in the Department of Foreign Affairs.

In 2001 he was appointed Head of the Presidential Support Unit which advised the Presidency on conflict situations in Africa and the Middle East. He assumed the post of Ambassador to the US in August 2007.

After 12 years in exile, Maharaj returned to South Africa as commander of Operation Vula. He served on the ANC National Executive Committee (NEC) and was a member of the SA Communist Party’s Political bureau and Central Committee.

Nhlapo and Maharaj’s exact mandates were not announced, although the former will likely play a role on the Cabinet-level National Security Council (NSC).

The NSC was the result of a Cabinet investigation set up in late 1999 to “investigate how the concept of national security should be reflected in the structure of the country and how this relates to operational security coordination,” according to a November 2000 ad hoc publication by the Institute of Strategic Studies at the University of Pretoria.

For the original article click here.

Former British soldier Simon Mann, who was jailed in Equatorial Guinea for his part in a coup plot, is expected to arrive back in the UK on Wednesday.

Mann, 57, had been sentenced to 34 years in prison, but he was pardoned on Tuesday along with four South Africans.

He is now thought to be with his sister and brother in the capital, Malabo, awaiting a flight back to Britain.

Mann admitted conspiring to oust Equatorial Guinea’s president, but said he was only “a pawn” in the plot.

In March 2004, police in Zimbabwe impounded a plane from South Africa. They arrested Mann and 63 others on board amid suspicions they were mercenaries plotting to overthrow President Teodoro Obiang Nguema.

The Briton served four years in a Zimbabwean jail before being extradited to Equatorial Guinea where he was tried and convicted.

He was sentenced to 34 years despite pleas from Mann’s lawyer that he had been “not a co-author” of the coup plot but “an accomplice”.

On Tuesday, an adviser to President Obiang, Miguel Mifuno, said that Mann had been released on humanitarian grounds related to his health – he had a hernia operation in 2008.

Mr Mifuno said: “Simon Mann conducted himself in exemplary fashion during his trial and his incarceration in Equatorial Guinea.

“He has had some health problems, and was operated on. He is now in good health but the president thinks he should now be allowed to live in peace with his family.”

Sources close to Mann have told the BBC’s security correspondent Frank Gardner that his release came as a huge shock to him.

They say negotiations have been going on for a year, but Mann knew nothing about the pardon until last week and his wife Amanda was kept in the dark until Monday evening in case it fell through.

In a statement earlier, his family said they were “absolutely delighted” at his release and were “profoundly grateful” to the president.

Equatorial Guinea’s ambassador to the UK Agustin Nze Nfumu told the BBC World Service that Mann’s brother and sister had travelled to the capital to greet him ahead of his return to the UK.

Mann, who used to live in Beaulieu, in Hampshire, has a son, born during his time in prison, that he has never seen.

Mann had implicated London-based Lebanese millionaire Ely Calil and Sir Mark Thatcher, son of UK former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, in the coup.

Sources in Scotland Yard’s Counter Terrorism Command have confirmed to the BBC that police do want to talk to Mann about those claims and are still investigating whether any offences relating to the coup were committed in the UK.

Sir Mark, who now lives in southern Spain, was fined and received a suspended sentence in South Africa in 2005 for unknowingly helping to finance the plot.

Upon Mann’s release, he said he was “delighted” that he would be reunited with his family. Mr Calil also said he was “thrilled” at the news.

Equatorial Guinea, an oil-rich former Spanish colony, has been ruled by President Obiang since he seized power from his uncle in 1979.

For the original article click here.

The decision by Kenyan Finance Minister Uhuru Kenyatta has proved controversial. In this regard questions have been raised as to how the VW vehicles were acquired and with whose authority. However in light of the EU’s close engagement in Kenya it was likely that one German marque would replace another.

Corruption is Dead, Long Live Corruption!

From Kenya’s NTV,

From Nic Borain,

We are all looking for signposts as to where Zuma’s government is going and where we will end up.

Joel Netshitenzhe’s resignation is an important signpost, but it is, perhaps, too early to make out which direction it is pointing in.

Here are some extracts of what the Young Communist League in Gauteng had to say (I picked up the press statement on the blog of my old friend, Ray Hartley, editor of The Times

The Young Communist League of South Africa (YCLSA) in Gauteng notes and welcomes the resignation of Joel Netshitenzhe as Director-General of the Policy Co-ordination and Advisory Services (Picas) in the Presidency. His departure signals an important moment within our society’s shift from the disastrous, failed neoliberal policies – such as the Growth, Employment and Redistribution strategy …

… Netshitenzhe was a central player within the 1996 Class Project that advanced these policies to appease both domestic and foreign capital, especially financiers … Netshitenzhe’s departure provides the ANC and its Alliance partners a strategic opportunity to champion a revolutionary agenda that transfers the wealth of our country to the people as a whole ….

The YCL goes on to lay the blame for service delivery protests at capitalism’s and Netshitenzhe’s door(s):

The ongoing service delivery protests, massive retrenchments in major industries, still-excessive interest rates, escalating food prices, skyrocketing unemployment rate, deepening inequalities and mass poverty will be seen as the legacy of policies championed by Netshitenzhe. In fact Netshitenzhe is a personification of the co-option of our cadres by capital. His 1996 Class Project watered-down the National Democratic Revolution, and prevented many of the advances we could have made after the 1994 democratic breakthrough.

President Zuma talked extensively and positively today about the role Joel has played in government, so the YCL in Gauteng should not be seen as having the last word on the meaning of the resignation of “Peter Mayibuye” (his nom de plume from the glory days). But it is important to keep an eye on what the youth wings of both the SACP and the ANC are saying – their views are often indicative – and a test – of where things are heading.

For the original article click here.

From the Daily Nation,

Burundi, which formally joined the East African Community (EAC) in June 2007, is becoming a popular destination for Kenyans looking for jobs and business deals beyond their own borders.

After years of civil war, the landlocked nation of about nine million people is rebuilding almost every sector of its economy, creating new opportunities in trade, education, agriculture and many other fields.

As in Uganda and to some extent Rwanda, resilient Kenyans are discovering that it is still possible to strike some luck in nearby East African destinations. And they do not have to endure the rigorous rituals of visa application like those who aspire to go to America, Britain and other Western destinations.

With only Sh5,000, one can hop onto a Kasoo or Akamba bus for the two-day journey via Uganda. By air, it takes less than two hours. Kenya Airways now operates two daily flights to Bujumbura to meet the rising demand, especially since the cessation of hostilities in Burundi.

But even before the guns from the 16-year civil war fell silent in Burundi, many daring Kenyans – mostly small-scale traders and students – had travelled there to seize opportunities and even made it a second home.

Ten years ago, Bernard Wanjohi, tired that his business in Nairobi’s Karanja Road in Kibera was taking long to bear fruit, decided to leave for Burundi.

“I entered Burundi from Mulavia, 50 km north of Bujumbura, on December 31, 1999,” he said in a telephone interview from Bujumbura. The 43-year-old Kenyan who operates a busy nyama choma (roasted meat) joint in Bukarama suburb of Bujumbura, says he has not heard a gunshot in the last two-and-a-half years.

When the civil war between majority Hutus and minority Tutsis raged on, it was the peasant farmers in the countryside who suffered the most. The residents of Bujumbura and its environs were fairly safe. Mr Wanjohi is full of praise for his new home. “It is peaceful. The people are friendly despite their culture of being very secretive and suspicious. The police have never harassed me here. There are no carjackings.”

Kenyans are also increasingly attracted by the low cost of living in Bujumbura, the affordable university education and the fact that the French-speaking nation is now adopting English as well.

Article 137 of the Treaty for the Establishment of EAC states that “the official language of the Community shall be English and Kiswahili and shall be developed as the lingua franca of the Community”. Burundians therefore have no option but to adapt to the language of integration.

English is now being taught in high school, and Kenyans are drawn to Burundi by teaching opportunities. King’s School in the Kabondo area of Bujumbura, which was started by missionaries as a rescue centre for orphans in 1994, at one time had a staff of 12 Kenyans, among them the principal, Mrs Debbie Kimani, a Briton married to a Kenyan.

Most of the pupils at King’s School are children of diplomats and business people. Bujumbura has a business community of Asian origin whose children go to the elite school.

Universities in Burundi have intensified the teaching of English, especially after the country joined EAC. Burundi cannot afford to stick to French as a national language; more so after neighbouring Rwanda switched to English in a move many believe is reinforced by President Kagame’s criticism of France for not doing enough to prevent the 1994 genocide.

Kenya has established an embassy at the PTA Bank building in downtown Bujumbura manned by a small staff.
Kenya Commercial Bank is headed there to open a branch. Oil giant Kobil was there last week saying it is establishing its presence there. There is also talk of a railway line being extended from Kampala to Bujumbura.

For the original article click here.

In reality, other than the requisite aid workers and diplomats, Bujumbura sees few foreigners. Years of ethnically charged conflict have left the country largely destitute although unlike Rwanda it is not a country which seems brutalized by its past.

Earlier this year, as part of CT2K, Africa Observed fulfilled a long-held ambition of visiting Burundi. Sailing on a Burundian-flagged cargo vessel from Mpulungu in Zambia, initial impressions of the country, or rather her people, were good. The captain was a polite and well-educated man while the crew and a clutch of Burundian passengers, refugees returning home, were surprisingly sophisticated.

While these individuals contradicted previous stereotypes of Burundi, so too did the country itself. On an arduous and unpredictable path to peace, opportunity nevertheless abounds in Burundi. Bujumbura has a Parisian feel, certainly one can buy a better croissant in the city than in Cape Town or Cairo. The smart (by African standards) cafes selling these pastries and other unlikely treats were buzzing when Africa Observed visited while the beaches and sports grounds north of the city were packed with playful people seemingly oblivious to their tortured past.

This optimism should not however cloud the difficulties of doing business in Burundi. While border posts were efficient considering the circumstances, it is a country with a minute domestic market and which is miles from anywhere. Yet there is money to be made especially if you are in banking, retail or telecommunications. This is bore out by the fact that foreign investors in these industries are piling in. These investors obviously believe the peace will hold and with the Great Lakes region finally settling down who can blame them.

Africa Observed dreams nightly, not only about Burundian cafe and croissants, but also about the many dollars to be made in the country.

The news earlier this week that South Africa’s Shoprite will not acquire OK Bazaars in Zimbabwe is significant and should not be passed over. Shoprite and its leaders Christo Wiese and Whitey Basson have blazed a trail across Africa and thrive in high-risk environments. Such markets have proved highly profitable for the African retail giant which remains poised to expand on the continent.

That Shoprite has decided against investing in Zimbabwe, a country on their doorstep,  while at the same time setting up shop in the devilish DRC, says a great deal. Shoprite know Africa  and are not afraid to give as good as they get. Their decision on Zimbabwe, which will no doubt have other investors running scared, highlights just how difficult the business environment in that country has become.

Wiese and Basson obviously don’t fancy doing business with Rautenbach and Bredenkamp. Neither does Africa Observed.