|
News
|
|
Page1 || Page2 || Page3 || Page4
|
- A new president for the University of the Comoros : February2,2007
Since the end of January Mohamed Rachadi has been the president of the University of the Comoros. This 52 year old holder of a PhD in applied mathematics from Paris is from Foumboni on the island of Ngazidja. He was elected in the second round of voting, with the votes of 22 of the 32 members of the University board. The runner-up, Kamal Afraitane, with a PhD in biology, owes his defeat to a certain extent to his Anjouanese origin. A noticeable feeling is building up on Ngazidja against the Anjouanese, who are accused of monopolising control of the country and the highest State posts. De facto, an anti-Anjouan movement is starting to build up in Grande Comore.
|
|
- Sambi sets about his entourage : February17,2007
The President of the Union may reshuffle his government or his private office when he returns from the Africa-France summit in Cannes this week.
On the eve of his departure from Moroni to attend the Africa-France summit being held this week in Cannes, the President of the Union of the Comoros made an unusual appearance on the radio, when he spoke out against his entourage. Ahmed Abdallah Sambi stated that he was “poorly served, maybe even betrayed”, by certain members of his entourage. These declarations gave rise to considerable speculation in Moroni, because they give the impression that the President of the Union will reshuffle his government team or his private office on his return from France. According to some sources, these declarations were aimed particularly at high-placed people in the government and the president’s office, as well as higher officers of the Armée nationale de développement (AND).
Among those in the firing line: the president’s chief of staff in charge of defence, Mohamed Abdoul Wahab (ION 1183) and the head of the AND, Lieutenant Colonel Saïd Hamza (ION 1186).
|
|
- Anjouan offshore banking dispute trial : February17,2007
A ruling in a British court enabled Anjouan Corporate Services Ltd to be the only firm to sell licences to register in the Anjouan financial offshore sector.
The Royal Court of Justice in London recently gave its verdict on the dispute between the French businessman Fabien Lecler (who had lived for a while on Reunion Island) and the British magnate Johnny Sei-Hoe Hon concerning the Anjouan financial offshore sector. Hon, represented by the firm Russel Jones & Walker, had taken Lecler to court over a libel in a conflict dating back to 2003. This was when a change in the island’s government resulted in Lecler losing the right to issue international licences for banking, insurance and Internet gambling activities by basing them in the Anjouan offshore financial area. The new island’s government instead gave this right to Johnny Sei-Hoe Hon. The two men then waged vehement verbal warfare via their respective web sites.
At the outcome of the trial in London, Lecler accepted to apologize to Hon in order to avoid being condemned for libel. He also admitted that the latter had obtained the authorisation to issue these licences entirely legally in 2003. Finally, he also accepted to remove his Internet web sites criticising Hon or continuing to sell offshore licences in the name of the Anjouan authorities.
However, last year Hon and his company Global Financial Marketing Plc sold its right to issue the said licences to the firm Anjouan Corporate Services Ltd (ION 1171). Therefore, it is this latter firm, set up by Ronnie Dvorkin with the approval of the President of Anjouan, Mohamed Bacar (see www.anjouan.gouv.km), which has now had its legitimacy reinforced by this verdict from the London high court. Last year, President Bacar had failed in his attempt to have the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) prevent Lecler’s web sites from referring to Anjouan (ION 1172).
|
|
- Chamsoudine Ahmed : February17,2007
The new chairman of the Organisation Patronale des Comores (Opaco) is the 44 year old owner of the Moroni bakers and patisserie Nasib as well as of the family printing company Impredoc of which he took the reins when he was 25. The holder of an MA in economic analysis obtained in 1988 in Algeria, he underwent work experience at Air France Cargo in Bordeaux before returning to the Comoros. He initially ran the freight service of the defunct company Air Comores, subsequently setting up on his own in 1995. Known as “Chamou” to his friends, he is married and the father of three children. The new Opaco executive committee includes three women: Faouzia Mahmoud (the heir to Etablissements Salimamoud) and Farahati Houssein (the daughter of the rich businessman Mahmoud Mradabi). The other members are four men: Ahmed Wadane (a close ally of President Ahmed Abdallah Sambi), Mourad Bazi as well as two self made men, Ahmed Cheikh and Ahmed Mbechezi.
|
|
- London trial of an Anjouan offshore banking dispute : February7,2007
Last week the Royal Court of Justice in London gave its verdict on the dispute between the French businessman Fabien Lecler (who had lived for a while on Reunion Island) and the British magnate Johnny Sei-Hoe Hon concerning the Anjouan financial offshore sector. Hon, represented by the firm Russel Jones & Walker, had taken Lecler to court over a libel in a conflict dating back to 2003. This was when a change in the island's government resulted in Lecler losing the right to issue international licences for banking, insurance and Internet gambling activities by basing them in the Anjouan offshore financial area. The new island's government instead gave this right to Hon. The two men then waged verbal warfare via their respective web sites.
At the outcome of the trial in London, Lecler accepted to apologize to Hon in order to avoid being condemned for libel. He also admitted that the latter had obtained the authorisation to issue these licences entirely legally in 2003. Finally, he also accepted to remove his Internet web sites criticising Hon or continuing to sell offshore licences in the name of the Anjouan authorities.
However, last year Hon and his company Global Financial Marketing Plc sold its right to issue the said licences to the firm Anjouan Corporate Services Ltd (ION 1171). Therefore, it is this latter firm, set up by Ronnie Dvorkin with the approval of the President of Anjouan, Mohamed Bacar (see www.anjouan.gouv.km), which has now had its legitimacy reinforced by this verdict from the London high court. Last year, President Bacar had failed in his attempt to have the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) prevent Lecler’s web sites from referring to Anjouan (ION 1172).
|
|
- Port consortium in the thick of conflict : February30,2007
The dispute between the Union and the islands over running the Comoros ports has led the executives of Al Marwan in Sharjah to put back the firm’s official opening ceremony in Moroni.
The Minister for Transport and Tourism of the government of Ngazidja, Cheikh Ali Bacar Kassim, has taken the Vice President of the Union in charge of Transport and Telecommunications, Idi Nadhoim, as well as the firms Al Marwan and Gulftainer to court in Moroni. A decision by the Constitutional Court on 19 December (ION 1204) had declared that the decision by the government of the Union to sign a contract unilaterally with a consortium formed by the companies Al Marwan General Contracting Co and Gulftainer transferring to it the management of the ports of Moroni and Mutsamudu did not comply with the constitution. The Minister Cheikh Ali officially notified Al Marwan and Gulftainer of this decision by a court bailiff on 10 January, demanding that they “cease all activity connected with the port authority”. But they ignored the court order and continued their activity in the port of Moroni as if nothing had happened, albeit with the minimum of equipment.
On 22 January, the Ngazidja minister once again sent a bailiff to tell the consortium to cease its activity in the port, threatening to take them to court otherwise. But the consortium’s agent in Moroni, Mr. Alattar did not climb down, retorting that the consortium had no intention of ceasing its activity in the Comoros since it had a 15 year contract signed by the Vice President and the finance minister of the Union and not by the authorities of Ngazidja. Cheikh Ali Bacar Kassim therefore filed a complaint in the court on 25 January against the said consortium. He had earlier filed a complaint with the State Prosecutor against Nadhoim for "using State means to deliberately thwart the implementation of the measures of the Constitutional Court".
|
|
- External mediators coming back : January1,2007
The conflict of competency between the President of the Union and those of the autonomous islands is worrying members of the international community in Moroni.
The conflict of competency is beginning to be a cause of concern to delegates of the international community which is sponsoring the national reconciliation in the Comoros. The latter met all sides in the Comoros dispute at the beginning of January, to try to revive negotiations on the distribution of competency. But to date the situation is still in deadlock.
The Organisation Internationale de la Francophonie (OIF) is hence planning to send a mediation mission to the Comoros in the next few weeks. As for the disagreement over responsibility for the internal security of the autonomous islands, the international donors of the Comoros recommend arbitration by an eminent international expert from a country in the region.
|
|
- New tension with the islands : January6,2007
Negotiations between the Union and the autonomous islands over the sharing of competency have broken off, plunging the archipelago into a period of turbulence.
The authorities of the autonomous islands had so far refrained from attacking the President of the Union, Ahmed Abdallah Sambi, too openly. But they have been delighted to do so since 16 December, when negotiations between the Union and the islands over the share of competency were broken off. Since then, in Ngazidja, the authorities of the Union and those of the island have been hurling insults at each other on the radio and TV, each blaming the other for the break-off of negotiations.
The situation is even more tense in Anjouan. Defying the local authority’s ban on visiting the island with his military escort, Sambi requisitioned a plane from a local private airline on 23 December and obliged its pilot to land at Ouani aerodrome on Anjouan. He was welcomed by his partisans who accompanied him to his home in Mutsamudu 7 km away. Two days later Sambi held a large meeting in Mutsamudu where he announced that he would not leave the island until he had effectively installed the Armée Nationale de Développement (AND) on the island and placed soldiers at the port of Mutsamudu and Ouani aerodrome, a function which in his view was incumbent on the Union. On 28 December Sambi effectively installed the AND regional command on Anjouan, but he was not able to position troops at the aerodrome and the port because the armed forces of the government of the island were deployed to prevent him. More seriously, the security agents of the President of Anjouan, Mohamed Bacar, smashed a vehicle sent from Moroni and affected to the regional command of the AND in Anjouan. Warned in advance of what it contained, they relieved the vehicle of a substantial cargo of arms hidden under its bonnet. This action raised the tension in Anjouan by a notch. Confrontations between the two sides could break out at any time.
|
|
- Orion Group : January20,2007
Two South African firms have begun negotiations with the authorities of the Comoros to take over the Galawa Beach hotel. The first is the Orion Group, created in 1991 by Franz Gmeiner and owning several hotels in southern Africa. This group is offering to make a capital injection of $2.5 million into the Comoros hotel. The other South African company, the Blue Turtle Group, whose executives are Ray Richardson, Mike Shapiro and Greg Millard, has also approached the Comoros authorities, offering them to act as intermediary to contact foreign investors in the tourism sector. Finally, a third foreign operator, Imad Saba, which is also the promoter of the Ngazidja Air project, is also interested in the Galawa hotel (ION 1203). Saba, a businessman from Dubai, is in exclusive negotiations with the government of the autonomous island of Ngazidja. He has offered to invest 36 million euros to refurbish the Comoros tourist resort. Two other investors are in the running to renovate and take over the Itsandra hotel: one is the financial group headed by Cheick Sabah, the son of the Kuwaiti minister of defence; the other is the Libyan State body in charge of promoting investment. The Kuwaiti group is currently in negotiation with the Ngazidja authorities whereas the Libyans are discussion this project with the government of the Union of the Comoros.
|
|
- An airline for Moroni : January6,2007
The project for the island of Ngazidja to have an airline of its own could be about to go into its materialisation phase, after being in gestation for a year.
Imad Saba, the strategic operator of Ngazidja’s future airline, already a year in gestation (ION 1158), has just been on a working visit to Moroni to finalise the practical details ahead of the company’s start of operation at the beginning of 2007. Saba is an American of Palestinian extraction, based in the United Arab Emirates where he operates several aircraft. He has gathered the sum needed for the guarantee to be deposited with the Banque pour l’Industrie et le Commerce (BIC) and has decided to set up the headquarters of his future airline in a building owned by the Sharjah Chamber of Commerce and Industry, north of Moroni.
Ngazidja’s future airline should have between three and five aircraft to provide a regional service to South Africa, Kenya, Madagascar and Dubai. Imad Saba is also picking up the tab for the renovation of the Galawa Beach tourist resort, in which he will inject over 20 million euros over five years.
Contacted this week by The Indian Ocean Newsletter, Saba confirmed that he intended to invest 40 million euros in this airline and that he had two hotel projects in the Comoros, one of which is to open in two months and the other in eight months. Imad Saba owns the Financial Advisory Group (FAG) in Sharjah. This is the firm that owned the Boeing 727-223 operated by Union des Transports Africains (UTA) owned by Ahmad Khazem, which crashed in Benin on 25 December 2003. FAG was previously based in Miami, where Saba lived and where he also headed the firm J Taylor Investments. According to some sources, FAG may have had ties in the past with airlines like Kamair, East/West Airways and Air Van, linked to the controversial businessman Victor Bout. We asked Saba about this, but he had still not replied as we went to press on the evening of 30 November.
|
|
