|
News
|
|
Page1 || Page2 || Page3 || Page4
|
- Two outgoing Presidents go through to second round :
The outgoing Presidents of the islands of Ngazidja and Mohéli, Abdou Soule Elbak and Mohamed Saïd Fazul, have gone through to the second round of voting of the islands’ presidential elections, but are badly placed. Provisional results from Ngazidja put Elbak in second position, with a score of 15%. The front-runner, Mohamed Abdoulwahab with 18%, has the backing of the President of the Union Ahmed Abdallah Sambi. The two men will fight it out in the run-off on 24 June. However, Abdoulwahab’s surprisingly high score is fuelling rumours that the government of the Union has been involved in a vote-buying operation in his favour during the run-up to the election.
Meanwhile in Mohéli, Fazul (who polled 29% of the vote) will take on one of the island’s rich businessmen, Mohamed Ali Saïd, who was the front-runner in the first round with 32% of the votes cast. The Mohéli-born French civil servant, Abdou Djabir, who was carrying the hopes of the island’s elite, came in third with 24% of votes cast, in spite of his good connections in the government of the Union.
The situation is less clear-cut in Anjouan. Following the events on 5 June, when the island’s government sent gendarmes to stop President Sambi’s airplane from landing, Sambi put the vote back by a week. But the island’s government maintained the original date of 10 June. All the candidates other than the outgoing President Mohamed Bacar therefore boycotted the poll. Bacar was hence re-elected with 85% of the votes cast, but with a turnout of just 52,5%. The government of the Union has not validated this result and the African Union (AU) could well contest it.
|
|
- UAE’s Gulftainer takes an interest in Comoros ports :
Emirates-based Gulftainer has been awarded the concession to operate and manage the ports of Moroni and Mutsamudu in the Comoros for a period of 15 years.
Gulftainer takes over the port operations at Moroni with immediate effect and Mutsamudu from next year. In terms of the concession the UAE company will begin upgrading and expanding the islands’ ports with new infrastructure to improve cargo handling, increase the cargo storage areas and provide new warehouse areas.
Gulftainer, which currently manages the container terminals at Sharjah and Khorfakkan, says the move into the Comoros is another step in the furthering of its international links and will help raise its profile.
Gulftainer’s GM Peter Ricjhards said the main aim in the Comoros was to drastically reduce the time that vessels take to discharge and load their cargo in the port of Moroni. He said this would allow the consignees and shippers of the Comoros Islands to negotiate better freight rates from the shipping lines, and in turn reduce the cost of doing business in the Comoros. The same principle will apply to the port of Mutsamudu.
|
|
- UAE’s Gulftainer takes an interest in Comoros ports :
Emirates-based Gulftainer has been awarded the concession to operate and manage the ports of Moroni and Mutsamudu in the Comoros for a period of 15 years.
Gulftainer takes over the port operations at Moroni with immediate effect and Mutsamudu from next year. In terms of the concession the UAE company will begin upgrading and expanding the islands’ ports with new infrastructure to improve cargo handling, increase the cargo storage areas and provide new warehouse areas.
Gulftainer, which currently manages the container terminals at Sharjah and Khorfakkan, says the move into the Comoros is another step in the furthering of its international links and will help raise its profile.
Gulftainer’s GM Peter Ricjhards said the main aim in the Comoros was to drastically reduce the time that vessels take to discharge and load their cargo in the port of Moroni. He said this would allow the consignees and shippers of the Comoros Islands to negotiate better freight rates from the shipping lines, and in turn reduce the cost of doing business in the Comoros. The same principle will apply to the port of Mutsamudu.
|
|
- Moroni : June7 2007
Three Frenchmen went to Moroni from 7 to 14 June to give their support to the lawyer Ali Ibrahim Mzimba in his bid to become President of the autonomous island of Ngazidja (ION 1202). One of these French supporters is Stéphane Salord, second deputy mayor of the town of Aix en Provence and a member of the UMP (French presidential party). He and Mzimba became friends while they were both students at the Institut d’Etudes Politiques in Aix en Provence from 1990 to 1993. The second member of the group is the Dean of the Reunion Island Law Faculty, Jean-Baptiste Seube, who got to know Mzimba when the latter headed the Association des Juristes de l’Océan Indien (AJOI). Finally, the third member of the trio is Mzimba’s friend and advisor in Paris.
|
|
- Surprise election result in Moroni :
The outcome of the first round of voting in the presidential election in Ngazidja reversed the trend of the preliminary counting of votes.
After two days of waiting, the outgoing President of Ngazidja, Abdou Souleh Elbak, was relegated to third place with just 13% of the votes cast. He was initially believed to be in second place and so through to the second round (see email alert sent to subscribers on 12 June). According to the official results from the Interior Ministry, the two candidates going through to the second round are Mohamed Abdoulwahab (16%), the candidate backed by the President of the Union Ahmed Abdallah Sambi and the French-Comorian lawyer Saïd Larifou (14%). Meanwhile, in Mohéli there was no change from the preliminary results. The outgoing President Mohamed Saïd Fazul (29%) will face the island’s rich businessman Mohamed Ali Saïd, who beat him in the first round with 32% of the votes. The French civil servant from Mohéli, Abdou Djabir, who was carrying the hopes of the island’s elite, came in third with 24% of the votes, in spite of backing by members of the government of the Union.
The situation is less clear-cut in Anjouan. Following the events on 5 June, when the island’s government sent gendarmes to stop President Sambi’s aeroplane from landing, Sambi put the vote back by a week. But the island’s government maintained the original date of 10 June. All the candidates other than the outgoing President Mohamed Bacar therefore boycotted the poll. Bacar was hence re-elected with 85% of the votes cast, but with a turnout of just 52,5%. The government of the Union has not validated this result and the African Union (AU) could well contest it.
|
|
- Cresta Hospitality :
The Galawa Beach tourist resort in Ngazidja will finally be taken over by the South African company Cresta Hospitality in conjunction with another South African firm, Coral Bay Resort. The representatives of the two groups, respectively Francis Njabulo and Raymond Shapiro, signed a contract on 8 June with the Vice President of the Union of the Comoros in charge of transport and tourism, Iddi Nadhoim. Coral Bay will bring the five million dollars necessary for this project, while Cresta will be in charge of managing the new resort. Cresta already owns several hotels in Botswana and Zimbabwe and is active in Ghana, Malawi and Zambia. The group is owned by the investment fund TA Holdings which is listed on the Zimbabwe Stock Exchange. This fund operates in the hotel, insurance and agricultural chemical sectors and its chairman is Shingai Mutasa.
|
|
- Nicom weighs heavy on BIC :
The Court decision condemning BIC to pay several million euros to a local firm, recently confirmed on appeal, has put this bank’s director general in a delicate position.
Christian Gout, the general director of the Banque pour l’Industrie et le Commerce (BIC, a subsidiary of the French bank BNP Paribas), left Moroni suddenly this week just before he was summoned to appear before the Court in Moroni on 14 June. His capacity of BIC administrator puts him at risk of imprisonment for failing to carry out the Court decision condemning the bank to pay substantial damages to Shemir Kamoula, the head of the Comorian firm Nicom. However, Gout told The Indian Ocean Newsletter on 13 June that he had left Moroni to undergo a cardiology examination on Reunion Island.
Gout had closed Nicom’s account at the bank following a conflict between them, eventually causing Nicom to cease trading (ION 1155). A court hearing in March condemned BIC to pay Nicom FC 3.8 billion (€7.7 million). This was confirmed by the Comoros Court of Appeal chaired by Papa Ahamada Djae on 29 May, which ordered the provisional execution of FC 1.4 billion (€2.8 million) “while the Court is waiting to have the means to discuss the size of eventual damages”. Moreover, it condemned the BIC and its administrator Christian Gout to pay Nicom the sum of FC 800 million (€1.6 million) while a sum of FC 600 million (€ 1.2 million) should “be placed in a deposit account with the Central Bank until a decision is made” as to the definitive amount of damages is determined.
This verdict could compromise the planned purchase of BIC by BRED (ION 1204) and has already led Gout to block a letter of credit for the quarterly rice import order (11,000 tonnes) by the State company Onicor.
|
|
- Mohamed Toihiri :
The American government has just given its agreement for the accreditation of Mohamed Toihiri as Ambassador of the Union of the Comoros to the United States. He will also represent his country to the United Nations in New York. Born in Mitsoudjé (Ngazidja) 58 years ago, Toihiri has a whole host of qualifications: a Master in communication and a PhD in modern literature from the University of Bordeaux, a personnel of Ministry of Education management qualification in Poitiers, and a course in international relations from the Political Science Institute in Paris. He was a lecturer for two years at the University of Michigan and until recently an associate professor at the University of the Comoros in Moroni. Toihiri is also a writer, considered the leading novelist of the Comoros. His works include La République des Imberbes (on the revolutionary period during the presidency of Ali Soilihi) and Khafir du Karthala. Furthermore, he has been decorated Chevalier de la Légion d’Honneur. This brilliant intellectual, father of three, underwent a traditional marriage in accordance with traditional practice in the Comoros.
|
|
- Two outgoing Presidents go through to second round :
The outgoing Presidents of the islands of Ngazidja and Mohéli, Abdou Soule Elbak and Mohamed Saïd Fazul, have gone through to the second round of voting of the islands’ presidential elections, but are badly placed. Provisional results from Ngazidja put Elbak in second position, with a score of 15%. The front-runner, Mohamed Abdoulwahab with 18%, has the backing of the President of the Union Ahmed Abdallah Sambi. The two men will fight it out in the run-off on 24 June. However, Abdoulwahab’s surprisingly high score is fuelling rumours that the government of the Union has been involved in a vote-buying operation in his favour during the run-up to the election.
Meanwhile in Mohéli, Fazul (who polled 29% of the vote) will take on one of the island’s rich businessmen, Mohamed Ali Saïd, who was the front-runner in the first round with 32% of the votes cast. The Mohéli-born French civil servant, Abdou Djabir, who was carrying the hopes of the island’s elite, came in third with 24% of votes cast, in spite of his good connections in the government of the Union.
The situation is less clear-cut in Anjouan. Following the events on 5 June, when the island’s government sent gendarmes to stop President Sambi’s aeroplane from landing, Sambi put the vote back by a week. But the island’s government maintained the original date of 10 June. All the candidates other than the outgoing President Mohamed Bacar therefore boycotted the poll. Bacar was hence re-elected with 85% of the votes cast, but with a turnout of just 52,5%. The government of the Union has not validated this result and the African Union (AU) could well contest it.
|
|
|
