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Gabon voted on Saturday amid discontent over its failure to raise living standards despite oil wealth, in a poll posing the biggest challenge yet to President Ali Bongo, whose family has run the central African nation for half a century.

With state machinery and entrenched patronage networks behind him, Bongo, 57, is likely to be returned, seven years after winning his first election following the death of his father Omar, who ruled for 42 years.

Polls closed at 7 p.m. (2.00 p.m ET), an hour late to allow people were still waiting to vote to do so. Voting was mostly calm, although witnesses said a few scuffles broke out in one area as tempers flared in long queues to cast ballots.

Results are not expected until Monday or Tuesday, although partial results may start trickling out on Sunday. Land and sea borders were shut on Saturday until 8 p.m. (1900 GMT).

Bongo faced nine other candidates - compared with 22 in the last poll - but his main rival was veteran diplomat Jean Ping. 

"The day of glory has arrived and we are preparing as you can see to celebrate victory," Ping, 73, said shortly after voting in Martine Oulabou school, in the capital Libreville.

Ping faces an uphill struggle, not least because Gabon's one-round system means the winner doesn't need a majority, just more votes than any other candidate.

In 2009, Bongo won with 41.73 percent.

"I have laid out the change achieved and the change to come in the future. For that reason, I'm confident," Bongo, wearing a blue suit, said after voting.

Bongo has made saving Gabon's unique wildlife, including pristine equatorial rainforest and elephants, a priority, but voters complain they have more pressing worries.

Ping meanwhile has harnessed discontent over the lack of a significant rise in living standards in the population of just under two million, despite its oil riches.

"The Gabonese are suffering. We are not well paid, our children don't live in good conditions. That's why I voted for change," Marie Ange N'no, 40, a civil servant, said outside a polling station in Libreville.

Reuters

 

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Rita Akana

28.Aug.2016

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The Limbe Electoral District of the Social Democratic Front, SDF party, is strongly opposed to the purchase of a 70 million Frs CFA car for the Government Delegate to the Limbe City Council.n a press statement issued on August 26 2016, the Chairman of the SDF in Limbe, in reaction to a call for tender published in a local newspaper, said the move is 'unconscionable, immoral and plainly wrong.'

Godden Zama argues that the petroleum producing city has pressing issues that affect the municipality such as the lack of roads, classrooms for learning, portable drinking water, street lighting and the council’s plans were not in tandem with what the people need and untimely.

PRESS STATEMENT ON THE DECISION OF THE CITY COUNCIL TO ALLOCATE 70.000.000 Frs CFA  FOR A NEW SERVICE CAR FOR THE GOVERNMENT DELEGATE.

 We have read with much disdain the Open National Tender No.017/0NIT/GD-LCC/LCCTB/16 of 24TH August 2016 for the Supply of a service vehicle for the government delegate. The Estimated cost of the tender stands at 70.000.000 frs CFA for the service car.

It is our opinion that at a time when most Cameroonians are facing extreme financial hardship and struggling to get the necessary finances needed for their children to go back to school the Limbe City Council is allocating a preposterous 70.000.000 frs CFA to purchase a single vehicle for the government delegate.

For most Cameroonians this is unconscionable, immoral and plainly wrong.
We think it is untimely, misinformed, and extortionate for tax payer’s money to be spent like this when we have pressing issues affecting the municipality such as the lack of roads, classrooms for learning, portable drinking water, street lighting etc.
 What makes it even worst is that the council is telling the people of limbe to fasten their belts due to their inability to finance portable drinking water schemes in the communities. They a mulling the idea of privatizing public taps because as they say they have no money to spend on essential and critical social projects of that nature but they can afford to splash out 70.000.000frs of tax payer money on a single car. God save Cameroon. 

Considering that the estimated cost of this tender is 1/5th of the budget of the subdivisional councils in Limbe and almost equal to their annual subvention from the city council it calls into question the rationale for elected mayors in limbe and other Cities throughout the country were appointed government delegates pull all the strings.

The impropriety of this tender makes us to question what happened to virtues such as modesty that this nation was built on. It is our fervent desire that this Tender be withdrawn and put in the trash can because that is where it belongs.

Ndenge Godden ZAMA
Limbe SDF Electoral District Chairman.

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Solomon Amabo

27.Aug.2016

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The Prime Minister, Philémon Yang, informed in a communiqué that the Portuguese group Eximtrans Sarl/Irmaos Mota has been declared winner of the partnership contract for the financing, supply and operation of a mass urban bus transport system in the city of Yaoundé during the 2016 Africa Women Cup of Nations and beyond. The same communiqué specified that the Minister of Transport, Edgard Alain Mebe Ngo’o, is in charge with the government delegate to the Urban Community of Yaoundé, Gilbert Tsimi, Evouna, of addressing an official letter of notification to the contract winner, indicating the practical modalities on the negotiations of the terms of the partnership contract.  

The Portuguese company replaces the American group Parker International Industries selected in 2005, under the “Bus” denomination. The latter went bankrupt in May 2015 due to numerous difficulties. With 48 vehicles at the launch of its operations on 26 September 2006, its fleet was reduced to almost nothing. Over half of the 600 starting employees were made redundant. Treasury problems abounded. The numerous financial injections made by the State were not able to save the “Bus”.

BIC

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Rita Akana

26.Aug.2016

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As rescue workers raced to find survivors beneath the crumbled buildings in the town of Pescara del Tronto, about 100 miles northeast of Rome, they spotted Giulia’s legs and carefully removed wreckage around the trapped girl to get her out this morning.

"You can hear something under here. Quiet, quiet," one rescue worker said, according to The Associated Press, before urging her: "Come on, Giulia, come on, Giulia."

Her last name has not been released and the extent of her injuries, if any, is unknown. 

Giulia’s dramatic rescue was captured on footage. The girl emerged caked with dirt and dust, and people clapped and cheered as a firefighter carried her away from the flattened building in one of the towns hit hardest by the powerful quake.

The 6.2-magnitude earthquake that rocked central Italy early Wednesday killed at least 247 people, injured hundreds more and left thousands homeless, according to Italy's Civil Protection agency.

Several aftershocks have occurred since the initial quake struck, around 3:30 a.m. local time, and tremors were felt as far away as Rome, more than 100 miles from the earthquake’s epicenter.

AP

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AP

25.Aug.2016

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South African anti-apartheid campaigner Archbishop Desmond Tutu’s family says that he has admitted himself to a Cape Town hospital for treatment of a recurring infection.

The statement issued late Wednesday by his family said the 84-year-old is expected to remain in hospital for a week or two.

Tutu underwent similar treatment last year.

Tutu, who received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1984 for his efforts to end apartheid in South Africa, has remained active with the Desmond Tutu Peace Foundation and other organizations.

Tutu was hospitalised three times in 2015 over a persistent infection that his foundation – the Desmond & Leah Tutu Legacy Foundation – said was a result of the prostate cancer treatment he has been receiving for nearly 20 years.

He played a key role in South Africa’s transition from the apartheid era, including serving as chairman of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission at the direction of then-President Nelson Mandela.

African News

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Rita Akana

25.Aug.2016

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Nearly half a million children around Lake Chad face "severe acute malnutrition" due to drought and a seven-year insurgency by Islamist militant group Boko Haram in northeastern Nigeria, UNICEF said on Thursday.

Of the 475,000 deemed at risk, 49,000 in Nigeria's Borno state, Boko Haram's heartland, will die this year if they do not receive treatment, according to the United Nations' child agency, which is appealing for $308 million to cope with the crisis.

However, to date, UNICEF said it had only received $41 million, 13 percent of what it needs to help those affected in the four countries - Chad, Nigeria, Niger and Cameroon - that border Lake Chad.

At the start of 2015, Boko Haram occupied an area the size of Belgium but has since been pushed back over the last 18 months by military assaults by the four countries.

Most of its remaining forces are now hiding in the wilds of the vast Sambisa forest, southeast of the Borno provincial capital, Maiduguri.

UNICEF said that as Nigerian government forces captured and secured territory, aid officials were starting to piece together the scale of the humanitarian disaster left behind in the group's wake. "Towns and villages are in ruins and communities have no access to basic services," UNICEF said in a report.

In Borno, nearly two thirds of hospitals and clinics had been partially or completely destroyed and three-quarters of water and sanitation facilities needed to be rehabilitated.

Despite the military gains, UNICEF said, 2.2 million people remain trapped in areas under the control of Boko Haram - which is trying to establish a caliphate in the southern reaches of the Sahara - or are staying in camps, fearful of going home.

Boko Haram is thought to have killed as many as 15,000 people since the launch of its insurgency in 2009.

Reuters

 

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Rita Akana

25.Aug.2016

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