1
CHAPTER I
Table of Contents:
CHAPTER II
1. Entry summaries Page 2 – 9 CHAPTER III
1. Abjata Khalif: Human trafficking Page10-12
2. Andualem Sisay: Ethiopia‘s crippled agriculture Page 13-15
3. Benjamin Tetteh: At mercy of the sea Page 16-18
4. Bibi-Aisha Wadualla: Religious bias in Egpy‘s universities Page 19-20
5. Deogratius Mmana: How dangerous criminals get out of jail before time to cause more havoc in public Page 21- 23
6. Kassim Mohamed: Pirates: Social bandits in Africa Page 24-27
7. Ken Opala: Lush Mrima Hill may be a death trap for unsuspecting residents Page 28-30
8. Khadija The Great Billion Dollar Drug Scam Page 31 - 35
9. Kipchumba Some: Police killings of youth Page 36-37
10. Muhyadin Ahmed Roble: What it Takes to Cover a Story in Somalia Page 38-40
11. Nicholas Ibekwe: Gowen and Bayero worked for Pfizer Page 41-43
12. Olu Jacob: The Muslim who risked all his Christian neighbours Page 44 -46
13. Patrick Mayoyo: Kenyan firms make killing from piracy Page 47 -48
14. Peter Nkanga: Last minute oil deals that cost Nigeria dear Page 49-52
15. Ramata Sore: Racist coverage of Africa in the US at the time of the World CupPage 53-55
16. Stephen Nartey: Ivorian girls trade sex for food Page 56 - 56
17. Tereza Ndanga: Cashing in on illegal abortions in Malawi Page 57 -58
18. Toyosi Ogunseye: Public school toilets, pits of the death and diseases Page 59 - 62
19. Estacio Valoi: Leaders complicit in the looting of wood in Zambezia Page 63 - 65
20. Anne Mireille Nzouankeu: Cameroon: The double life of homosexuals Page 66 -67
21. Edem Gabegbeku: In the name of Ghana‘s development Page 68 - 71
22. Reece Hermine: Benin: Illegal medical practices, is the government complicit Page 72 - 74
23. Selay Marius Kouassi: ―Gold: A cursed mineral!‖ Page75 - 77
24. Sylvestre Sossou: Hunchbacks: hunted daily, to the grave Page 78 - 79
25. Théodore Kouadio: Child sexual abuse:Silence while children are molested in full impunity 2
Page 80 – 81
26. Virgil Houessou: Difficulties in the implementation of the education of girls in Benin. Page 82 – 84
27. Zack Ohemeng Tawia: Residents of Asuboi left to their fate in the abofour thick forest Page 85 -86
28. Lazaro Mabunda: ―China Business Page 87 – 90
29. C.D. Seydou: The salaries of Ivoirian sportspeople Page 91 – 92
30. Charles Nforgang, Jade: Corruption, lies and the violation of legal procedures Page 93 - 94
3
CHAPTER II
1. Summary - ABJATA KHALIF
Human trafficking business in northern Kenya and Southern somalia is a multi million dollar industry and it involves a well knit web of traffickers from based in all major towns of Kenya and somalia and they recruit unsuspecting youths with dreams of reaching Europe , America and South Africa.
Thousands of youths are trafficked from various towns of southern somalia and most of them force their parents to sell their properties so that they can travel to developed nation and take responsibility of sending them remittances that will keep their families and replace the sold properties that has facilitated the journey of the trafficked to a new world. ………………….. 2. Summary - Andualem Sisay
Title: Ethiopia‘s Crippled Agriculture Date of Publication: December 29, 2010 My article, Ethiopia‟s Crippled Agriculture (Analysis), which I submitted for this completion, attempts to show failures of government‘s attempts to make Ethiopia and its farmers self-sufficient in food production. The story of the farmer who is engaged in part-time begging tells that six months before the government reveals the number of people who seek emergency food aid [The Vicious Circle of Ethiopian Famine], farmers have already been migrating in mass to urban areas either for work or to be engaged in begging and even do both, in order to save their families from famine. The article mentions some of the failures of both government and its donors in policy formation and proper implementation in order to liberate Ethiopia from foreign food aid for decades. ……………….. 3. Summary - Benjamin P. Tetteh
This piece tells a serious global problem of climate change in a simple way and also seeks answers on what government is doing to save a fishing community from being totally submerged by sea erosion. This 23-minute feature uses narrations from Fishermen and Fishmongers in a small fishing village to tell the story of climate change, and the threats these people face daily from rising sea levels which displaces them and forced them to relocate several times. Residents of this village voted for John Atta-Mills of the NDC to become President, with high hopes that his campaign promise of constructing a sea defense to check the sea erosion would be fulfilled. But now these people feel disappointed as work on the proposed sea defense project delays. ………………… 4. Summary - Bibi-Aisha Wadvalla With religious tension in Egypt simmering, this article explored religious discrimination within the science community. It sought to reveal if Christians are refused student admission, tenures, jobs or research grants based on their faith. It was a sensitive subject to discuss, with many interviewees refusing to disclose their real identities. Others spoke off the record, revealing plots and divisions. However, they were adamant they could not be quoted-not even anonymously. Official comments were politically correct, citing non-discriminatory Egyptian law. Due to the post-revolution hope of unity, a few sources said they wouldn‘t comment, because the article would be divisive. I contacted countless people, of whom all the respondents are quoted in the article. I strove to be balanced and fair, interviewing Christians and Muslims. In keeping with ethical and editorial policy, sensationalism was avoided. The article revealed there is a covert acceptance of the separation status quo. The piece received considerable attention-it received the most hits on the site, and was widely disseminated on Twitter.
Submitted Piece 4
This appeared online on Nature Middle East on 28 April 2011. http://www.nature.com/nmiddleeast/2011/110428/full/nmiddleeast.2011.51.html?WT.mc_id=TWT_NatureMEa st doi:10.1038/nmiddleeast.2011.51; Published online 28 April 2011 Feature Religious bias in Egypt's universities …………………………. 5. Summary - Deogratias Mmana
Publication: Nation Publications Limited, Malawi
Date of Publication: May 21 2011.
The story exposes a syndicate involving some corrupt officials in the Malawi Judiciary and Malawi Prisons Department that facilitate early release of dangerous prisoners before their time.
It also exposes weak systems to deal with the problem.
The officials collect and share K140 000 (US$ 848) per prisoner. Prisoners or their relatives offer the money.
Many hardcore criminals in Malawi have been released in that way and cause more havoc on the public.
The clerks forge court documents and signatures of judges. They even steal the common seal from judges‘ chambers and stamp it on the fake release documents.
………………………..
6. Summary - Kassim Mohamed
Pirates, smugglers and corrupt tycoons social bandits in Africa
Somalia would be little noticed were it not for its fastest-growing industry: piracy. Somalia drapes over the tip of East Africa and into the Gulf of Aden, one of the world‘s busiest shipping lanes. More than 20,000 merchant vessels pass through the Gulf each year, an inviting target for Somali pirates, who have developed a lucrative business seizing and holding ships for ransom.
Kenya is believed to be a destination where Somali pirates and their co-horts invest and this debate has been raging with other indigenous Kenyan communities pointing fingers at the Somali-Kenyans. I have been working on this subject for the last 4 years. I proved there is a link
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7. Summary – Ken Opala
Lush Mrima Hill may be a death trap for unsuspecting residents, by KEN OPALA. Published by the, Saturday Nation May 28, 2011
Exactly 20 years ago the Geophysics Department, University of Nairobi, warned that Mrima Hil, a 323-metre rise in Kwale, Kenya, could be a killer owing to its very high natural radiation (levels 50 per cent above what is considered safe), and asked state authorities to evacuate area residents. However, two decades on, there have been no evictions. Rather, there‘s further encroachment on the hill, to an extent about 40,000 inhabit the place. Materials from the hill have been used to re-carpet nearby roads. 5
The article exposes State‘s inertia at protecting its people. It questions why, despite the evidence available, authorities have failed to act to remove the area population, to prevent them from exposure. It attempts to link the high radiation to diseases in the area – the relatively high birth abnormalities and cancer cases. …………………… 8. Summary – Khadija Sharife The deadly rotavirus-related diarrhoea is estimated to kill over 500 000 children annually. The majority – 85%, live in Africa and Asia. UK-based pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) recently offered developing countries a 95% discount of the vaccine Rotarix – at $2.50 a dose. The discount was offered via the Global Alliance for Vaccine and Immunisation (GAVI) funded by developed countries such as the UK. GAVI was budgeted with the premise of financing the high costs of corporate research and development (R&D), pegged at $1 - $1.7 billion per new drug. Immunisation constitutes one of the greatest life-saving achievements of the modern era. The development of crucial vaccines implemented by government-funded programmes have saved billion of people globally from death and diseases – estimated at a 90% decline in developed nations. But the cost of vaccines is often priced 40 – 100 times greater than the cost of production – unaffordable to developing nation budgets. This two part article unpacks how corporate mispricing artificially inflates 89% of R&D – 50% through 'capitalised costs' and 39% through tax breaks and subsidies. (10 lines). ………………………
9. Summary - Kipchumba Some
Thousands of young men are believed to have died in parts of Kenya at the hands of policemen battling an outlawed politico-religious group calling itself the Mungiki, a charge often fiercely denied by the police. This story is about the disappearance of a 16-year old school boy at the hands of anti-Mungiki elite squad. It is the introductory piece to a serialized investigation in to gross human rights violation committed by anti-Mungiki squads. This article forced the police to accept for the first time that some of its officers in the elite anti-Mungiki squad were indeed committing human rights violations, prompting the police commissioner to form a taskforce to look in to the matter
………………….. 10. Summary – Muhyadin Ahmed Roble
The summery of a series report about the guns and piracy in Hobyo. The first casualty of war they say is the truth, and it is unfortunate that the victims happen to be the truth tellers- the journalists. The 29th of April is a day that will forever live in my diary of ―bad day‖ tales. This was the day when I peeped the inside of a grave and slowly came back to earth to tell this story of what journalists go through. I had travelled to Galkayo through Hobyo in Somalia, a town known for piracy and die hard, no sense militia groups aligned to different groups either in support or against the government and piracy respectively. Piracy is the dominating form of life in Hobyo but the ransom gotten out of it, can never be really accounted for. I interviewed different pirates, and their stories were similar. They spend it on having fun, drugs and luxury Toyotas. These two parts of a series story investigative the guns and piracy in Hobyo, a pirate hub town in central Somalia. ……………….
11. Summary - Nicholas Ibekwe
So much has been written about the 1996 Pfizer illegal Trovan clinical trial in Kano, Nigeria that killed more than 11 children and left several others in permanent disability. But hardly has any of these reports revealed how Nigerian government officials aided Pfizer prior and during the illegal trial. This series also shows how notable Nigerians lobbied for Pfizer against the abused victims and lawyers, instead of the victims went with the compensation money paid by Pfizer. ……………………….. 12. Summary - Olu Jacob
Compulsory summary
The 2010 April elections may have been adjudged free and fair by many but it was one of the most divisive events in recent Nigerian history. One of the worst aspects of the elections was the way in which politicians 6
used religion as a major factor in garnering votes. The consequence, especially in the North was a deadly backlash against people of opposing religions – mainly Christianity and Islam. In Niger State, 200 kms from the federal capital, Abuja, rampaging Moslem youths took to the street to brutalise the minority Christians in their midst. This story is about the courage of one Moslem man who rose in defence of his Christian neighbours against his brother Moslems despite the fear that he could be lynched in the process. ………………………………
13. Summary – Patrick Mayoyo
The story, KENYAN FIRMS MAKE A KILLING FROM PIRACY was published in the Daily Nation on July 18, 2010.
This story unearthed the existence of a syndicate based in Kenya that was masterminding piracy along the Somali coast.
The syndicate involved private airlines, shipping lines, law firms, private security firms, banks, stock brokerage firms and forex bureaus.
Following the publication of this story, cross-border investigations were launched by both Somali and Kenyan authorities that resulted in the arrest of two planes and five crew members in Mogadishu, Somalia who were caught with US$ 3.2 million which they were going to deliver to pirates who had hijacked ships.
See links below: http://www.nation.co.ke/News/Kenyans+captured+in+Sh300m+drama+/-/1056/1169544/-/242dro/-/index.html
Apart from the Somali government confiscating the money, the firms own the planes were fined and blacklisted by Somali authorities.
In Kenya, the government launched a crackdown against banks, forex bureaus and stock brokers who were suspected to be facilitating laundering of piracy earnings and also introduced stringent anti-money laundering legislation. ……………………………
14. Summary – Peter Nkanga
My work titled ―Last minute oil deals that cost Nigeria dear‖ as published on June 12, 2011 in Nigeria‘s NEXT Newspaper is an extract of a five-part series on the sharp practices involving Nigeria‘s petroleum minister, Diezani Alison-Madueke. The article exposed how barely 48 hours to the expiration of her first appointment as petroleum minister, she discreetly and unilaterally assigned prospecting rights on several oil blocks worth billions of dollars to a consortium of Nigerian and international companies owned by a select group of individuals, contrary to the law and industry guidelines.
Peter NKANGA NEXT Newspaper Abuja, Nigeria +2347031191119 [email protected] …………………………….. 15. Summary : Ramata Sore
For more than three centuries, western media depicted Africa as a continent adrift from civilization as they defined it. Reporters described it as dark, indifferent to culture, and savage. To business conditioned by this view, Africa was a continent to be exploited for its metals, petroleum and other materials that fueled industrialization in the West. That view persisted into the twenty-first century as Africa prepared to host the World Cup of soccer, the premier sporting event on the globe. The west, long conditioned to seeing danger lurking everywhere in Africa , saw a country, South Africa, that was far from the mythology they promoted. The documentary "The 2010 World Cup in South Africa: Western Media and the Racist Coverage of Africa" by Ramata SORE decrypts how western media and mainly the New York Times has been negatively depicting the African continent and its peoples. 7
…………………………….. 16. Summary – Stephen Nartey
The article "Ivorian Girls Trade Sex For Food" published in Ghana's widely circulated private daily The Heritage on Wednesday April, 2011, and its website www.newspapersghana.com, is a three-month investigative piece that chronicles the post electoral conflict of the Ivory Coast political crisis effects on young female refugees who resorted to trading themselves as sex slaves to men in the harbour cities of Takoradi in the Western region and Tema in the Greater Accra region of Ghana, in a desperate move to survive. All they needed was a place to lay their heads, bathe and food to eat as they had run out of money. In their desperation, some entered into a barter trade system where they offered sex for a place to sleep and food from their hosts. The story attracted public concern and outcry that solicited swift remedial action from state authorities who made sure refugees at the various camps have the best of services so that, they don't stoop to that practice. ………………..
17. Summary - TERESA TEMWEKA NDANGA
TITLE: ‗Cashing in on illegal abortions in Malawi‘ DATE OF PUBLICATION: June 25, 2011 CATEGORY: INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALISTS
Summary The story exposes the conduct by some private clinics and traditional healers to administer abortions though illegal in Malawi. To expose this I go undercover and bring to bare a clandestine underground operation which is increasingly putting at risk the lives of thousands of women and unborn children in Malawi. Meanwhile, statistics show that over 1, 400 women die every year while trying to abort using unsafe means. A record 70 thousand expectant women undergo abortions in Malawi. My investigations show that private clinics and traditional medicine men are busy cashing in on the lack of policing measures in Malawi where the law outlaws abortions. ………………………………………………..
18. Summary - TOYOSI OGUNSEYE
‗Public school toilets: Pits of deaths and diseases,‘ was written after an eight-year-old pupil fell into the pit latrine in a public school and died. My visit to the school made me realise that children in public schools were exposed to health dangers and death. This made me go to nine other primary schools in Lagos State The story was the same in the schools: poor or non-existent sanitation conditions despite the millions of naira allocated to the ministry every year. Each public school has a minimum 1000 pupils and the implication of not having toilets or good toilets in a public school is that the 1000 children can‘t use the toilet everyday they are in school for a minimum of five years while they are there. These are children that are as young as two-years-old.
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19. Summary - Estacio Valoi
Mozambican officials are complicit in violating procedure in the wood logging industry. They accept bribes and even assist wood logging companies who break environmental and other rules. A lot of damage is done by the Chinese Green Timber company, with the collusion of officials who should protect the rights of Mozambican workers, communities and the environment.
…………………………………….. 20. Summary - Anne Mireille Nzouankeu In Cameroon, the practice of homosexuality is a criminal act. Homosexuals are liable to imprisonment for six months up to 5 years and a fine of 20.000 to 200 000 FCFA (€30 – €305). ―Cameroon: the double life of homosexuals‖ lifts the veil a little on the abuse that homosexuals endure in silence for fear of reprisals: insults, degrading and humiliating comments, beatings, abusive dismissals and imprisonment without being charged. In 8
Cameroon, journalists do not write about homosexual rights for fear of reprisals from their fellow countrymen, from where the idea of this article. ………………………………………. 21. Summary - Edem Gabegbeku
The installation of hydro-electric structures in West Africa certainly reduces energy problems but also disadvantages many people who have for many years been condemned to face, alone, the adverse repercussions of these installations. The driving force of Ghana‘s economy, the building and the start of operations at Akosombo Dam have led to the relocation of 80 000 people. A subject that is practically taboo in this supposedly democratic country, the fate of these collateral victims is certainly not enviable! Especially since the government does everything to avoid the issue and instead points an accusing finger at the residents who have had to be relocated for this dam to be built. This, despite the heartfelt pleas of specialists in the matter and Ghanaian civil society on the direct, negative consequences of the operation of Akosombo Dam. ……………… 22. Summary – Reece Hermine Adanwenon The capital city of Benin is swarming with illegal medical centres. A foray into this illegal universe has revealed macabre facts. Babies born with their heads cut off, children with amputated feet, and all with the government‘s complicity. Many Beninese editors have refused to publish these articles out of fear. The investigation was published by AFRICAMEDIA 21. Other crimes committed in these medical practices were exposed. Following the publication of these articles, the Minister of Health has reacted. Not only has the medical practice in question been shut down but the ―foot cutter‖ is facing charges. …………………………
23. Summary - Selay Marius Kouassi
Gold and other precious metals that were extracted during the war period are not the only ones that do not benefit local residents who live in the areas where mining takes places and who often work on the mines. In Bonikro, a vast mine in Côte d‘Ivoire, local people now consider gold to be ―a cursed mineral‖ following the arrival of powerful Australian mining companies and their gold mining projects. Local residents have faced one problem after another in quick succession, given complicit authorities who break the law with regard to mining procedure and who are deaf to their demands. However, the most frightening prospect is of a real ecological disaster! ……………………
24. Summary - Sylvestre Sossou
As with albinos in some African countries, the hunt for hunchbacks is becoming more and more prevalent on the Dark Continent, especially in West Africa. In their quest for easy gains, evil hunters are actively on the hunt and several cases of the assassination of hunchbacks for the purpose of extracting their humps have lately been reported in Benin. According to certain sources, this human organ that is caused by deformity has become a prized item in secret and underground markets in both Nigeria and Ghana. Indeed, certain beliefs would have us think that the hump in question is a source of wealth and power. After hearing from survivors, parents of victims, accomplices who declined remuneration and security forces who were involved in these cases, it became evident that the perpetrators sometimes live with their victims. Hunchbacks and their parents therefore live in permanent fear. …………………………
25. Summary - Théodore Kouadio
The article is on child sexual abuse. Sexual abuse particularly against children is a reality in Côte d‘Ivoire. This scourge is widespread in the country but particularly in the west where there are all kinds of conflict. This situation does not seem to be a priority for Ivoirian authorities and is exacerbated by the military-political crisis that has gripped the country for some years. …………………………………..
26. Summary - Virgil Houessou
In Benin, 12-year old schoolgirls who are still minors are often the victims of unwanted pregnancies that are caused by adults. Those who dare to speak out are threatened. For fear of reprisals, nobody seeks justice in court. Instead of protecting them, the police abuse the law by misapplying it and penalising the victims. The 9
perpetrators of these pregnancies, who are also teachers, thus benefit from the impunity that upholds this system with the support, through ignorance, of parents. Result: the billions invested by the State each year do not yield any results. ……………………..
27. Summary - Zack Ohemeng Tawia
Asuboi,a small farming community with scattered cottages located in the middle of a forest reserved land called the Abofuor Forest. Though health officials boasted they had eradicated river blindness, my investigations proved otherwise. Unaware to me, health officials had researched into the disease in the three years earlier; they kept mute over it because the town was ―unmotorable‖. Even 4-wheel drive vehicles dare not to venture, forcing several farm produce of local farmers to rot. In my attempt to investigate the story, I was involved in a motor bike accident and admitted 3-days in hospital. I visited the community 15 times during black flier invasions without any protective wear and that was enough to transform the community. President of Ghana directed the Community Water and Sanitation Agency to provide Asuboi with portable drinking water. Zoomlion disinfected the community. Residents received treatment. Government built a clinic at cost of 20,000 US Dollars. ………………………………. 28. Summary - Lázaro Mabunda
The Government has concluded with Semlex - a Belgian company expelled from Chad and Guinea-Bissau and with controversial business in Kenya and Comoros - a controversial business for the production of all civilian biometric identification documents without any tender, ignoring the recommendations from Attorney General's Office stating that those services because they are sovereign, should not be awarded to a foreign company .. It is a business of 207 million dollars annually awarded to a company with a history of problems in countries where it operates.
What further aggravates the situation is that this company started business in August 2009, without commercial registration, that is a clear violation of commercial law, with no penalty. The company was legalised only nine months after starting to produce identification documents. Furthermore, the company declared a false address, and it is unknown up to date, the real location of the business of the company.
PS: This report is part of 18 articles published by the author in this business. The author of this paper traveled to Guinea-Bissau and Comoros to understand how the company had entered and found that the same method was used to win competitions. In Guinea Bissau and Chad the company has been expelled. ………………………………… 29. Summary - C.D. Seydou
The salaries of Ivoirian sportspeople
This investigation looks at the miserable salaries that Ivoirian sportspeople receive when compared to the gross sums that circulate in sport the world over but more precisely in European football. And while Ivoirian soccer players receive a salary, the same cannot be said for other disciplines that still only really function in an amateur capacity. The result of the investigation is loud and clear: for the moment, sport is not really a viable option for those who practise it.
………………………………………… 30. Summary - Charles Nforgang, Jade The article submitted for the competition presents the cases of the violation of legal procedures and the rights of suspects in Cameroon. This practice is common in places of detention where those in charge are corrupt. As a result, suspects who ought to be presumed innocent until proven guilty are sometimes treated as condemned inmates. Those in charge of preliminary investigations do not hesitate to ―doctor‖ their statements. Judges, who themselves are also not an example of moral integrity, are complicit in sending these suspects directly to jail. Thanks to efforts led by associations, citizens are becoming more aware and no longer hesitate to sue corrupt investigators and judges, some of whom are often fined. The damage has been done, however, and the violation of Human Rights is far from abating.
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CHAPTER III
Human trafficking http://www.awcfs.org/dmdocuments/reject/Reject_034.pdf FEB16-28 2011
By ABJATA KHALIF Ali Kheir recalls the trip from Kismayu, Somalia to Nairobi like it happened juts a few hours ago. He was chasing a dream and nothing was going to stand in his way to realising it. It is a trip that started very far and was covered through many hardships, but for Kheir the ultimate goal that was his final destination gave him the power not to give up but to keep pushing as every day shortened the journey with a few kilometres.
The trip And it was with a sigh of relief that he landed in Nairobi. Once he got to the city centre, Kheir was lucky to find accommodation with a distant relative while establishing contacts with brokers who would help him get Kenyan identity card and passport. ―I got the documents within one month and the brokers connected us to one of their networks that ferries people to Europe through Eastern European countries like Czech Republic and Russia,‖ explains Kheir. ―The documents included an admission for a college in Russia. We were taken through the airport without any questions. We paid handsomely through our brothers in Norway and Sweden. We were taken to Russia from where we were able to join our brothers.‖ Kheir, however, remembers the journey to Nairobi with shudder. He was in a group of ten youth who included three women when they were assembled outside Kismayu for the journey. ―I paid about $4,000 just to get to Nairobi. I joined the others a few kilometres outside Kismayu. I did not know them nor where they came from but I later came to learn as we progressed with the journey that some of them came from as far as Mogadishu and Marka in Somalia,‖ recalls Kheir. They were forced to trek about 40 kilometres before they reached a place called Hara Hara on the Kenyan-Somalia border. In Hara Hara, the team was joined by some guides in the border town whose work was to lead them through undesignated routes to avoid the Liboi border point where security forces are based. Kheir says: ―I could not withstand the 40 kilometre walk as it was hot and we were taken through a field with shrubs to an area outside Liboi town. From there we were ferried by a Land Rover through unmarked roads to Garissa town.‖ ―We were taken through the wilderness in a car and the journey took six hours. After that we were forced to walk through the bush for about 50 kilometres. The women in the group lost the energy to walk and the traffickers started beating them,‖ reveals Kheir, adding that one trafficker remained behind with one of the ladies and they could hear her cry. ―We never bothered to go back and find out what had happened to her but later on when we reached a village called Saretha, we asked her what happened. She said that she had been beaten and raped.‖ They left the village by bus from Daadab to Garissa. On the way at a check point, security ignored asking for identity cards but searched the bus for arms. They continued with their journey to Garissa where they were taken to a village away from town to rest while arrangements were being made on how to transport them to Nairobi. At the village they were ordered to pack their bags and leave by a taxi which was hired to take them across the Tana River Bridge where security screens all passengers bound for Nairobi. They were taken by taxi to an area outside Garissa from where they boarded a bus to another town and eventually to Nairobi. ―We passed through police barriers but we were asked nothing. I thought the money we paid for buying our way was facilitating that,‖ recalls Kheir.
Big dreams Dreams of decent living as well as good paying jobs and working conditions have gripped the lives of many young people from Somalia, Ethiopia as well as northern Kenya. Youth aged between 20 to 40 years are being lured with promises of relocation to the developed world and other countries within the region like South Africa.
The human trafficking ring that is popular in northern Kenya has seen youth coming from as far as Ethiopia and Somalia subscribing to the illegal and dangerous activity that involves huge resources. Poor families are making great sacrifices so that their sons and daughters can get out of the poverty cycle and fend for them from the Diaspora.
However, while many youth leave home dreaming big, the dreams have ended up turning 11
into nightmares and harrowing tales for the young men and women as they travel from various destinations to the capital city of Nairobi and Mombasa.
The human trafficking ring lure the youth with an easy ride to the destination. The traffickers have a strong network that includes bribing the Kenyan security forces so that they can easily pass through the various check points in northern Kenya to Garissa and finally to big cities like Nairobi and Mombasa before reaching the lucrative final destination. Once they reach Garissa town, the youth are taken by taxi away from security check points in Tana River Bridge. At times they are taken across the Tana River by canoe, then they trek to the main road to board a Nairobi bound bus. While this sounds like a normal journey, it is actually a multi-million business. The industry is swarming with greedy individuals who want to make quick money at the expense of young poor people living in the remote poverty stricken villages.
The human trafficking ring is so discreet. It involves an underground network that starts from major towns in Somalia and Ethiopia to Garissa town, Nairobi and Mombasa. The traffickers are mobile with no permanent addresses. They are very careful in their operations and leave no tracks behind lest they get trapped or fall into a security dragnet.
Extortion
Just like Kheir, Mulki Nuno brings to fore the other side of human trafficking after she was abandoned in Garissa and all her belongings and valuables like gold and money taken away by the smugglers. Nuno recalls: ―I was trafficked from Bardera area of Somalia and taken through various routes to Garissa. I was raped repeatedly and later when we reached near Garissa the trafficker ordered me to communicate with my parents so that they can send more money. They took about $13,000 from me and this was all the only money my parents had as they sold their land and livestock to enable me take the trip.‖ She adds: ―I remember being gang raped by two traffickers while the people who were taking the trip with me watched. I was crying and unable to walk.‖ When they were unable to give more money, the trafficker left her and others in Garissa town. Those who got support from their relatives were able to make it to Nairobi. She was left stranded as her parents were unable to send more money. Nuno was lucky to find a good Samaritan who has accommodated her since January last year to date. ―I am lucky I got someone here in Garissa who accommodated me after hearing of my tribulations. I cannot go back to Somalia as my parents sold all their property to send me to Norway. Even if an opportunity comes I will not go back home as it will be a shame for me to take all my parent property and go back again to be a burden to them.‖
Traffickers use Garissa town as the conduit to other destinations in Kenya. They prefer to ferry Somali youth from Ethiopia, Northern Kenya and Somalia. They argue that security personnel are not able to differentiate Somalis from Kenya with those from neighbouring countries.
The traffickers do not like ferrying Ethiopian refugees from the Oromo and Amhara through the said route as it raises suspicion from security officials. Trafficking is not an easy process. The traffickers first interview their customers (the youths) with view of knowing their dreams, where they intend to relocate and how much they are ready to pay. The traffickers prefer dealing with customers who have relatives in Europe, USA or Australia. With this they make extra cash by calling the relative faking arrests and demanding money. Customers are interviewed and closely monitored by the trafficker for some weeks before the journey starts. They are taken by the trafficker through a simple induction and orientation on some basic Kiswahili so that they can use it on the way when approached by Kenyan police. Some of the basic questions they have learnt to answer include the ones inquiring about identity cards, names, destination, where they stay in or out of Garissa.
High fees
Once they have gone through orientation, they choose a destination in Europe or South Africa. The destination will be determined by the amount a customer will indicate they are able to pay as fee for the trafficker, food expenses and money to buy their way in case they are arrested. The fees range from $13,000 to Europe via major destinations like Nairobi and $7,000 for those heading to South Africa via Nairobi, Mombasa, Tanzania, Zambia, Malawi, Zimbabwe and South Africa. Trafficking is divided between those headed for Europe and South Africa as well as those destined for local towns within Kenya but may be plotting for other destinations in Europe or America. Once the youth get to Nairobi, they stay with relatives as they await Kenyan identity cards 12
and passports that will enable them to travel. However, Garissa residents claimed that the human smuggling has decreased due to increased surveillance along the border over threats from al-Shabaab insurgents controlling Dobley areas along the Kenyan/Somalia border. As residents in Garissa complained of government involvement in the ring, a senior police officer based in Garissa was arrested a few months ago ferrying Somali refugees in the official police vehicle before being intercepted by an administration police officer manning the Tana River Security check point. The officer was charged with trafficking people and his case is before Garissa magistrate court.
A bimonthly on-line newspaper by the Media Diversity Centre, a project of African Woman and Child Feature Service February 16-28, 2011 END
13
Ethiopia‟s Crippled Agriculture (Analysis)
Wednesday, 29 December 2010 13:57 NewBusinessEthiopia.com
By Andualem Sisay
Sitting near St. Gabriel church, which is located next to the national palace here in Addis Ababa, Birrara Teketel, 27, stairs at the worshipers on a cloudy afternoon of December 28, 2010.
‗Sile Kidus Gebriel‘ (meaning for the sake of St. Gabriel)‘, he howls, seeking money or food from the followers of Ethiopian Orthodox Christians who steadily flow to attend St. Gabriel‘s annual worship ceremony.
But, he is not a fulltime beggar. A month ago he was at home with his wife and two children in Mugad, Weldya of Amhara region, which is some 500 kms from Addis Ababa. He is a farmer who owns a plot of land his family sliced to him when he got married eleven years ago.
Sitting next to another beggar around St. Gabriel Church Arat Kilo –December 28, 2010
―We can‘t earn enough from agriculture for a living since our land size is too small and we can only harvest once in a year,‖ says Birrara, whose land size only produces five quintals of sorghum or teff during good harvest season.
―The land is not suitable for irrigation either and I don‘t want to be in debt by using fertilizer as the size is too small. I would rather prefer leaving my home seeking other ‗shekl‘ (business) in different part of the country after the harvest,‖ he says.
For Birrara and hundreds of farmers this is the season they leave their home and exile to other parts of the country to make additional income and feed their family.
For the past three weeks, he was working as a daily labourer in Minjar area of Amhara region, which is known for producing quality teff – the main dish of Ethiopia.
He was lucky and returned to Addis Ababa with a total of 2,300 birr by harvesting teff farm of rich farmers. He earned 200 birr per hectare for his service. ―Thanks to God, now I will go back home and come back next year for similar Shekl,‖ says the father of 7 and 10 years old boys.
Only the younger boy goes to school while the older one stays at home supporting the family. He feeds the cow and ox of the family, collect firewood and help his mother fetching water.
He does all agriculture related activities, according to Birrara, whose decision on his older son‘s life seems totally opposite to his name‘s meaning, which means, ‗if he has sympathy‘.
Ethiopia‘s small-hold farm is often known for its rainfall dependency. Century old traditional farming system and lack of affordable modern agricultural inputs are also often mentioned as among the causes that lead to low production.
Issues associated with extensive grazing systems including deforestation and the growing degradation of rangelands and water sources due to unsustainable management practices also need attention to make productive small-holder agriculture in Ethiopia.
Agriculture VS Food Security 14
For the past decades millions of several Ethiopian farmers were unable to produce the amount of food the country needs to feed its citizens. In addition to the backward farming system of the country, the frequent drought the country experienced since 1970s has made the country foreign food aid dependent.
In fact, some of the drought-induced famines were even severely affecting millions of people so much so that famine is automatically associated with Ethiopia.
The country is still unable to make an end to the acute problem. Today, out of the total population of around 85 million around 13 million including those under the national safety net program are still dependent on food aid.
According to Rural Poverty Report 2011 released by the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) early December 2010, a little less than 35 per cent of the total rural population of developing countries is classified as extremely poor, down from around 54 per cent in 1988.
Reports show that more than 60 per cent of the rural population lives on less than 1.25 US dollar a day in sub- Saharan Africa, where Ethiopia is categorized.
After several attempts over the past twenty years, the Ethiopian government in its recent Growth and Transformation Plan vowed to end this within five years. It aims to liberate the country from the longstanding food aid by making the agricultural sector contribute to the development of industry.
Meanwhile, from the previous experiences of Ethiopian government, many doubt that Ethiopia will be free from foreign food aid within five years.
National Attempt
The Agricultural Development Led Industrialization (ADLI) that was first introduced by the government, which took power twenty years ago from the Communist Derg regime, has been considered as pro-poor and the main instrument for alleviating poverty of the majority of small-holder farmers in Ethiopia.
Meanwhile, the country‘s agriculture was not able to achieve its anticipated goals of serving as the main engine of industrialization by providing the raw material, capital base, surplus labour and capital accumulation wasn‘t able to address the core source of rural poverty.
Later, in 2002 the government issued the first Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP), known as the ―Sustainable Development and Poverty Reduction Program‖ (SDPRP).
The SDPRP was based on the basic doctrine of ADLI with its major focus on agricultural and rural development. Its emphasis was mainly directed to stimulating rural growth centered on small land holder farmers, like Birrara.
The second round of the PRSP process, known as ―the Plan for Accelerated and Sustainable Development to End Poverty‖ (PASDEP), covers the period 2005‐2010. Still the overall idea was to increase food production of small-hold farmers, expand commercial farms and reduce dependency level of the country on foreign food aid.
Unfortunately, only below 50 percent of PASDEP II target was attained in terms of increasing major crops production. 15
GTP Agricultural Growth Target
At the end of 2010, the government‘s target was to produce 38.2 million tons of major crops, which is only one million tons lower than the new Growth and Transformation Plan.
Meanwhile the country was only able to produce a total of 18.08 million tons of major crops at the end of 2009/10 fiscal year.
Now, most of agriculture sector targets listed in the Growth and Transformation Plan aim to meet these unmet targets of the previous five years without major policy shift and yet with an alarming population growth of around two million every year.
Is Large Farm Curing the Acute?
Without proper policy and regulations, the recent trend of allocating huge farming land to foreign investors do not seem to solve rural poverty and make the country food sufficient either.
In his paper entitled, ‗Governance of large scale agricultural investments in Africa: The case of Ethiopia‘, which is presented at the World Bank meeting in April 2010, Emeru Tamrat stressed the need to recognize and enforce land rights while expanding large scale agriculture in the country.
Land conflicts, restriction on land rights and land use planning, public land management, expropriation and compensation issues also need government‘s attention, according to Emeru.
He further suggested that the country needs to develop and implement rural land use master plans. There is also a need for a clear definition of the contents of communal and pastoral holding rights by law. The country should also put in place mechanisms to ensure benefit sharing from large-scale agricultural investment.
―Currently there is lack of regular and effective monitoring of compliance with safeguards related to agricultural investment by the responsible government agencies. The lack of mechanisms to monitor large‐scale agricultural investments once land is allocated has led to misuse of natural resources and adverse environmental and social impacts,‖ Emeru noted in the paper.
His paper also indicated that Afar, Somali, Benishangul‐Gumuz, Gambella and Harari regional states have not yet issued their own implementation legislation.
He questions how the land holding rights given to peasants and pastoralists under the constitution is being implemented within these regional states in the absence of detailed land administration laws in these regional states.
Until the current complex situation change, Birrara and thousands of small agricultural land holders in Ethiopia continue searching their part time income or wait for the common emergency food aid from abroad. And the burden of taking care of their family will fall on the shoulders of their kids who are being deprived of elementary education.
END.
16
“At the Mercy of the Sea”
By Benjamin P. Tetteh Date of Publication: 17 July, 2010 Coastal erosion has washed away the homes and history of thousands of Ghanaians living along the coast. Experts say global warming and rising sea levels could be pushing many more homes under the sea. This week in our Hotline documentary, ―At the Mercy of the sea‖, Benjamin Tetteh investigates the sea erosion crisis along the coast of Ada in the Greater Accra Region to Keta in the Volta Region, and Takoradi in the Western Region, where communities are under threat of extinction. CUE: SEA EROSION Report Sound up: (ocean, tides and waves smashing against the beach) From Keta to Ada, through Tema, Cape Coast and to Takoradi thousands of people are under threat from rising sea levels. Already, Ghana‘s lands are fast vanishing into the sea due to erosion. Experts say more people will suffer flooding along coastal and island communities due to climate change. The Dangbe East town of Ada, for example, has a 38-kilometre stretch of coastal lands which are under threat of erosion. Dozens of homes have been destroyed by erosion and hundreds of people have been displaced, since the early sixties. I took a walk to the beach at Ada Foah, on a bright morning to have a feel of the ruins of sea erosion. CUE: INTRO STAND UP (stand up from Ada Foah Beach) Azizanya is a small community, five minutes drive from Ada Foah. I have come here to meet Avoryitor Nartey. Here, the people are constantly on the move as a result of the erosion. They‘ve been forced to pack up their belongings and watch their homes being destroyed…. Not just once but many times. Most of the history of these people is passed down in folklores, and some through songs. CUE: WOMAN INTRO (This is where I was born. My father, Tetteh-tsu Nartey and my mother, Alakaseyo Agbasi were both born right here. Azizanya is the last community in Ada which shares boundary with the estuary. When our forefathers came to Ada some came with hoes to till the land but our forefathers resorted to fishing. Our grandfather was a fisherman, so he came to settle here. We are no strangers here, we are real Adas. A traditional midwife, Mame Jumadey-nye Tsorborkor, she first settled here. Then, we had no hospitals but she single-handedly delivered us, and today, we have filled this land. ) CUE: DEAD SOUND Avoryitor was not born in her present location. She and her people have moved several kilometers to their present location. She tells me, this is the community‘s fifth resettlement. CUE: WOMAN RELOCATE (We were far away from here, close to the sea. In those days this present location was considered a dangerous place and no single person could come here alone. This is where we used to bury those who died mysteriously like kids. It was a no-go area and the inhabitation of ghosts and foul spirits. The sea has moved and moved us, and we had to relocate for several times. Our current settlement is the fifth. Our first community was called Takuse where our forefathers first settled. Where we stayed with our parents after they moved from Takuse was far indeed. Even then, this new area was a wetland full of tall trees. Now this is where the sea has pushed us to. We are right in the belly of the river. The sea has disturbed us indeed) 17
The constant floods from the sea have left patches of water in the community, making the once beautiful coastal community a slum. For some time now the District Assembly has been attempting to relocate one village, Totopey. Like Azizanya, Totopey is now right at the beach and each time the sea level rises, homes get flooded. Many homes were washed away and properties lost. But so far, funds for the relocation are not forthcoming. As sea erosion seasons sets in I asked Avoryitor if she will like to be relocated. She was emphatic. She won‘t move. CUE: WOMAN NO RELOCATION (I will never agree. I will agree. There is no place like home. No matter where they send us we will not go. If we go will perish. We are fishermen and fishmongers. Our very livelihoods depend on the waters. If they give us land to farm we cannot farm. We will starve to death. We used to this community. If we were not Adas--- if we were refugees---- we would consider that and relocate. But to be on our own land and to be told to relocate? My goodness! We and our children will all die. ) And Avoryitor is not alone. It seems the whole community has resolved to remain here, come what may. Eighty- year-old Gormi Agbesi is a fisherman. He is a second generation resident of Azizanya. He tells me relocating the people of Azizanya is totally out of the discussion. They want a sea defense wall. CUE: MAN NO RELOCATION Last year President Mills was the guest speaker during the Asafotufiam festival. He told the Chiefs and people of a 68 million Euros loan government has secured for work to begin on a sea defense wall in Ada. He promised to return by the end of the year to cut sod for work to begin. CUE: That was August last year, and that promise is yet to be fulfilled and Avoryitor, like most of her people, is worried. She voted for Prof. Mills in the last Presidential election, but now she feels disappointed. But, when I asked District Chief Executive Rex Dan Wussah to tell me the progress of work, he said the President has not failed the people of Ada: CUE: REX DAN As the people of Ada cry for a sea defense wall the people of Keta in the Volta Region have been beneficiaries of one such project. Keta used to be an important trading post during the 14th century and the remnants of a Dutch Fort built in 1784 still exist along the cost. CUE: KETA DEF STAND UP Work on the buildings is progressing, and I can see workers roofing one house. I entered into one of the buildings to take a closer look: CUE: KETA BUILDING STAND-UP As we walked around,… (CUE: CLIMB STAIRS) I saw people have already occupied some of the buildings. So I approached to speak with them. Interestingly, there are problems with many of the new structures. Some of roofs, built with aluminum roofing sheets, are coming off. There are visible cracks on some of the walls and floors, and this old lady complained to me her room leaks badly. CUE: KETA WOMAN 18
She tells me, each time it rains the iron sheets are blown aside and the building leaks. But she said, she doesn‘t like to complain. She has to make do with this single room although she lost her family house with 10 rooms to the tides. But—it appears her situation is better. An old man called Honest, tells me he is displaced and now putting up with relatives in nearby Agorta. My investigations indicate some officials in charge of the building project, take money from people who are not affected by the erosion, and give these new houses to them instead. This is a concern to Honest: CUE: KETA HONEST He wonders when he will receive his own. Transition sounds: (waves, sounds) So, I went back to the Municipal Chief Executive and put these concerns to him. CUE: KETA MCE RESPONSES Transition sounds: (waves, crushing sounds) Back in Azizanya, Avoryitor gave me a special message to the President. She says she is fervently waiting for him to come and build the wall he promised. CUE: MY LAST WORD Facing the ravages of the sea, Azizanya and her people have not given up hope. They pray that when I next visit, they would have been offered some respite from the ravages of the sea and the threat of waking up one day to a home flattened by the tides would have been minimized – at least. In Ada Foah for Joy FM‘s Hotline, this has been Benjamin Tetteh. END
19
http://www.nature.com/nmiddleeast/2011/110428/full/nmiddleeast.2011.51.html?WT.mc_id=TWT_Natur eMEast doi:10.1038/nmiddleeast.2011.51; Published online 28 April 2011 Feature Religious bias in Egypt's universities Bibi-Aisha Wadvalla Sir Magdi Yacoub has performed more heart and lung transplants than any surgeon in the world. An oft-told story in Egypt's science community tells the tale of why Magdi Yacoub left Egypt to become a world famous surgeon in the United Kingdom. An Egyptian Christian, he had his thesis rejected by his Muslim supervisor, allegedly because of religious discrimination. He moved to the United Kingdom in 1962 where he established the world's largest heart and lung transplant programme. Yacoub was celebrated for his work and knighted by Queen Elizabeth II in 1992. In January 2011, former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak presented Yacoub with the Greatest Nile Collar, Egypt's highest civilian decoration, in recognition of Yacoub's distinguished career and contributions to science and humanity. Following this award, his one-time former supervisor reportedly said that Yacoub wouldn't have achieved all this if he hadn't rejected his thesis. After the bombing of a church in Alexandria, Egypt, on New Year's Eve 2010, simmering tensions between the Coptic Christians, Egypt's ethnic Christians who make up around 10% of the population, and Muslim communities came to the fore. Less than one month later, however, the popular revolution that ousted Mubarak's regime united them in their , determination to build a new Egypt free from prejudice. But the violence that erupted after a church on the outskirts of Cairo was set alight in March 2011 was a reminder that the road to peaceful co-existence is long and the aggrieved calls of Christians rang louder. Christians in Egypt have long complained of being marginalized in society, last in line for jobs and other opportunities. The science sector is not exempt. According to several scientists, Muslims and Christians, scientists are being favoured for jobs on religious grounds.
*Imad Fahim, a Christian cardiologist, feels there is blatant bias against Christians. "In universities, at hospitals, Muslims are always favoured. Copts are failed deliberately, and we cannot obtain residencies of our choice because we are Christian," he says. *Maged Zaki, an embryologist, with the Egyptian IVF-ET Center, is a Christian. He says he hasn't experienced prejudice. "There is no religious discrimination. There's subtle class discrimination. If you belong to the 'right' class, it doesn't matter if you're Muslim or Christian." He's sceptical of those who play the "religion card". "Either you're qualified or not. It comes down to merit." Religious segregation in universities Kasr El Aini is the teaching hospital of Cairo University and one of the biggest hospitals in Egypt. A gynaecologist by training, *Ahmed El-Baaly was an undergraduate student at Suez Canal University (SCU), Egypt. He talks of departments segregated by religion. "The neurosurgery department is controlled by Muslims, and to my knowledge, there's never been a Christian resident." Somaya Hosny, dean of the Faculty of Medicine at SCU, who's Muslim, says this is untrue. "Only one or two departments do not include Christian staff, but this is because either the grades of the Muslim applicants, who are 90% of the population, are higher or because no Christian candidates prefer to go to this department." Hosny is adamant positions are based on merit. "I'm giving leadership positions to many Christians. We currently have two Christian women working as head of departments. Many Christian faculty members get nationally-funded research grants. This also depends on competence and experience of applicants." Nevene Ramsis the female Christian head of the pathology department at SCU, affirms Hosny's statements. "I did not experience discrimination in my faculty. I am the chair of the department according to my seniority among professors in my department." However, Ramsis says the situation is different at the Universities of Cairo and Ain Shams. "I hear many stories where young Christian doctors are prohibited from joining some departments, such as obstetrics, gynaecology or urosurgery." Ramsis has two sons at Ain Shams University. "They were advised not to join certain departments as they wouldn't get their thesis, fellowships or any grants." "Consequently", she adds, "some Christians don't employ Muslims." Ahmed Sonoussy, head biologist at the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine at Cairo University, vehemently denies any segregation or discrimination there. "If you visit my faculty you will see Muslims and Christians working together in the same departments. We are one unit, not separated by religion." He led the team which recently produced Egypt's first avian flu vaccine. When asked if Muslims are favoured over Christians with regard to research grants and opportunities, he reiterates, "Funding is given to scientists who deserve it and are doing good work. It doesn't matter if you're Muslim or Christian." Christian hospitals 20
El-Baaly, a Muslim, worked part-time at St. Peter Hospital, a private Christian hospital in the uptown Heliopolis neighbourhood in Cairo. "I wasn't offered a full-time job, since the hospital only hires Christian doctors", he explains. He adds that Muslim patients are not admitted. At Cleopatra Hospital, one doctor who refused to be named said their preference was to admit Christian patients, "but we take in Muslims too." Maila Mansour, a Muslim quality manager at Cleopatra Hospital, refutes this. "I'm a Muslim and I'm working at a Christian hospital. We are not concerned with the issue of religion. We admit anybody. I don't think there's any hospital in Egypt which turns away patients because they're Muslim or Christian." Although Zaki does not think Christians are treated unfairly, he feels there's an Islamic element that should be removed. "The Hippocratic oath has been altered and contains references to Islam", he alleges. "The oath should be neutral." He is hopeful that any bias will decrease as Egypt transitions towards democracy. "It will take time to erase the past, but Christian– Muslim unity can be achieved. We lived under a dictator who used the divide and conquer rule. Now we want to change that." Ramsis is not so optomistic. "Many Muslim radicals have been released from prison and started to disseminate their radicalism among youth", she says. "It is really a disaster we are facing." *These people were given pseudonyms to protect their identity.
END
21
INVESTIGATION!
How dangerous criminals get out of jail before time to cause more havoc on public
DEOGRATIAS MMANA
A Weekend Nation investigation has uncovered how a syndicate involving a court clerk and some prison officers get dangerous criminals released from jail before time is up at a fee to cause more havoc on the unsuspecting public.
Police in November 2010 expressed shock to learn that one of the two robbers they gunned down trying to rob Agora Limited in Limbe, Robert Difuleya, who was sentenced to 12 years imprisonment with hard labour on June 26 2008 after being convicted on a charge of robbery with evidence, had a release order on him.
―When we searched him, he was found with a release order from Chichiri Prison but although it is signed by a magistrate, we suspect that it is a fake document. So, we will also investigate how he found himself out when he is supposed to be serving a prison sentence,‖ said Chifundo Chibwezo, Limbe Police spokesperson.
We were tipped off by a former inmate that there is a clerk in Zomba named Wisdom Chiuta who facilitates the releases by forging court documents and judicial officers‘ signatures with the help of some prison officials.
After getting a go-ahead from both the director of Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) Alex Nampota and Inspector General of Police Peter Mukhito, we approached Chiuta through a contact to facilitate the release of a prisoner [Name withheld for his own safety] at Chichiri Prison.
Chiuta at first demanded K120 000, saying K20 000 was for a prison warder who would facilitate the release.
The first meeting between Chiuta and our contact, which was secretly recorded, was on January 13 2011 in Blantyre.
Chiuta boasted that although he is a mere court clerk, he is meticulous and ensures that he does not leave a trail behind.
―I do it in such a way that even when police probe, they will fail to trace how prisoners get out before their time. I will write Chichiri Prison as if it is the High Court that wants him. Prison officials will not question that,‖ he said.
Chiuta, who said he comes from Makwasa in Thyolo, said it is easier to release prisoners at Zomba than Chichiri Prison. He said many prisoners with money ask for transfer to Zomba Prison because they know they will be released easily.
Said Chiuta: ―In the past, people feared Zomba Prison but now it has become a home for prisoners. It is a bit difficult to release a prisoner from Blantyre High Court because about two years ago, police invaded the court and investigated release of some prisoners whom they saw walking freely before their release time. So, court officials there are still afraid.‖
―I have three other people apart from the prison warder that I work with. One goes to the judge‘s chamber to get the seal stamp and even write in the judge‘s diary about the release of the prisoner. Some boys have to forge the judge‘s signature. I risk my job because I can be arrested for forgery. That is why nowadays we demand upfront payment.‖
―That is why the police fail to establish how some prisoners get released before their time. You can find that the papers go through the registrar‘s office and have the judge‘s seal stamp and signature and the release is also reflected in the judge‘s diary.‖
Asked how long the process takes, Chiuta said the maximum period is four weeks.
―After four weeks, and we do not release the prisoner, then something is wrong,‖ he said.
22
He also boasted that he released two of the three hardcore criminals Matthew Chimombo and Gulaya, who in February this year robbed a bank.
When asked to aid the release of our prisoner, Chiuta said: ―That is not a difficult job. I have helped many hardcore criminals like armed robbers get out of prison. Your issue is not difficult because even when he is out and police see him walking freely, they will not be very worried because he does not pose a threat to national security.‖
When the date for the release came, Chiuta grew cold feet after he got wind of the fact that the law enforcers were part of our plan.
But during the conversation with our contact, which we recorded, Chiuta revealed that he helped the release of a convicted armed robber, Gerald Banda.
We later learnt that he also helped another prisoner convicted of robbery, Matthews Chimombo. When we later went to Zomba High Court, we were told that Chiuta works at Mulunguzi Magistrate‘s Court but often goes to the High Court.
But when we contacted Mulunguzi Court, an official connected us to a clerk who identified himself as Wisdom Phiri.
Phiri said he does not know Chiuta and also distanced himself from the malpractice.
Our contact describes Chiuta, who he met twice, as light in complexion and about 1.7 metres tall. He also described him as of medium weight.
On the other hand, Phiri, according to Judiciary spokesperson, comes from Phangwa Village in the area of chief Malengachanzi in Nkhotakota.
We traced the files of Chimombo and Banda with Prisons Department and discovered that they were indeed released but before their time was up.
Our investigations, which took six months, revealed that Chimombo was convicted on January 31, 2007 of armed robbery and was sentenced to eight years imprisonment with hard labour but he was released on January 12, 2009.
Banda, on the other hand, was convicted on August 9, 2006 also of two armed robberies and sentenced to 10 years and nine years, respectively, to run consecutively. He was released on January 15, 2009.
Documents show that the two sentences were at some point changed to run concurrently for six years. Both prisoners were transferred from Chichiri Prison to Zomba Prison.
One of the documents in Banda‘s file which was used to release him is a purportedly warrant of commitment to officer-n-charge of Zomba Prison which shows that the sentence was reduced by the High Court and it is signed by the ―Registrar‖.
The warrant reads in part, ―And whereas upon confirmation of the conviction and sentence this court quashed the conviction on the charges of robbery with violence and set aside the sentence and instead convicted Gerald Banda with attempted robbery c/s. 300 of the Penal Code and substituted a sentence of 6 years I.H.L on each of the two charges with effect from 16th January, 2005.‖
―You are required to keep the said Gerald Banda in custody until the expiration of 6 years I.H.L.‖
The same is the case with Chimombo which shows that his sentence was reduced by the High Court in Blantyre and also signed by the ―Registrar‖.
The Judiciary on Tuesday this week disowned the documents in the two files.
Judiciary spokesperson Joseph Chigona said the signature on the warrant of commitment does not belong to any court registrar in the country. 23
Chigona also said since 2008, confirmation of the conviction and sentences of cases from Blantyre has not been done.
He also disowned another warrant of commitment in Banda‘s file signed by one Mac Novice Mmadi, saying such a warrant does not exist and that the Judiciary has never had an employee called Mac Novice Mmadi.
―There is no registrar with such a signature. The person who has signed the second warrant has never been an employee in the Judiciary. To avoid things of this nature, nowadays judges and registrars write their initials on the top right of any communication,‖ he said.
He added, ―We are interested to read the story. We have been condemning this practice and we warned our staff that one day the culprit will be caught. These things happen but we could not get to the root of the matter. One employee was once interdicted in connection to this kind of thing.‖
He called on prison officials to verify some releases with court authorities to avoid releasing people before their time.
The warrants of commitment have a signature and stamp of the officer-in-charge of Zomba Central Prison, Fragment Phiri.
Prisons spokesperson Evance Phiri on Thursday morning confirmed that the signature which was reflected on the original copy belonged to the office-in-charge.
Phiri and another officer later on visited Nation Publications Limited to verify our documents which are the copy of the original with a court seal which the officials had. They later visited Chigona who told them what he told us.
―We have the original copy and there is a seal where the registrar has signed. Does your copy have a seal? If they [High Court] disown the original copy [then there is an issue]. Without the seal we cannot do anything,‖ said Phiri of the documents which were disowned by Chigona.
Both numbers we had for Chiuta had been off since the time we tried to make him release the prisoner.
Nation on Sunday, 5 June 2011
Peter Mukhito Police Chief acts on officers who aided early releases.
Barely two weeks after Weekend Nation exposed the syndicate some prison and court officials use to aid them in the release of prisoners before their time, police in Zomba have arrested three officers.
Inspector General of Police Peter Mukhito said on Friday the arrest follows intensive investigations into the syndicate after the expose by the paper.
―We suspect there are many more,‖ Mukhito said.
Mulanje Prison officer-in-charge Frederick Potolani, 48, of Chiutsa Village from Chief Kaphuka in Dedza and Voice Victor Masache, 38, of Ellioti Village from Chief Mwambo in Zomba and police prosecutor Nelson Jobe, 38, of Mdimba Village, Chief Mazengera in Lilongwe were arrested on June 1 2011.
Eastern Region Police statement signed by spokesperson Nicholas Gondwa says the officers had fake documents demanding release of two serving prisoners convicted of armed robbery on April 27 2011 at Zomba Central Prison.
Weekend Nation, of Saturday June 18 2011 reported about the arrest of another warder Francis Gondolo of Mulanje Prison who collected K20 000 from a prisoner to aid his release.
The Nation of 27 June 2011 also reported about an arrest of a senior court clerk at Mulanje Magistrate‘s Court, Catherine Mphatso on June 20 2011. She was charged with forgery of judicial documents. END. 24
Pirates: Social bandits in Africa
Kassim Mohamed
In the eyes of the international justice system and the world, the pirates of Somalia are criminal outcasts. However, to a majority in the communities in their home bases they are heroes, bringing food to families that would otherwise be starving. They are praised for providing jobs and developing towns not only in Somalia, but even in neighbouring Kenya. The pirates, when asked, say they see themselves as taking what is rightfully theirs, especially now that foreign ships have emptied their coastal waters of fish. ‗Coast guards‘, they call themselves, meaning that they fill a void that should normally be filled by government.
Flashy homes and booming businesses in Puntland
―Whenever we hijack ships, we re-stock on essentials like food. We buy goats for meat and khat [a mildly narcotic herb that is chewed – pronounced ‗chat‘] from the residents. We pump money into the region‘s economy. How else are the people here going to survive? All the fish in our sea have gone,‖ says proud pirate Abdullah Abdi of Eyl, a small coastal town in the semi-autonomous region of Puntland in Somalia.
Abdi is one of the estimated 1500 pirates who have been criss-crossing the busy Indian Ocean shipping lanes and the Gulf of Aden which connects the Red Sea to the Indian Ocean.
The young men, some of them former fishermen, but also many who used to work as bodyguards and militias for Somalia‘s many warlords and politicians, have captured dozens of vessels and hundreds of hostages, earning millions of dollars in ransom.
It is difficult to establish the exact amount of money paid by shipping companies as ransom to pirates.
On 6 November 2010, international news agencies reported that Somali pirates had released the South Korean oil tanker, Samho Dream, after payment of a ransom of US$ 9.5 million. The tanker was hijacked in April and was carrying more than two million barrels of crude oil that was being transported from Iraq to the United States. According to the World Peace Foundation – an international think-tank bringing together scholars, diplomats, lawyers, military officers and maritime partners, working on an initiative to combat piracy – the shipping industry is losing more than US$ 100 million a year through hijackings. The losses from ransom alone – the net pirate income – could amount to half or more of that amount. Local sources told The Star that one band of pirates, the father-and- son empire of Mohamed Hassan ‗Afweyne‘ and Abdikadir Abdi that operates from central Somalia, hijacked seven ships in 2009 alone.
(The sources were able to name five of the ships and the dates: the passenger cruise Ship Indian Ocean Explorer (2 April 2009), the bulk carrier Ariana (2 May 2009), the fishing vessel Alakrana (2 October 2009), the container ship Kota Wajar (15 October 2009) and the bulk carrier Xin Hai (19 October 2009).) If ransom payments, as is estimated, vary between US$ 100 000 and US$ 10 million, with an average of US$ 1 million per ransom, then the amount paid in ransom to this band of pirates in 2009 alone could be as high as US$ 7 million.
According to observers such as the UN Monitoring Group on Piracy, there are at least seven such syndicates, bringing estimate of the possible yearly profits from piracy in Somalia up to nearly US$ 50 million. In comparison: development aid projects in Somalia in 2009 by the UK and the US in the field of employment creation, agriculture and livestock, amounted to no more than US$ 5 million and the total Puntland government budget in the same year amounted to US$ 17.6 million.
Again, according to the UN Monitoring Group, the pirate syndicates roaming the Somali coastline can roughly be divided into two main groups. The one is from central Somalia‘s two infamous piracy hubs, Xarardhere and Hobyo. This region is home to ‗Afweyne‘ and his son. The other main group operates from Puntland in the northeastern part of Somalia. ‗Pirate economics‘ are so powerful in Puntland that it is fast becoming a criminal state.
The government of President Abdirahman Mohamed ‗Faroole‘, instead of fighting piracy and developing his region and country, has started to share in pirates‘ earnings. According to the UN Monitoring Group, senior Puntland officials, including President Faroole himself and members of his cabinet (notably the minister for 25
interior General Abdullahi Ahmed Jama and the minister for internal security, General Abdillahi Sa‘iid Samatar), have received proceeds from piracy and kidnappings.
The Monitoring Group said in its 10 March 2010 report that ―over 30% of ransom payment was retained by Puntland government officials‖. Developments based on pirates‘ earnings are evident in towns like Eyl, a village that once used to live off fishing.
Now that the fish are gone, Eyl‘s sandy beaches, adorned with abandoned wooden fishing boats, are ringed with dozens of flashy homes for the newly rich. A quick survey shows how his fellow townsfolk appreciate Abdi and his colleagues. Zeynab Abdi (no relation), a frail 58-year-old who takes care of her four grandchildren orphaned in Somalia‘s decades-long civil war, says her life is better now that pirates take care of her and her family.
―When they get money, I can feed my children. That which comes from pirates is my lifeline.‖ Zeynab is especially fond of pirates Mohamed and Farole, who ―help her mostly‖ with regular rice, beans and powder milk rations, even though she is not a close relative of theirs.
―They give me all this every time they are paid a ransom. I and my grandchildren are comfortable. Piracy is the buttered side of our bread,‖ she nods. Going round the neigbourhood to find news about newly hijacked ships is now part of Zeynab Abdi‘s morning routine, after prayers. A few streets away, grocer Sugule Dahir is also full of praise for the pirates. ―There are many shops now and business is booming. Internet cafés and telephone bureaus have opened, and people in this area are happier than they were before piracy started.‖
Ahmed Ali Ahmed, a micro-economist and a businessman who runs several schools and media houses in Somalia, has noted that houses are shooting up where there were none.
―[Pirates] are fond of building big houses, if it should cost only US$ 30 000 these people easily invest US$ 60 000 to get the same thing, because they don‘t care. I have heard that they have started building houses even in Mogadishu. The contractors benefit, they are the ones who supply them (the pirates) with alcohol and khat.‖
Twenty-six-year-old Anab Farah‘s business is also booming, but in her case in a very special way: the young divorcee is caterer of choice for the hostages the pirates hold in various locations. Farah prepares the three daily meals for the hostages, handing them over to the hostages‘ guardians as take aways. She also sells them khat. (Thanks to the pirates‘ business, the price of a kilogram of khat has gone up to US$ 66, compared to US$ 18 in other parts of Somalia.) ―The pirates are important to my work. Many days, I earn the equivalent of 400 American dollars. It feeds my family and I am planning to buy a car very soon,‖ says Farah, before breaking into a song that is popular in Eyl these days: ―Ya kale, ya kale oo Somalidu dandeeda kafikiraa oo aan aheyn burcaad badeed‖ it goes, meaning ―Who else thinks about our plight, as Somalis, other than the pirates‖.
Halima Hassan has recently been married to an old pirate, Mr Hassan, who is 70. The marriage was arranged and the age difference alone would be a formidable deterrent to most other young girls. Not, however, to Halima. This may have something to do with the fact that she now lives in a distinguished-looking grey villa, built on spacious grounds, with a front door imprinted with blue and green leaf paintings, and surrounded by an immaculate lawn and indigenous trees.
Micro-economist, Ahmed Ali Ahmed ―This is how I get bread on my table,‖ she says, wiping an AK47. ―My parents have no money and I have no education. Without this, I wouldn‘t eat. Thanks to this, I have so much.‖ As an illustration, she points through the window at the parked cars outside: two four-wheel drive Toyota Prados, one blue and one silver. Though many young girls are not happy being married off without their consent, the practice is quite common in Somalia.
Before piracy a girl would often be married off to a man barely less poor than her own family, and poverty would largely remain the status quo. Nowadays, dowries for some families – especially those who have beautiful daughters – have increased considerably. Says an Eyl elder, who asked to remain anonymous: ―I‘ve been called upon many times to facilitate negotiations between pirates and parents. 26
The pirates bring with them beautiful garments, gold-coated walking sticks, perfumes, camels, valuable artifacts and money.‖ The elder is concerned about this. Though he has no problem with arranged marriages per se, he feels that the vulgar ―beauty-for-money‖ practice has ―killed the moral fabric‖ of society in the region.
„Little Mogadishu‟ in Kenya
Abdilkadir Issa, thanks to piracy, can keep his two daughters in school. He doesn‘t have to worry about marrying them off or continuing to feed them, since his job as a salesman in a large electronics shop owned by a pirate pays him well. ―My salary helps me to care for my children and I am thankful to the owner despite his profession,‖ Issa says.
The electronics shop is not in Eyl, but in the Somali neighbourhood of Eastleigh in neighbouring Kenya‘s capital,Nairobi. It provides employment for 15 other workers. A huge number of high-rise buildings have recently sprung up in Eastleigh, now nicknamed ‗Little Mogadishu‘, after the capital of Somalia.
Eastleigh is the favourite suburb for Somalis who live in Nairobi, some of them refugees from Somalia. ―Hundreds of youths are employed in the construction business here. They are now busy constructing a building of nine floors, a project that employs 25 people,‖ says Eastleigh businessman Ibrahim Abey.
Issa‘s electronics shop is part of one of the new complexes. Other flourishing businesses in this particular building include a ladies‘ clothing shop and a foreign exchange bureau.
The Eastleigh Business Community, a coalition of Somali businessmen in Kenya, says it is not aware of any investments by pirates in Eastleigh. The association states that its members ―have what it takes to run a business just like any other person in Kenya‖ and that they would Welcome any government investigation ―as long as it [was] not biased against them‖.
Some of those employed in the neighbourhood, however, talk openly about their patrons. ―I know that my boss is a pirate, but that‘s not my problem. I don‘t kill anybody; I sweat to earn my salary and dividends,‖ says a Kenyan man who fronts for a powerful pirate as the official manager of a petrol station in Eastleigh.
The pirate can‘t legally run a business or a bank account in Kenya so, like many others, he finds a friendly Kenyan to do it for him. ―The investor told me to make money for him,‖ this manager says. ―That, as he earns more, I‘ll also grow.‖ Likewise, Abdilkadir Issa has no problem admitting that his electronics shop is a result of pirate investment. Sometimes, Issa confesses, he even feels like joining his employer in piracy, but then he thinks again. He is in fact scared to die, he has to answer when he is asked that question by the many recruiters of pirates that canvass Nairobi‘s Eastleigh suburb. Block of recently constructed
A report by the World Peace Foundation claims that Kenyan firms play a key role in driving piracy along the Somali coast. The report, entitled ‗Combating Maritime Piracy‘, released in January 2010, says that piracy in Somalia is controlled by about 1500 pirates; that these are organized in seven syndicates; and that these syndicates are financed and brokered by a ‗few bosses‘ from Somalia, Kenya, Dubai, Lebanon and even some European countries.
A maritime official, who spoke to Kenya‘s Daily Nation on condition that he was not named because of the sensitivity of the issue, said they were aware of the role that a select few law, security, aviation and shipping companies in Mombasa and Nairobi played in facilitating the release of hijacked ships and payment of ransoms.
―The law and security firms facilitate negotiations and preparation of agreements, while aviation and shipping companies deliver ransom payments to the pirates in Somalia,‖ he said. ―The money is either delivered to 27
private airstrips around Nairobi from where it is flown and dropped to pirates on hijacked ships or is loaded on ships that go to Somalia from Mombasa port to deliver.
Once such missions have been accomplished, the pirates pay the law, security, aviation and shipping firms involved through their agents in Nairobi and Mombasa through an unofficial money remittance system called Hawala.‖
Kenyan government spokesman Alfred Mutua told The Star that there is ―suspicion that some of the money that is being collected in piracy is being laundered through the purchase of property‖ in the country. Official estimates say there is between Ksh 96 billion and Ksh 164 billion (US$ 1.2 billion and US$ 2.05 billion) floating in the country‘s informal economy. Property prices in Nairobi have shot up due to large, unexplained injections of cash into the housing market. As a result of pirates and their frontmen buying up property, it has become difficult for Kenyans of medium-level income to afford buying, or even keeping, their own houses.
In Eastleigh, Kamau wa Ngige says he has been forced to put up notice boards that his plot is not for sale. He says that pirates ―want to buy everything‖ in the area. ―A few years ago, a plot cost Ksh 3–4 million (US$ 37 000 – US$ 50 000) but now it costs Ksh 10–12 million (US$ 124 000 – US$ 149 000); all because of the easy money pirates come with. I wonder why they are still roaming freely in our country. They should all be behind bars,‖ Kamau said.
Salah Abdi Sheikh, a writer on economics based in Nairobi, said it was not a secret that ―money moves from Puntland to Kenya. There is evidence that a lot of the piracy is now driven by market forces of supply and demand in which there are Somalis, non-Somalis and even Europeans involved.‖ Sheikh added that ―the financiers don‘t live in Somalia, but in places like Dubai and Kenya. When the money is received, it‘s under the instruction of the financier and it will be sent to the regions in which they (the financiers) live‖.
Government spokesman Alfred Mutua said that ―the Central Bank of Kenya is investigating where the money is coming from‖ and that ―bank accounts are being monitored to make sure we get hold of the suspects‖. Mutua said that the hoped the exercise would also help the government to catch tax evaders. Somaliland President Faroole has verbally condemned acts of piracy on several occasions and his authorities have arrested and convicted a number of pirates. But pirate activity off the coast of Puntland has increased and senior pirate leaders remain at large and continue to operate without fear of arrest.
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Lush Mrima Hill may be a death trap for unsuspecting residents, by KEN OPALA. Published by the, Saturday Nation May 28, 2011
By KEN OPALA From afar, the hill appears as a forest covered bump. Its lush-green backdrop is a magnet to treasure seekers and those in want of a place to resettle. Hardly has the hill failed farmers, the thousands who depend on it for a livelihood – bountiful maize, leafy vegetables. But that is far as it goes. Mrima Hill, a 323-metre rise in Msambweni in the heart of Kwale County, 60 km from Mombasa Town, may be a killer, top scientists warn – not because of its high soil fertility, which is known to attract conflicts among land speculators in many parts of the world. The soils, nay rocks, are ominous to human health. Exactly 20 years ago Prof Jayanti Patel, head of Geophysics Department, University of Nairobi, warned that Mrima Hill could be a deathtrap, and asked relevant authorities to evacuate those residing in parts of it. Its radiation levels are more than 50 per cent over and above what is considered normal, or safe, his studies showed. According to his findings, the broad dome-shaped hill comprises deeply weathered rock with high doses of radioactive elements – thorium, zinc, nobium, lead, strontium and yttrium. The results followed ―an exhaustive survey of radiation in the area … in order to assess the radiation dose with regard to health and environmental pollution‖. Interestingly, the residents had placed themselves in line of danger – excavating soil for use on buildings, even using water from nearby borehole. During the study, ―Our meter went off the scale‖, Prof Patel, with four degrees and a postgraduate diploma earned in Kenya and Canada, recollected a fortnight ago in his humble office at the Chiromo Campus, the University of Nairobi. He immediately recalled what an old man in the Mrima village had whispered to him about people who had worked on a nearby mine, thus ―the people who worked here became thinner and thinner and died. They had skin diseases‖. (A huge dugout exists where mining took place) Great Health Hazard In scientific-speak, the upper and lower parts of Mrima hill ―have an annual radiation of 10,670 mrems and 1,372 mrems (a measurement of radiation) respectively. ―These doses are approximately 53 times higher than the natural background dose‖, what the International Commission on Radiological Protection considers normal, Prof Patel observed in his research paper, Environmental Radiation Survey of the Area of High Natural Radioactivity of Mrima Hill of Kenya, published in September 1991. He noted that the area should remain a forest conservation zone. ―The (radiation) levels observed in Mrima Hill area are a risk to health and environment … the area should be declared ―out of bounds‖ to all people,‖ Prof Patel warned. ―Consequently Mrima Hill is a great health hazard.‖ Two decades on, there have been no evictions. Rather, there has been further encroachment on Mrima Hill and its environs, to an extent about 40,000 inhabit the place. In fact, eight years after Prof Patel‘s finding, a constructor used part of the material from the hill to carpet the 21-km Kwegu-Jegu Road in Majoreni, not far from Mrima Hill in April 1999. More material was used on another road, Lunga Lunga-Msambweni. The consequent row over this road development moved into Parliament, where MPs, among them Raila Odinga (Langata Constituency), harangued the government for negligence in protecting its people against high radiation. (See excerpts of Hansard recordings elsewhere in this report) The Government said it would investigate. The then Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Health, Prof Julius Meme promised to remove the 3,000 tonnes material used to reseal. The workers on the road and a further 25,000 people who lived nearby were to be screened. His decision was preceded by a meeting of the Radiation Protection Board, the regulatory agency established by law to protect the public and radiation workers from harmful radiation. Again, nobody was tested, no material was removed. In an interview with officials of the Board, it emerges that residents were not tested because subsequent tests showed that the material used was not a threat to human health but ―on the borderline of what is stated in the standards (1000 Bq/kg)‖. Interestingly though, these standards were not in force at the time, or had not been established when the road was redone. ―The external radiation exposure from the roads in the inhabited areas is below the prescribed limit to the public which is 1mSv/year,‖ the Board said in a response to a questionnaire from this writer last week. Yet this figure appears to contradict Prof Patel‘s findings, which noted a level of 106.7 milli-sievert in the lower and upper parts of Mrima Hill. (Prof Patel says the annual limit of effective dose is equivalent to 50 milli- sievert) For two years, this writer has scoured Kwale County in search of any possible relationship between the high radioactivity levels in the area and incidences of various diseases associated with radiation (cancer and birth 29
deformities), what scientists call ―the epidemiological‖ link. What comes out is that not much research has been done about this. And the residents know little about the risks they are being exposed to. Epidemiological Connection This article doesn‘t pretend to conclusively link radioactivity to diseases in Kwale. However, it notes the coincidence between the relatively high birth abnormalities and cancer cases in the area. It also questions why, despite the evidence available, authorities have failed to act to move the population resident in this area – or undertake measures to prevent them from exposure to the elements. ―It should be considered a scandal,‖ said a former top administrator, Coast Province. ―We kept asking the questions, while I was serving the government in the 1990s. Why didn‘t we act when the evidence was there, that the people‘s health was threatened? We even didn‘t carry out any research even after the complaints.‖ Radiation is always around us. Drinking water, body contact, the sun‘s rays, among many other factors, exposes one to radiation. But in these cases, the levels are minimal. It‘s widely accepted that an average exposure from nature is 300 mrems/year is normal. Thus, dose values range from 100 mrems to 200 mrems/year. But one part of Mrima has levels of up to 10,670 mrems. High radiation (above 10,000 mrems/year) could cause complications. Indeed, radiation causes ionization, which eventually affects body cells – it can break the DNA. Damaged body cells can cause cancer. High radiation can imbalance the immune system, making it difficult for the body to fight diseases or any infections. Radiation above 50,000 mrems can cause cancers such as leukemia, breast, bladder, ovarian, liver etc. For the unborn baby, it can result in small brain size and mental retardation. ―Radioactivity affects the genes. It can cause cancer. It can cause birth defects,‖ says Dr George Mutuma, the Head of Pathology and Oncology Research Unit, Kenya Medical Research Institute (KEMRI). ―There‘s largely a link between radioactivity and birth malformations.‖ Implicitly, habitants of the contentious areas of Mrima Hill, or those who come into contact with its environment, expose themselves to the effects of elevated radiation. Although no epidemiological studies have been undertaken, the high incidence of cancer and the unexplained sequence of cases of conjoined twins (also called Siamese twins) reported over the past few years, all linked to Kwale County, have left experts baffled. The case of conjoined twins is what puzzles more. Out of the four recent cases of conjoined twins reported countrywide, three either come from Kwale or had one of their parents from this area. Experts interviewed at the Coast are yet to undertake studies that may connect radioactivity to birth defects. Without the benefit of such linkages, they blame nutrition, the lack of it. But they all call for more research, to establish the relatively high cases of conjoined twins linked to Kwale. Indeed, in the absence of such studies, medical experts, cautious as they are, look at the empirical evidence. One of them is Dr Twahir Hemed, a paedrician consultant at the Coast General Hospital. He says the lack of proper nutrition explains the cases. On April 6, 2011, the Daily Nation carried a story titled ―doctors pondering rising cases of Siamese twins‖, in which Dr Hamed was quoted to have ―said such cases have been on the increase and there is need to investigate the causes‖. Dr Jilo Helton, a consultant doctor at Msambweni District Hopsital is also convinced the cases could be attributed to nutrition. It is about ―nutritional factors that make the pregnancy develop better,‖ Dr Helton says. ―There‘s high prevalence of anaemia in this place. What is needed are food supplements.‖ It‘s instructional to note Chernobyl nuclear disaster of April 1986. Years after, Ukraine, an area affected by the Chernobyl incident, reported elevated incidence of conjoined twins. There were six cases between 2000 and 2007. Cancer Incidence A key hospital administrator at the Coast General Hospital, the largest referral institution in Coast Province, told this writer last month, thus ―we have had very peculiar forms of cancer here, especially in Taita and Kwale (counties), in particular in places with titanium. What we need is a conclusive study.‖ (Kwale, with a population of 650,000, and its surrounding has 10 per cent of the world‘s known titanium deposits) This year alone, Kwale Hospital has referred two cancer suspect cases to Mombasa for screening, since the hospital lacks cancer testing kit. Within the same period, the hospital noted dozens of birth defects. At Msambweni Hospital, within the same Kwale County, one in two cancer tests proved ―positive‖, said an officer involved in outreach screening. ―We need funds to aggressively go out and test virtually all women. It‘s a big problem.‖ In some countries, authorities have legislation that enables them to help track and prevent birth defects. America‘s Birth Defects Prevention Act provides for the establishment of a national information Clearing house on birth defects, the National Centre for birth Defects. In Kenya, authorities don‘t even follow up on cases of conjoined twins. Thus, no information is available about the cause. Yet the Mrima populace is in the dark about the controversy over high radioactivity they have been exposed to. ―We keep hearing these stories but we are yet to get official government communication. This place is expanding and there are people very close to the forest. Nobody has stopped people from getting to live on the 30
hill,‖ says Samuel Chale Mrinah, the Mamba village elder, Dzombo Location. ―We don‘t know about the issue of radioactivity but what we know is that we have been hit by strange diseases here.‖ On the day this writer interviewed the elder, the village had just seen a three-year old child admitted to Coast General Hospital for treatment of brain tumour. ―It happens. We have had many diseases, such as skin diseases,‖ says Mrinah. Classified Report As early as 1950s, studies on Mrima Hill (which is a kaya) revealed elevated levels of radiation. In 1966, two scientists found nobium element and traces of radioactivity. In 1999, jointly with other top physicists (A.O Mustapha, University of Nairobi) and and I.V Rathore (Kenyatta University), Prof Patel undertook another study, but this time round, it covered many parts of the country. The three would later urge more research on the link between the environment and diseases at Mrima, after results showed that thorium was the main source of high environmental radiation. When nothing happened, Prof Patel wrote to the Radiation Protection Board of Kenya, warning them that the hill was highly radioactive. ―I did what I could. I wrote to the relevant authorities,‖ Prof Patel told this writer. ―I gave the classified report to the Ministry of Health, a copy to the Radiation Board. They accepted receipt of the report. They said they were going to declare Mrima out of bounds to the public.‖ Not much happened thereafter. ―There we have a problem,‖ he told this writer. The Radiation Board says ―anybody can say anything‖, according to a top official. ―When people go around saying this and that, they should give comparative analysis. What is the situation in India?‖ Sometime in February, top state officials met with geologists from Coast Province where the issue of radioactivity in the region was discussed. ―The Permanent Secretary (Environment) said there had been complaints from the ground, and that we need to do a thorough study. He said we should cooperate with institutions that have the capacity to carry out such study,‖ says a government geologist, Coast Province. The failure to protect the public against elevated radiation flies in the face of the country‘s law, Radiation Protection Act Chapter 244 which seeks to shield the public from the harm of radiation. This piece of legislation is meant to be enforced by the Ministry of Public Health. Yet it‘s not just Mrima. Jombo, a hill neighbouring Mrima is also with elevated radiation. In Nyanza Province, Gwasi and Homa Hills are now being studied by Shem Achola, a PhD student at the University of Nairobi. Initial studies show that these areas have high radiation dose. Prof Patel and other scientists want the whole country studied to isolate areas with high natural radiation.
END.
31
The Great Billion Dollar Drug Scam: Part One (June 2011 - Al Jazeera Africa – five pages) Begin: Alongside pneumococcal diseases such as meningitis and pneumonia, rotavirus-related diarrhoea is a primary childhood killer in developing countries, thought to snuff out the lives of 500,000 children each and every year. An overwhelming 85 per cent of these children are African and Asian. British-based drug corporation GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) recently offered a five-year deal to supply poor nations with 125 million doses of the rotavirus vaccine - Rotarix - at $2.50 a dose, just 5% of the current going price in Western markets. Through the GAVI group, the international vaccine agency financed by developed nations such as the UK, it is hoped that GSK and pharmaceutical multinational Merck - who, between them, dominate the rotavirus vaccine market - will provide a secure line of low-cost drugs for as many as forty countries in the near future.
But is it really a discount, and if so, who is paying the cost?
The financing mechanism subsidising the vaccine is named the Advance Market Commitment (AMC), a pot created by the G8, as well as the World Bank and the Gates Foundation, as a "pull" incentive for drug multinationals to consider developing countries' long-term markets for pharmaceutical "public goods", such as vaccines. Rotarix has taken off well: Since 2007, some 50 million children - through 100 million doses - have already benefited from Rotarix; by 2009, global Rotarix sales reached $440 million - increasing by 50 per cent from 2008, and Merck's Rotateq reach $564 million in sales. GSK Chief executive Andrew Witty described the pricing structure as, "neither a gimmick nor a one-off philanthropic gesture", but rather "part of a concerted strategy to change our business model" - designed to combine "commercial success with long-term sustainable contributions". Pricing structures and profits
Drug companies such as GSK have often claimed that the high cost of "innovation" ie: research and development (R&D) is between $1bn and $1.7bn to bring a new drug to market. The AMC and GAVI - collecting some $4.3bn to finance purchase of vaccinations, were designed with the premise that the high cost of drug multinationals' R&D must be met. During the past several decades, the pharmaceutical industry in the US - more than half of which comprises European-based companies - has largely been the most profitable industry in the nation's economy, thanks to mechanisms such as the lack of a government-imposed pricing structure. "Free pricing and fast approval secure rapid access to innovation without rationing," said Daniel Vasella, the former head of (Swiss-based) Novartis, of the advantages of doing business in the US. Drug multinationals claim that US consumers are forced to fund the necessary research and development in order to keep global innovation going. In Australia, Europe, as well as Canada - the source of much prescription drug "re-importing" by US citizens, where drugs sometimes sell for half the going US price - governments ensure pricing structures render patented drugs affordable. While drug multinationals generate considerable profits from these countries, about 50 per cent of global drug industry profits are generated in the US. In 2006, for instance, global prescription drug sales totalled more than $640bn - of which almost $300bn were US-generated sales. But the real deception is less the Machiavellian tactics used by Big Pharma to Botox the bottom line than the terrible myth behind the "true" price of innovation: the $1bn pill. From 1996-2005 Big Pharma firms spent $739bn on marketing and administration (M&A): "Administration" costs here include accounting, executive salaries (including bonuses, stock options etc) - as well as human resources expenditure. "Marketing", meanwhile, consists of direct-to- consumer advertising, sales pitches and free samples to doctors, alongside advertising in medical journals. A closer look at drug cost
During the same 1996-2005 period, drug companies invested $288bn in R&D and $43bn in property and equipment, while generating $558bn in profit. From the outset, it is possible to see that R&D ranks second to last in terms of expenses. But the breakdown of R&D itself is opaque: companies do not list actual expenses for the development of a particular drug, claiming that information comprises proprietary and/or confidential commercial secrets. Yet, according to the Harvard Business Review: "The cost per new approved drug has increased more than 800 per cent since 1987, or 11 per cent per year for almost two decades." Drug corporations such as Novartis and GSK state that companies producing generic drugs - often Indian - are able to bypass such costs, and sell their "copied" drugs for a fraction of the price of the patented product - often undercutting the intercontinental firms by as much as 65-99 per cent. 32
The "$1bn cost" is derived from a 2003 study [PDF] published in the Journal of Health Economics by Joe DiMasi et al from the Tufts Center for the Study of Drug Development. The authors and their organisation claimed that the study was unbiased, despite the fact that the Tufts Center is itself some 65 per cent financed by drug companies. Though the findings have been normalised as factual by the media, the facts have long since been debunked by independent specialists. The authors surveyed ten large pharmaceutical corporations (between them responsible for 42 per cent of R&D expenditure in the US, where the bulk of such work is carried out), examining the R&D costs of 68 randomly selected drugs, and determined the cost of the development of each at $802 million (elevated to $1bn when adjusted for inflation). As the data was submitted confidentially by the drug companies to the authors, there is no way to verify the quality of the information, nor was there any accounting for the potential volume of intra-company corporate mispricing. The names of the firms were not mentioned; nor were the names of the drugs, the type of drugs; or the status - whether a priority drug, comprising advanced treatment, or a "me too" drug - ie: a variation of products already on the market. 'Demythologising' the costs
For starters, the $802 million figure failed to take into account the opaque and strange manner of accounting involved, beginning with "capitalised costs". According to the authors, R&D expenditures, "must be capitalised at an appropriate discount rate - the expected return that investors forego during development when they invest in pharmaceutical R&D instead of an equally risky portfolio of financial securities". As Marcia Angell, US physician, former editor in chief of The New England Journal of Medicine and senior lecturer at Harvard Medical School, stated: "The Tufts consultants simply tacked it on to the industry's out-of-pocket costs. That accounting manoeuvre nearly doubled the $403 million to $802 million." So, when taking into account updated costs by PhRMA (2006), increasing overall R&D to $1.32bn, more than $650 million has just been included as "research and development" by drug companies claiming mythical profits that might have been generated, had they invested in, say, Wall Street - and not the scientific "innovation" used to justify gross profits from exclusive patents. In the journal BioSocieties, sociologist Donald Light and economist Rebecca Warburton "demythologise" the costs of R&D drug development by also analysing the tax breaks involved in R&D costs. The US Office of Technology Assessment (OTA) revealed: "The net cost of every dollar spent on research must be reduced by the amount of tax avoided by that expenditure." The authors used data from official sources such as the Tax Policy Center, to reveal additional tax savings of 39 per cent. Cumulatively, taxpayer subsidies and credits reduced the overall costs from $403 million to $201 million. Tax secrecy Moreover, as an Ernst & Young "Tax Planning" article explains, R&D costs are usually generated or shifted to high tax jurisdictions like the US to offset costs. Meanwhile, profits generated by patents are often "re-located" to low-tax jurisdictions. Yet the cost of R&D does not included "avoided" tax. Not surprisingly, most pharmaceutical companies are also based in low-tax secrecy jurisdictions such as Delaware in the US, where profits can be shifted into passive profit and intellectual holding companies. Pfizer, Novartis, GlaxoSmithKline - as well as over 60 per cent of Fortune 500 multinationals, all maintain entities in Delaware, taking full advantage of legal and financial opacity tools. In addition to banking secrecy and zero disclosure of beneficial owners, Delaware allows for parent companies to establish holding companies within two days, producing nothing, conducting no economic activity in the state, and generally hosting just one shareholder (the parent company). Such entities, allowing the parent company to pay the newly created entity a "fee" for use of IP, serves as a passive conduit converting taxable income to passive non-taxable profit. The entity's sole purpose is to own and 'manage' laundered income generated from IP. The gigantic legal expenses incurred by specialists for developing patents, legal defence, sourcing the tax havens and other IP-related issues constitute more costs - included as R&D. This tax optimisation strategy closely resembles that of "high-tech" companies depending on intangible capital for the bulk of their wealth. According to Forbes magazine, by 1999, three of the four richest people in the world made their fortune from intellectual property rights. They owed their fortune, said Michael Perelman, to "Microsoft, one of the major holders of intellectual property rights, befitting the so-called New Economy in which 'DOS Capital' has supplanted Das Kapital". Profits from AIDS treatment Intellectual property rights management can be a lucrative business indeed. The first HIV/AIDS treatment, azidothymidine [AZT], sold under the brand name Retrovir, was manufactured by the company Burroughs Wellcome, later incorporated into GSK. In 1983, two years after AIDS was first reported, the US National Institutes of Health and the Pasteur Institute in Paris identified its cause - the HIV retrovirus. In that same year, Samuel Broder, head of the National Cancer Institute (an NIH branch), established a global team to screen antiviral tools, including the AZT molecule discovered by the Michigan Cancer Foundation, subsequently 33
acquired by Burroughs Wellcome. Broder's NIH-NCI team, alongside scholars at Duke University, discovered the effectiveness of AZT against the AIDS virus and conducted early clinical trials in 1985. As Marcia Angell explained in her illustrative book, The Truth About Drug Companies, Burroughs Wellcome immediately patented the drug and "carried out the later trials that enabled it to receive FDA approval in 1987" after a review of only a few months. The corporation charged patients upwards of $10,000 per year for treatment and heavily congratulated themselves on the achievement of life-saving medicine.After one such self-congratulatory letter by Burroughs Wellcome's CEO to the New York Times, Broder and his colleagues from the NCI and Duke University responded angrily, stating: "The Company specifically did not develop or provide the first application of the technology for determining whether a drug like AZT can suppress live AIDS virus in human cells, nor did it develop the technology to determine at what concentration such an effect might be achieved in humans. Moreover, it was not first to administer AZT to a human being with AIDS, nor did it perform the first clinical pharmacology studies in patients. It also did not perform the immunological and virological studies necessary to infer that the drug might work, and was therefore worth pursuing in further studies. All of these were accomplished by the staff of the NCI working with the staff of Duke University."
Driving the point home, they added: "Indeed, one of the obstacles to the development of AZT was that Burroughs Wellcome did not work with live AIDS virus, nor wish to receive samples from AIDS patients." Killer tactics
Paradoxically, the drug Retrovir was classified by the company as an "orphan drug" ie: a drug where there exists a market of fewer than 200,000 people - and therefore not likely to be commercially profitable. This was done to claim 50 per cent credit from the government for the costs of clinical trials. In 2005, GSK was accused of artificially boosting their short-term profit by not increasing production to meet drastically increasing demand - thus creating "scarcity" for their patented product. This was seen as a last bid attempt to milk the patent which was to expire in September 2005. Shortly thereafter, the US government approved generic versions of the drug. AZT and other AIDS treatment remained blockbuster drugs for GlaxoSmithKline, generating $2.4bn profits in the first six months of 1997, thanks in particular, to AZT and 3TC. By 1998, AIDS was being referred to as a "world-wide health crisis", considered by many as, "an epidemic". GSK subsequently made billions of dollars from a patent, controlled a market, and affected the lives of billions of people worldwide, for something they did not invent. They did claim, however, that they conceived of it working. This notion was enough to exclude the NCI scientists, including Broder, from being listed as inventors.
But is this a one-off example? The Great Billion Dollar Scam: Part Two (Al Jazeera Africa) Innovations and free-rides Ironically, the Tufts Center study by Joe DiMasi et al, which estimated the price of bringing a new drug to market to be more than $800m, drastically skewed R&D costs by basing analysis not on the general state of approved drugs but instead on "self-originating NCEs" or "New Molecular Entities (NMEs)" which comprise only a small portion of drugs approved annually by the FDA - estimated at 35 per cent (1990-2000) - a figure that has since decreased in the past decade. Pharmaceutical "innovation" is determined by two crucial factors: a) the creation of a "new molecular entity"(NME) - which in itself may or may not be useful for treatment but which signifies the introduction of a new, distinct molecular form, and b) an NME that constitutes a"priority drug": ie: a drug that offers, in the words of the FDA,"a major advance in treatment or which provides treatment where no adequate therapy exists" - in short, a therapeutic advance for serious illnesses.
Under the 1992 Prescription Drug User Act, the FDA operates via a two-tiered system of review: Standard Review (S) applied to drugs that offer only minor improvements over existing marketed drugs, and Priority Review (P), a fast-track - a six month process since 2003 - pretty speedy for any company who wants to drive through "innovation". Though the two comprise separate categories, by blurring the definitions, pharmaceutical companies are often able to misrepresent NMEs, with"innovations" justifying the high costs of patents ie: exclusive government-approved marketing rights. From 2006- 2009, just 48 drug innovations (P+ NME) were approved by the FDA, while an average of 84 per cent of research funding comes from US taxpayer sources, such as the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Light and Warburton conclude that "the net corporate investment in research to discover important new drugs is about 1.2 per cent of sales, not 17-19 per cent".
So, while drug companies claim that the EU has suffered from a lack of innovation, trailing behind US R&D expenditure by 15 per cent in 2004, little of this figure corresponds to reality. Easy "free-riding" of the US 34
public funds and R&D is the primary reason why drug companies have flocked to the US. Just a quarter of NMEs are estimated by specialists as being actually developed by drug companies, instead, most are licensed from government/public-financed labs such as the NIH and universities - as well as smaller companies. Acts and licensing
In 2002, then-CEO of GSK Bob Ingram spoke to the Wall Street Journal on the subject of licensing: "We're not going to put our money in-house if there's a better investment vehicle outside." Ingram pointed out that GSK was eager to reach the levels of other companies, such as Merck, which received 35 per cent of its revenue from licensing.The cost differential between a licensed NME and one developed in-house is vast: a licensed NME costs just 10 per cent of actual R&D expenditure (2000) in contrast to an in-house developed NME at 74 per cent. In 2000, just 13 per cent of approved NMEs were developed in-house - a figure that has not drastically changed. The system of licensing came about via the Bayh-Dole Act - named after Senators Birch Bayh (D-Ind) and Robert Dole (R-Kans) - designed to enable universities and small businesses to patent discoveries that came about from NIH-financed research (the primary distributors of taxpayer funds for medical research) - thereafter granting the patents to pharmaceutical corporations in exchange for royalties. The Act did articulate taxpayer protection rights concerning non-exclusive licences - if the action "is necessary to alleviate health or safety needs which are not reasonably satisfied", or the action "is necessary to meet public uses". But Ronald Reagan's 1983 Executive Memo changed tack, liberalising access to include coverage for large corporations. Prior to this, publicly financed discoveries were considered knowledge in the public domain. One further piece of legislation - the Stevenson-Wydler Act - removed the barriers between"publicly funded" systems (mainly the government but also universities) and the private sector. Weighing the costs
In short, depending on whether or not the NMEs were developed in-house, estimates by Light and Warburton - in addition to other specialists, such as Angell - reveal the costs of R&D as more along the lines of $50m - $200m. So much for the $1bn pill - but what of the costs of development for the Rotavirus vaccine?
Vaccines are often priced 40 - 100 times more than the cost of production. Drug companies claim that pharmaceutical research is very expensive and that R&D costs are extremely high. Unfortunately for GSK, the usual 5,000 or 6,000 clinical trial "subjects" - people involved in Phase III trials - drastically escalated to around 63,000 to 68,000 people - in order to rule out a perceived fatal side effect (intussusception) that forced Rotashield off the market some years earlier. Prior to the massive Phase III trial, the costs of GSK's trials ranged from $1.8 million to $2.4 million, stated Light et al. Unlike Merck, GSK conducted many trials in developing countries, drastically lowering the potential costs. But even estimating at the higher range, the total costs for GSK's Phase I - Phase III trials reached between $128m and $192m - for all 63,000-plus people. Few of the clinical trials conducted in developing nations are investigated by the FDA. A 2008 Pfizer presentation [PDF]showed just 45 of 6,485 (0.7 per cent) of foreign trials were scrutinised. In 2008, more than 76 per cent of the people used for clinical drug trials were foreign "subjects" - some 232,532 people. The cheapened value of poorer peoples - including better "value for physician" must not be underestimated. One report, dated 2000, by the inspector general of the US Department of Health and Human Services, disclosed that physicians in the US were paid $10,000 per patient enrolled for a drug trial - plus a further $30,000 on enrolment of the sixth patient. Costs, no doubt, included as "research and development". Aside from"cheapness", in developing countries there exists far less regulation, oversight and awareness; and the poor are unlikely to litigate if and when damage/deaths occur as a consequence of the drug. This is particularly lethal when it comes to experimentation on children. More than 78 per cent of children-focused clinical trials were conducted outside of the US. Vaccines and identification
The Rotarix vaccine was not developed in-house but was licensed in: In 1988, Richard Ward PhD isolated the human rotavirus strain and developed a live, orally deliverable vaccine candidate under a licensing agreement with the Virus Research Institute, which later merged with another company, to become Avant Immunotherapeutics, a small firm that has often received grants from the NIH. Light, a professor of comparative health policy, and economist Warburton revealed in their paper analysing the development cost of the rotavirus vaccine, Avant funded a Phase II trial of Rotarix in 1997-1998 which found the drug gave protection in 89 per cent of cases. Light et al go on to write that, in 1997, GlaxoWellcome (later GSK) negotiated global rights and agreed, in exchange, to finance development costs, paid Avant $5.5 million and agreed royalties of 10 per cent on net sales. 35
The rotavirus vaccine signified a radical turning point in the introduction of vaccines: usually, poorer nations wait out a 15 or 20 year period. GSK's rotavirus vaccination instead proceeded via regulatory approval not in the country of manufacture, but instead, the country of first intended use - Mexico.
Why not Africa or Asia? Mexico proved the perfect site for introduction: since the 1990s, the government created, expanded and strengthened a "national surveillance system" for diarrhoeal disease, noted Walsh and Situ. Hospitals and clinics had well-equipped laboratories to identify infectious diseases; the Ministry of Health regularly monitored and reported cases, as did the clinics and hospitals, as part of the Mexican Social Security Institute (MSSI) system. Since 2004, the Pan-American Health Organisation (PAHO), comprising more than forty nations of the Americas, supported - along with other organisations - the development of rotavirus surveillance systems in countries including Argentina, El Salvador, Guyana, Uruguay, Suriname, Trinidad and Tobago and Honduras. Monitoring was engineered to"characterise the proportion of diarrhoeal hospitalisations attributable to a rotavirus infection, serotypes of circulating rotaviruses, and the seasonality of rotavirus infections", writes Julia Walsh MD in The critical path for vaccine introduction [PDF]. This information is fed into economic analyses, a critical element in the countries' decision on whether to introduce a vaccine. The good news, for GSK, about Mexico and Brazil, is that the percentage of population targeted to be vaccinated is more than 98 per cent. In 2006, Duncan Steele from the Initiative for Vaccine Research (WHO) stated that the Rotarix vaccine was being introduced to Brazil, Panama, Venezuela and other countries - at a cost of $7 per dose for public health use. In 2004, Brazil purchased eight million doses (two doses per child), at the full $7 per dose. Ward would later say that rotavirus hospitalisations were estimated to be down by 59 per cent. Efficient manufacturing?
Presently, unless Merck makes an entry into the international marketplace, there exists no competition for GSK which already describes itself as,"the main supplier of vaccines to UNICEF and GAVI". According to GSK, PAHO and other aid agencies intend to purchase enough Rotarix to ensure immunisation for 80 per cent of the world's children. Avant estimates that the global market for the drug will generate as much as $1.8bn annually. Neither GSK nor Merck have published a summary of their costs. Light and Warburton estimate that the cost of Rotarix - due to the incredibly large expense of the almost 70,000-person trial is as high $466 million, excluding capitalised costs - and that out-of-pocket costs could be recovered with a single year's profit. From 2008 onward, sales totalled more than $1bn. At "efficient" manufacturing costs of $1.50-$2 per dose, GSK will make a jolly profit from the "full price" in developed nations, and the 98 per cent successful vaccination target rate in countries such as Brazil. Once the five-year period is up, GSK - holding the global monopoly, will be embedded as part of the national health budget in 40 or more countries. GSK's home country - the UK - donated the largest chunk of taxpayer funds to the AMC pot - at $1.34bn, while IP king Bill Gates offered a further $1bn. Gates claimed that he felt "great about the prices" GAVI received but acknowledged that Indian and Chinese manufacturers could bring the price down"somewhat" if they ramped up vaccine output. No matter that drug companies like GSK actually sat on the GAVI board at the time such decisions were made.
Developed nations banging the trade-related intellectual property drum, and intellectual property captains including Gates, will not bypass the anti-competitive grip of patents - for which there exists no free market, and where all patent value is opaquely imputed by the company in question. This is the flipside of "charity", where the gap between those with access to medicine, and those without, is not only undeserved and systemically unjust - but also lethal. To paraphrase comedian Chris Rock, drug companies - or drug dealers, as he put it, don't want to cure you (or kill you). The money comes from making you live in need. END
36
By Kipchumba Some
Barely a year after top UN human rights official accused the police of unlawfully killing thousands of youth on suspicion of being criminals, the practice appears to be continuing unabated. Investigations by The Standard on Saturday indicate that hundreds of youth continue to be killed and disappear in the hands of police. And for the first time, the police force has accepted that some of its officers could be engaged in such acts of criminality. The Kenya National Commission on Human Rights, which released a report in 2008 titled, A Cry of Blood, in which it claimed police had unlawfully killed more than 1,500 youth, says it continues to receive complaints from the public of people dying or disappearing in the hands of the police. The commission said it had received more than 200 complaints of unlawful killing or disappearance at the hands of police since it released its report. "The issue is not as pronounced as it was before, but it is still going on," said KNCHR‘s Hassan Omar. "We have investigated and forwarded a number of them to the Attorney General for action," he added. Police spokesman Eric Kiraithe said: "There is no point in denying that people are disappearing and it could be some of our unscrupulous officers. But no, we have received few such complaints," he said. On the afternoon of Sunday March 21, at three o‘clock, three white Toyota saloon cars raced along Kihara Road, Karuri division, Gachie area, and aimed directly at a group of young men chatting by the roadside. The car in front made as if to knock some bystanders before screeching to a halt, followed by the other two behind it. As the dust settled, the doors of the three cars were violently opened and out stepped about eight people, guns raised up in the air. One, apparently the leader of the group, had a pistol while the rest had G3 guns, similar to those police officers carry. Anxiety and fear gripped the small shopping centre perched on a hill. People react differently to fear. Some freeze, others feign bravery yet others simply take to their feet. One of those who fled was Joseph Njenga, 16. The Form Two student at Rehoboth School stepped back from the officers who had menacingly stopped by his feet. On the third step back, the man with the pistol shot towards him, grabbed him by the neck and pulled him down, kicked him in the sides, and cocked his gun and pointed it at his head. "He called him a criminal, a Mungiki suspect," recalled a trader at the centre who witnessed the incident. "We were all terrified and Njenga was sobbing on the ground." Collins Tyson, a colleague of Njenga at Rehoboth, was one of those who froze at the sight of guns raised in the air. They had just met with his friend and were about to part when the strange men struck. "I think they picked on Njenga when he tried to move back. I could also have run, but I was so afraid that fear immobilised me. I remained rooted at that spot for a long while after they had gone." On the other side of the road pastor John Njoroge of the Truth Seekers Chapel in Gachie wondered what was going on. It must be plainclothes policemen arresting suspects, he thought as he walked on. He had no time to stop and enquire more because he was running late for a meeting. Then to his utter surprise, one of the men with a gun called him, pointed his gun at him and ordered him to stop. Then the nightmare he never expected began. He was dragged by the scruff of his shirt to where Njenga was and both ordered to lie down flat on their stomachs, with guns pointed on their heads. It was a market day and ordinarily the shoppers of the little town would have raised a ruckus about strangers harassing their neighbours. But such thoughts were quickly wiped away. The armed strangers cocked their guns and warned the bewildered observers against screaming or any kind of protest. Without much fanfare, the two — Njenga and pastor Njoroge — were separately bundled into the back seat of two of the cars. The cars raced off along Kiharu Road. Janet Mwangi was attending an afternoon church meeting when she was informed that unknown people had taken her second born son, Njenga. As expected of any mother, she was worried. From the description she was given by witnesses, she concluded that police had most probably taken her son. In any case it is not something new. At that time of anxiety and fear, Njoroge turned to the only weapon he had – prayer. He closed his eyes and mumbled a few words. It did not impress the armed strangers. "Will you stop your theatrics," roared the driver of the car he was in. The strangers grabbed the small bag that Njoroge was carrying his Bible and personal documents. It had Sh3,000 of the day‘s collection. Barely two kilometres from where Njenga and Njoroge were taken, at a small shopping centre along the Kihara road, the two cars raced to a halt. 37
Six people from both cars stepped out, their guns in the air and cocked. They ordered everybody at the shopping centre to lock themselves in the shops. One of them opened the boot of the car that was in front and pulled out two people. According to witnesses, Njenga was pulled out from the back seat of one of the cars. Then one of the officers fetched a metal rod from the car and started beating Njenga and the other unidentified victims with it. His colleagues kept eye on things, occasionally threatening curious neighbours. "It was gruesome," remembered a shop attendant who witnessed the whole thing. "They were screaming that they were not Mungiki members while the officer hit them." A student from a neighbouring school who happened to have been at the shopping centre recognised Njenga. "He had a black jeans and white shoes." Mwangi says these were the same clothes her son had worn that day. The student also recognised the officer who was beating them. The Standard on Saturday was shown the officer at Gachie shopping centre in a car said to belong to the police. The beating took 10 minutes. The strangers then bundled the almost lifeless bodies of the three into the two cars and sped off. Njenga has never been seen again. Inside the car, the strangers interrogated Njoroge while he prayed. Annoyed with his "theatrics", the driver of the car suddenly stopped, turned around, and slapped him across the face. "I was taken aback. I realised that these men were dangerous and they could easily do something nasty to me if I persisted with my prayers. " Njoroge decided to mumble the prayer, inaudibly. Then one of them told him something startling: "Pastor, you have nothing to fear if you are indeed a pastor. We are police and cannot kill you for nothing." Somebody had informed Njoroge‘s wife that he had been taken. She hired a taxi and traced the white car that her husband was in and followed it behind as it made rounds in Gachie village. After two hours, the car took a route towards Nairobi and stopped at the entry to Gigiri Police Station. "Then one of them asked ‗if this guy is a pastor, is there a reason to go with him?" The driver asked Njoroge for his mobile phone. He then made a call using the pastor‘s phone and asked the person on the other end whether the number he was using was among those ones they were looking for. The person on the other end replied negatively. "He gave me my phone and asked me to disembark. When I asked them about my bag, they told me to go to hell." The car then sped off towards Nairobi city. That night he reported at Kihara Police Station that he had lost his documents. He was informed that he could recover his documents from Karuri Police Station because it is only the Flying Squad from Karuri that had the mandate to conduct such operations in Gachie. Meanwhile, Mwangi went to Kihara Police Station to enquire about her son‘s whereabouts and was told his son was not there. She then went to the neighbouring Karuri, Gigiri and Kiambu police stations and was told the same thing. She made calls to his mobile phone, and although it was ringing, no one was answering it. CID Officers at Unep Police Station offered to track the number. As the night wore on, Mwangi got worried even more for her son. Njenga, she says, is epileptic and has to take medicine for the condition before going to bed every night. Friends and family describe Njenga as a deeply religious boy, and a budding musician. He had just recorded an album of Christian songs, which were due to be released. His teachers described him as a polite fellow who got on well with his colleagues. He was the head of Christian Union at school. The only bone of contention he had with his teachers was his low grades. By two o‘clock morning there was no word still on her son‘s whereabouts. They decided to retire home and began the search again at daybreak, without success. On the midday of Monday March 22, Njenga‘s phone died. The police officials at Unep Police Station informed her that they had lost the signal in the Kariobangi area. Nothing has been heard of him since. "I have visited every police station, every mortuary, every hospital in this town. But there is no trace of my son. I know he could be dead, but I just want to bury him and get closure," she said. A police officer with one of the special squads and who is familiar with the case confirmed to us that indeed Njenga was taken by a contingent of plainclothes officers from Kiambu District. He revealed that a special anti-Mungiki operation had been called that day. He further said five other young men were arrested from larger Karuri and Kihara divisions alongside Njenga. What stands out from this operation is the evident lack of investigations prior to the arrests. Evidently, the police officers did not have clear suspects in minds. Police spokesman Eric Kiraithe said he was not aware of the incident, but described it as "very disturbing". "That is a serious case that we must investigate and get the truth," he said.
END.
38
What it Takes to Cover a Story in Somalia A series story about kidnapping and piracy in Hobyo By MUHYADIN AHMED ROBLE 05/27/2011
The 29th of April was bad day. That day I was traveling to Mogadishu and Hobyo as part of my job for SomaliaReport to investigate How Pirates Spend The Ransom Money. After a week in Mogadishu, I departed to Galkayo, via Hobyo, a small fishing village in the semi-autonomous region of Galmudug state – home to the infamous ship hijacking pirates of Somalia. Hobyo was, at one time, popular among local Somalis due to the abundance of fish in the town‘s local waters. In the last four years, however, everything had changed.
Everywhere I looked there were abandoned wooden boats and other remnants of a formerly active fishing trade. Today, almost everyone in the city is armed as pirates, independent and clan militias, or as soldiers for the Galmudug state.
Sharif Wadad-Adde, the deputy chairman of the local administration, who was serving as my guide in Hobyo, told me to view an Iranian boat that had been shelled by NATO forces weeks earlier and with the accompaniment of police officer and my driver, I went to the scene to picture the damaged boat. Though I could not have known it at the time, this is where our tragedy began.
As soon as we arrived at the location, at approximately noon, eight armed men began to shoot in the direction of our vehicle, forcing our driver to immediately stop. Four of the armed men ordered us to get out of the car, as they continued to fire bursts from their weapons into the air and the ground to make sure we followed their commands while the other four men, who were also shooting, ordered us to turn around and leave Hobyo immediately.
Our driver stopped and moved to roll down his window to ask the gunmen what they wanted him to do. At that moment, one of the men fired his weapon in the direction of the driver, indicating for him not to move. The policeman traveling with us got out of the car to talk to the gunmen but they had not listened. Soon after, however, we decided to exit the vehicle, taking advantage of the fact that the two groups of gunmen were now arguing with each other and ignoring us for the moment. Seeing us leaving the car, however, attracted their attention and they ordered us to lie on the ground.
They moved quickly to search our vehicle. When they found my camera and the notebook, one of them shouted that I am Puntland security forces, and told the men to kill me immediately. At that moment, the men swarmed over me, pointing their AK-47 rifles and ordering me not to move.
A man, who seemed to be the leader of the group, ordered me to stand up and for the gunmen to take me to a different, unknown location. I began to weep, thinking that they would kill me, and I tried to explain that I was not a member of Puntland but accusing me of lying.
My driver told me not to go with them, so I refused and then they grabbed me and began to drag me away from the car. At that moment, two vehicles approached some distance away, heading towards us. The man in charge ordered his men to stop the oncoming cars, with one militia man to stay behind to prevent me from leaving.
Even at this distance, I could see that when the two cars stopped, Sharif Wadad-Adde, the deputy chairman of Hobyo, along with his officers, got out of the cars and began to talk with the gunmen to find out what was going on. The gunmen refused to listen. I then attempted to run towards them, but the AK-47s fired in my direction and the shooters grabbed me, shoved me to the ground, and once again began to drag me away. Soon they stopped dragging me and left me lying down, with one gunman assigned to watch me and prevent me from escaping.
However, the argument between Sharif and the gunmen had escalated into an angry shouting match, despite the fact that the men were pointing their guns at him. He got back in his car, turned around, and drove away. I immediately grew more worried, despite his words, and remembered the warnings of my loved ones back home.
Village elders, from the same clan as the militia men, came and left several times, attempting to free me, but had no success. Eventually, and much to my terror, given the previous threats, Sharif returned with a larger, armed force. The gunmen stood me up and pointed their weapons at me. The two groups remained approximately one 39
kilometer apart. The elders once again attempted to release me, as they walked hurriedly back and forth between the two several times in their negotiations, though there seemed to be no progress.
It was at this time that I decided to do something to save myself and offered the gunmen to take my expensive camera and let me go. They refused. At approximately 6:00pm, however, there was a change between the gunmen, Sharif‘s force, and the village elders. The discussions between the groups became less angry and they seemed to be now having a calm talk. Luckily I was freed without any blood being shed. The second part of the report is about Piracy money.
How Pirates Spend Their Ransom Money MUHYADIN AHMED ROBLE 06/03/2011
Hobyo, an ancient coastal city once known by mariners for its fresh water, is now known for pirates. The tiny village is approximately 500 kilometers northeast of Mogadishu in Mudug region. Hayle Mohamed who runs his 150 men gang had been involved the hijacking of at least thirteen ships including the Ukrainian merchant ship MV Faina with its cargo of Russian battle tanks. He received approximately more than $1 million out of $3.2 million ransom paid for MV Faina.
―Although it is a large amount of money, it almost immediately ends up vanishing into nothing,‖ he said, ―The money comes and goes quite easily.‖ Mohamed, 40s, was also one of the main shareholders of the $3.5 million ransom from the owners of the Spanish trawler Alakrana, which was released in late 2009. Mohamed now owns only a newly built house in Hobyo and many luxury Toyotas, ―nothing else,‖ he said. Mohamed who is one of the better-known names in the Somali piracy business commented, ―When you heard my story you must have thought I was a multi-millionaire. I am because I own the most expensive Land Cruisers, which cost almost $30,000 USD each,‖ said Mohamed who was speaking from a new Land Cruiser.
This Land Cruiser was the sixth that Mohamed had purchased since his career in piracy began four years earlier. Such is the wealth of many pirates that, when their expensive vehicles are even only slightly damaged, they are often returned to the seller and another is purchased, rather than simply repairing the damage. ―It is hard for me to take a car to Galkayo so whenever it broke down I left it behind and ordered a new one, more expensive than the one before it,‖ he said proudly. After a short drive, we arrived his house, at which sat two Land Cruisers, both of which he claimed were broken down. For that reason, there are scores of Land Cruisers throughout Hobyo and along the coast, abandoned over some small damage, such as a cracked windshield or scratches to the paint.
Although the money was spent almost immediately on luxury cars, drugs and female companions, some of it must be reinvested into weaponry and other tools that facilitate the hijacking of vessels at sea. ―We use part of ransom to buy sophisticated weapons and speedboats,‖ Mohamed noted.
It is estimated that the pirates received approximately $240 million in ransom last year, accounting for 92% of all global hijacking incidents. The ransom money is divided amongst the operation‘s investors, who are guaranteed 50% of the final payment. The hijackers themselves take the next 35%, while guards on the ships get 10%, and 5% is given to local residents and the city administrators. The deputy mayor of Galmudug‘s Hobyo administration, Sharif Wadad-Adde, declined to comment that claims. Puntland officials were tight-lipped when asked if they received any such funds.
A pirate leader Rage Abdi was responsible for the hijacking of the MV Filitsa, a Marshall Islands-flagged cargo ship which was released for $3 million in ransom. Despite the huge sums of money he earned, he is now growing poor and has been forced to sell off his two Land Cruisers, houses, and his lands in Hobyo. He is raising a sufficient sum of cash in order to invest in a future hijacking to return himself to his earlier levels of wealth and status. However, the small sum he may be able to raise will not be enough because such investment costs at least $100 USD.
But he will earn some of the money from the ransom of the Liberian-owned ship MV Polar, which is currently in the hands of Mohamed‘s pirate gang. The MV Polar owners offered to pay $10 million in ransom, but the kidnappers – increasingly emboldened with each successful hijacking – firmly demanded $15 million, according to Hayle Mohamed, the leader of captors.
Rage and Mohamed interviewed separately, told me that they spent the money also paying for elaborate weddings. ―We give money to the families of our wives and spend large amounts of money to get women who 40
may live a great distance away, if we find them attractive enough,‖ said Rage. ―Our money goes quickly; we spend thousands of dollars for mobile credits so that we can talk to anyone anywhere at any time, be they family or girlfriends. We talk all day long,‖ he stated.
―Our Toyotas cost $30,000 USD or more each, and fuel costs can take up almost another $30,000,‖ he said ―Our cars are constantly on the move, all day long, and that costs fuel so you can guess how much fuel we use each month. It is countless.‖
Hobyo does not have a petroleum station or even a single garage to repair the pirates‘ expensive vehicles, so the nearest place to get enough fuel is Galkayo, which is approximately 260 kilometers from Hobyo. Fuel costs in these towns is high, for a variety of reasons, so in addition to the fuel being spent during the drive to and from these towns, the pirates must also pay exorbitantly for any fuel purchased there. END.
41
Gowon and Bayero worked for Pfizer By Nicholas Ibekwe As the opportunity for the victims of the 1996 Pfizer clinical trial in Kano of getting satisfactorily compensated continues to hang in the balance, a NEXT investigation has uncovered the despicable conduct of prominent Nigerians who sold their conscience to partake in what the late President Musa Yar‘Adua described as ―Pfizer‘s blood money‖. In 2007, 11 years after the Trovan trials, the federal government and the Kano State government finally woke up to their responsibility of holding Pfizer accountable for using Nigerian infants as guinea pigs. Two separate suits, civil and criminal, were filed against the company. Pfizer, which had earlier approached a suit filed by the victims with levity, apparently realising the issue was no longer child‘s play, decided it was in its best interest to reach a negotiated settlement. Clandestine negotiations NEXT investigations show that George Bush, the former president of the United States, sent his Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, as well as former diplomat, Thomas Pickering, to establish contact with late president, Umaru Yar‘Adua, with a view to reaching a settlement. Apart from the Kano State and federal government officials, as well as senior Pfizer employees and counsels who made up the committee, NEXT can exclusively reveal that Pfizer also secured the services of prominent Nigerians for what was termed ―extensive informal contacts and understandings.‖ Commenting on the manner in which Pfizer approached the negotiations, SimmonsCooper Partners, the law firm that acted as external counsel to both governments (Kano State and Federal Government), said ―Pfizer adopted tactics that included using political or non-legal initiatives to engage the two Governments involved into accepting its terms.‖ In the letter, sent to NEXT by SimmonsCooper Partners, it was stated that Pfizer ―employed lobbying tactics, while appearing to also discuss the issue in the context of a legal matter.‖ As part of Pfizer‘s ―lobbying tactics‖, it secured the services of a former head of state, Yakubu Gowon, and the Emir of Kano, Ado Bayero (represented by a senior traditional ruler), amongst other unnamed political elites especially in the North who, NEXT discovered, were instrumental to influencing the Kano State government to significantly reduce its claim. ―Meetings were protracted, complex and frustrating, and the negotiating process adopted by Pfizer greatly undermined the committee and government representatives by also reaching out to influential persons that they believed could seal the terms in their favour,‖ said Simmons Cooper, in a corroboration of what our source told us. The significance of the influence exerted by Mr. Gowon, the representative of the Emir of Kano, and the other influential Nigerians employed by Pfizer as lobbyists, is better appreciated when one considers the fact that the Kano State claim, which was initially $2 billion dollars, was drastically reduced to $150 million, and finally to $75 million. Pfizer, in an apparent attempt to justify the role played by politicians and traditional leaders in their getting what is literally a slap on the wrist, had stated through its attorney, in a letter seen by our reporter, that ―informal contacts and understandings‖ are common in multi-faceted negotiations of this nature.
Gowon‟s derogatory statements One of the prominent Nigerians employed by Pfizer, Mr. Gowon, was apparently so determined to get a favourable settlement for Pfizer that he, against what must have been his better judgement, let his tongue loose. During one of those meetings where terms of settlement were being negotiated, Mr. Gowon, who was representing Pfizer which earns over $18 billion annually in profit, worked hard to secure a paltry settlement. He is quoted as telling negotiators that the worth of the life of a child born and bred in Kano cannot be compared to that of a child born and bred in the United States. This was apparently in response to entreaties that Pfizer should pay the same rate of compensation it would pay had the trial taken place in the United States. This comment, NEXT gathered, generated deep anger and criticism among those at the meeting and the former head of state, sensing he had overstepped the mark, quickly apologised and begged that the comment not be repeated outside the meeting room. A source present at the meeting, who wants to remain anonymous, confirmed that Mr. Gowon actually made these comments attributed to him.
Lukman Ishola, counsel to the victims of the Trovan trial, described the role of the Emir of Kano and Mr. Gowon as shameful. ―What Gowon did was like asking Bill Clinton to negotiate on behalf of Al-Qaeda. What Pfizer did in Kano is not short of terrorism, because they had a prior knowledge of the harm the drug is capable of causing, yet they deliberately administered the drug to sick infants,‖ Mr. Ishola said. 42
It is not clear how much Messers Gowon and Ado Bayero got paid for working (lobbying on behalf of Pfizer) but our research indicates that lobbyists in America, Pfizer‘s home country, make between N1.3 billion ($9 million) and N10.5 billion ($70 million) a year. However, Pfizer spokesperson, Chris Loder, said in response to our enquiry that ―any suggestion that Pfizer has made improper payments to government officials or anyone else is false.‖ Mr. Gowon has not responded to an email enquiry we sent to him as at the time we went to press. Our efforts to reach Mr. Bayero for his response to these allegations were also unsuccessful. His secretary insisted he would not talk to our reporter on the phone. He also did not respond to text messages asking if our Kano reporter can visit him to hear his side of the story.
Aondoakaa was involved too
Our investigations further uncover various underhand dealings that led to the final settlement between Pfizer and the government. The multinational drug manufacturer employed both inducement and subtle pressure on political and traditional leaders. Pfizer officials at various times used a Wing Aviation chartered flight to travel from the Murtala Muhammed Airport Lagos to Kano. During those trips, bags which are suspected to have contained money, exchanged hands. NEXT investigations also reveal that apart from official meetings held in Dubai and London to negotiate a settlement (which we learnt was funded by Kano State government), other clandestine meetings were held in London, where participants were paid handsome honorariums by Pfizer, which, we also gathered, paid all the bills accrued from the trips. Another person who played a pivotal role in letting Pfizer get away with what is no more than a symbolic settlement was former attorney general, Michael Aondoakaa. Despite his saying that he did not know anything about the settlement, that he was already out of office when the settlement deal was signed, NEXT investigations have categorically found that he was the mastermind of the settlement deal. ―I don‘t know about this money you are talking about. I didn‘t touch a kobo. The lawyers were dealing with Pfizer directly and the matter was still on when I left office,‖ Mr. Aondoakaa had told our reporter in a previous interview. But according to SimmonsCooper Partners, the federal government ―is primarily represented by the AGF, and Aandoaka served as the lead counsel on behalf of the federal government. He in fact held meetings with and concluded the discussions with Pfizer for the FGN, in our absence,‖ the lawyers said.
A family affair Mr. Aondoakaa, we gathered, invited his cousin, Paul Orhii, now the director general of National Food Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC), to join the negotiation team, describing him as an ―expert‖ on such matters. Protest by members of the government negotiation team that Mr. Orhii, due to his relative inexperience as a lawyer may not be equipped to handle such a high profile and sensitive case fell on deaf ears, as the former AGF insisted on having him in the team. Eventually, our sources say, members of the federal government negotiating team were sidelined and Mr. Orhii, together with the former AGF, took charge of talks with Pfizer. A reliable source who was fully in the know about the negotiations told NEXT that Mr. Aondoakaa was so determined to mastermind the proceedings that he stopped consulting counsels to the government when important decisions were made. Our investigation also reveals that Mr. Aondoakaa only sent the final settlement papers to the government lawyers for their signature after the decision on a settlement had been reached. It is still not clear if Mr. Aondoakaa got any pecuniary benefit in the Pfizer deal, but NEXT did confirm that contrary to what has been set as standard procedure where all parties, Federal lawyers and Kano State lawyers were always present at all negotiations with Pfizer, Mr. Aondoakaa did hold at least one clandestine meeting in Dubai with Pfizer representatives. It isn‘t clear what was discussed at the meeting, but according to our source, it came as quite a shock to government lawyers when they realised the man who had essentially employed them to act on his and government behalf was now holding direct calendestine meetings with Pfizer. Bello Adoke was not candid NEXT investigations also reveal the Attorney General of the Federation, Bello Adoke, was less than straight forward when he told our reporter in an interview we did in November last year that the Pfizer settlement had nothing to do with him. ―He (Mr. Aondoakaa) is the person who decided the issues of the case before I came here as the AGF. As for the terms of the settlement, what I am told is that the case was settled under a non-disclosure legal term,‖ Mr. Adoke had said. However, our investigation shows that as at the time the negotiations were underway, Mr. Adoke was working for Pfizer. Indeed, he attended every meeting held both in Dubai and London. On one of such meetings held on 43
March 5, 2008 at the office of the AGF, Mr. Adoke was listed alongside Damian Dodo, Anthony Idigbe, Sam Nwakohu, and Ebelechukwu Egeonu as Nigerian counsels to Pfizer. So while he may not have been Attorney General at the time, as a Pfizer lawyer, he was fully conversant with the case.
END.
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The Muslim who risked all for his Christian neighbours By Olu Jacob April 23, 2011 10:01PM
As the rampaging youth pursued the woman into the street, men dragged their wives and children inside and locked their doors. The rioters finally caught up with the screaming woman and began to beat her; they tore up her clothes and pushed her to the ground. Then they raised her up again and were dragging her off when a slightly built man in caftan and skull cap approached, shouting at them to stop, his arms flailing. Men looked out from inside their rooms in amazement.
"They said later that they thought I was out of my mind, approaching these boys, all drugged on something, carrying petrol and burning down buildings," said Adamu Bologi.
Mr. Bologi himself had not thought of the consequences of his action. He dragged the woman away from the boys and took her to a nearby mosque, hiding her by a side entrance through which the Ladan usually enters. Of course, he made sure she took off her shoes first.
When he came out, he saw another harassed woman running with two children, stumbling along the road. Her husband is the pastor of a church, the Conqueror's House, around the same area where the Christian Corpers Lodge and a church were burnt last Monday in Minna.
Mr Bologi looked around him. There was no one else apart from the rioters in the street.
"It was suddenly like midnight," he said. "The whole place was so quiet, not even a child could be heard, although it was just about 2pm. The world seemed empty and these boys were in charge."
He saw smoke from a burning church behind the crying woman on the opposite street; he saw some other miscreants approach; and he saw that soon she would run into them. Mr Bologi ran towards her and took one of the children. He tried to lead her to his house, but she was inconsolable.
"She kept screaming about her husband, saying, ‗They are too many. They are beating him, please help him before they kill him.' She finally agreed to follow me home after I promised to go for the pastor afterward."
After he took her home, where another victim he took there earlier was already settled, watching a movie, he went back to check on the pastor but the place was unapproachable. The boys were breaking windows, destroying the building and stealing church equipment. How to approach such a scene?
Mr Bologi said the pastor fought valiantly; there was blood on his hands where he kept blocking the blows from the cutlass wielded by one of the boys as the rest hit him with hockey sticks. The whole place was full of smoke.
"I was alone," said Mr Bologi. "There was no way I could handle those boys. I had no stick, no knife, nothing."
Suddenly, someone pointed at him, asking where the woman was and some in the gang began to spread around to look for her.
"So I went back to look after my family and the woman. But when she saw me she started screaming about her husband again, asking me if he was dead already, begging me to help him. So I got out again."
But by the time he went back, the pastor was no longer there. The boys were still screaming, still stealing, still vandalising but there was nothing he could do. He went past the church searching for the pastor. The streets were deserted save for the urchins, and he was about to return home when he saw a man walking through some kind of haze.
"He had obviously been looking for his family," said Mr Bologi. "When I approached him, he stood there with bandaged hands, still defiant. ‗Are you the pastor of the burnt church?' I asked. He said, ‗So what if I am?' So I told him his family was in my home and that I could take him to them." 45
But that took a while because Mr Bologi couldn't just walk the bleeding pastor to his home - they would be seen. So they devised a way to get to the house by indirection, going sideways, like a crab's walk.
"When the woman saw her husband, I have never seen such joy," he said.
There was a police barracks near the place, perhaps 300 metres away. Mr Bologi told the pastor that soon the boys would come to look for him there and he won't be able to stop them, alone. He had to get them to the barracks; the pastor's family, and the woman he had ensconced in the mosque. On the way, they heard sirens, a vehicle filled with policemen approached and the motley crew of victims and their surrogate looked up in hope, but the policemen were on their way to the governor's residence nearby.
When Mr Bologi returned from the barracks, he saw that the boys have all gathered by his house.
"I thought, ‗well, this is it.' The only thing standing between me and harm was my long dress," he said.
They were not after him, however.
"There is a building opposite where I stay and the whole people there are Ibos. The boys were attacking the place. They were breaking the windows, television, everything," he said.
The example to follow
Earlier on, the people had met Mr Bologi to seek permission to move into his compound, but there were too many of them.
"I suggested they all move to the police barracks and I followed them there to scout the road. They had to wait at the junction while I checked if the boys were around," he said.
When he saw that their rooms were under attack, Mr Bologi again pleaded with the boys to move on, that there was no one there. They ignored him. By this time, his brave efforts and constant imprecations had brought four other men from their homes and they helped in urging the boys to desist.
"That was when this man came running out of his room and they caught him. They began to beat him up but we went closer. We were shouting, ‗don't kill him, don't kill him.' They said they would kill him unless he said, ‗Laila la'ilallah.'
"The man tried, but he couldn't say the words. I told them this was unIslamic and they got more angry, accusing me of conniving with unbelievers, threatening me.
"It was during this back and forth that one of those wielding a machete went behind and hit the man on the neck, leaving a wide gash as the man crumbled to the floor..."
At this point in his narration, Mr Bologi's voice crumbled, and he couldn't go on. His eyes misted over.
"It is not right," he said. "It is not right to do that to another human being, and no religion I know permits such a thing. No religion says that for no reason you can machete an innocent man."
I asked Mr Bologi what happened after this.
"I started crying," he said.
"It was all too much. I saw the blow and for a second, the collar-bones were all white and then the blood started gushing. I became so weak."
When he rallied, Mr Bologi had attempted to push the man into the Mosque but the boys stopped him. So he dragged the man to his house.
"There was all this blood and my wife wasn't finding it funny. She said, "What are you doing? You bring some and you take them out and you go and bring others?" 46
So why did Mr Bologi, a young librarian at the state newspaper house, Newsline, a man without any obvious physical strength stand up to over 30 vicious young men, holding clubs and machetes?
"I kept remembering the prophet, Mohammed," he said. "He urged us to live our lives in such a way that other people would come to admire our way of life and become Muslims themselves. Is anyone going to become a Muslim with the kind of violence shown by those boys?"
And why did the rioters not learn the same lesson?
"They are mostly boys, you know, without families, without the kind of home training we got. Many of them are twelve, fourteen and fifteen-year-olds."
Afterward, Mr Bologi and some other neighbours, mostly Muslims, joined hands to put out the fires in the churches and to take all the injured to the hospital. Mr. Bologi still looked exhausted the day after.
"I kept thinking of the prophet," he said. "One day some men came to kill him and failed. As they fled, the prophet noticed that they were going in the direction of his more militant supporters, Saidi na Ali and such. So, he told them not to go that way, to avoid the route because they might get themselves killed. He helped them make good their escape. That is my example. That should be our example as Muslims."
END.
47
Kenyan firms make killing from piracy By PATRICK MAYOYO, [email protected] Posted Sunday, July 18 2010 at 21:49
Piracy and the big money being made out of it is seeping into Kenya‘s economic fabric, presenting a serious threat to the economy as well as law and order, experts warn. Investigations by the Daily Nation suggest that Kenyan law firms, security, aviation and shipping companies are doing business with pirates rampaging in the Indian Ocean.
More than $80 million (Sh6.5 billion) is paid to Somali pirates as ransom annually, some of which is thought to pass through Kenya.
Economy
The piracy, which is being fuelled by lack of an effective central government in Mogadishu, is costing the world economy up to $18 billion (Sh1.45 trillion) each year, according to International Maritime Bureau estimates.
Kenyan companies are acting as the link between the pirates and representatives of hijacked ship owners, facilitating ransom negotiations and payment.
The programmes coordinator of the Seafarers Assistance Programme (SAP), Mr Andrew Mwangura, whose organisation protects the right of seamen on hijacked ships, confirms that millions of dollars exchange hands between pirates and ship owners, but declines to discuss details. ―It is true owners of hijacked ships are paying pirates to secure the release of their ships and crew members held hostage with most of the money passing through Kenya, but I cannot discuss details because we are not involved in this transactions as our role only concerns the welfare of seamen,‖ he said.
Seven syndicates
A report by the World Peace Foundation, an international think-tank bringing together scholars, diplomats, lawyers, military officers and maritime partners working on an initiative to combat piracy, claims that Kenya is among countries whose firms play a key role in driving piracy along the Somali coast.
The report says that piracy in Somalia is controlled by about 1,500 pirates, organised in seven syndicates with a ―few bosses‖ running separate but linked enterprises. They are all largely run from Kenya, Dubai, Lebanon, Somalia and some European countries, the report claims.
The report says the largest ransom amount the pirates had received so far was Sh574 million or $7 million paid for the release of a Greek-owned oil tanker early this year.
A maritime official, who talked to the Nation on condition that he is not named because of the sensitivity of the issue, said they were aware of the role a select few law, security, aviation and shipping companies in Mombasa and Nairobi played in facilitating the release of hijacked ships and payment of ransoms.
―The law and security firms facilitate negotiations and preparation of agreements, while aviation and shipping companies deliver ransom payments to the pirates in Somalia,‖ he said. He said ransom money is obtained from agents of hijacked ships either in Nairobi or Mombasa before it is taken either by air or sea to the pirates. 48
―The money is either delivered to private airstrips around Nairobi from where it is flown and dropped to pirates on hijacked ships or is loaded on ships that go to Somalia from Mombasa port to deliver,‖ he said. He said at times, the ransom payments are transported in the middle of the night under tight security from Nairobi to Mombasa before it is delivered to a ship to take it to Somalia.
―Once such missions have been accomplished, the pirates pay the law, security, aviation and shipping firms involved through their agents in Nairobi and Mombasa through an unofficial money remittance system called Hawala,‖ he said.
The Hawala system is based on trust and was initially widely used by a network of money brokers in the Middle East and Africa, but is now popular in Europe and even North America.
According to a US State Department report, Kenya is a money-laundering hub in Africa. The International Narcotics Control Strategy Report says Kenya‘s financial system may be laundering over Sh8 billion or $ 100 million annually.
Economists are now warning that piracy is impacting negatively on the economy by way of distorting critical socio-economic indicators of development like general price levels and inflationary trends.
The director of research, projects and programmes of Tax Watch Africa, a development and integrity watchdog, Dr Bani Orwa, said piracy money is creating ―economic elitism‖ in the country as only a few individuals control the earnings. The piracy money is also said to be finding its way in the Kenyan economy through imports, real estate, forex bureaus and stock brokerages. Recently, Planning Minister Wycliffe Oparanya warned that the influx of billions of shillings from unknown sources could hurt the economy. End
49
Former minister of petroleum, Diezani Allison-Madueke, (L) shakes hands with then acting President Goodluck Jonathan after taking the oath of office during the swearing-in ceremony of new ministers in Abuja, April 6, 2010 Last minute oil deals that cost Nigeria dear
By Peter Nkanga and Idris Akinbajo
June 12, 2011 12:41PM
Just two days before the federal cabinet dissolved to allow President Goodluck Jonathan appoint a fresh one in recognition of his new electoral mandate, officials in charge of our oil and gas resources secretly signed a deal assigning production rights in at least two large oil blocks to a shadowy company with no prior experience and no fixed address.
Under the direction and with the approval of then petroleum minister Diezani Allison-Madueke, the officials with a magic wave of a pen effectively transferred hundreds of millions of US dollars - possibly billions - in public assets to private individuals without a public tender.
The deal is in apparent violation of Nigeria's Public Procurement Act, which forbids no-tender bids for the procurement of goods and services by any government-owned institution under penalty of imprisonment. 50
The former Speaker of the House of Representatives, Dimeji Bankole, has been arrested and remains in detention in part for allegedly violating the same law. Mr Bankole faces up to 10 years in prison if found guilty of those particular charges.
The man at the heart of this strange and secretive deal is one Jide Omokore, chairman of a company not yet a year old and which has never produced a barrel of oil. The company, Atlantic Energy Drilling Concept Limited, is the beneficiary of this gift by Mrs Allison-Madueke. For paying to the Nigerian Petroleum Development Company, a fully owned subsidiary of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company (of which Mrs Allison- Madueke, as minister, was chairman) an initial "entrance fee" of slightly more than $50 million for each of the two oil fields, Atlantic now has effective control of the NPDC's 55 percent stake in the oil block. These are rick blocks known in the industry as OML 30 and 34.
Shell, the giant multinational that produces around 50 percent of all of Nigeria's crude, is the beneficial owner of the remaining 45 percent of the blocks. Shell had subjected its share of these oil blocks to an open and transparent competitive bidding process, fetching up to $1.3 billion in a single field. By comparison, Mrs Allison-Madueke's no-bid approach via a so-called "Strategic Alliance Agreement" fetches the federation account an upfront cash payment of little more than $50 million. The true market value, if the Shell approach had been followed, would have been upwards of $1.5 billion.
Mrs Allison-Madueke has shut out established industry players, including local companies, by opting for these secret deals. The transcripts of these "strategic alliance" agreements can be found on our web site, 234NEXT.com.
As she campaigns furiously for reappointment into Mr Jonathan's cabinet, whose nominees may be sent to the Senate for approval as early as this week, Mrs Allison-Madueke has become a major political burden for the president. Her presence in the new government is certain to prove a distraction to the president, who has expressed a strong determination to steer the country away from its persistent underperformance and avarice. As in the past, all attempts to reach Mrs Allison-Madueke for comment were rebuffed. She has said elsewhere that she did nothing wrong and threatens to sue us for exposing these deals.
"The question is why?" said one prominent energy sector source. "Why these particular companies and these particular individuals? Why do these deals secretly? Why deny experienced industry players the opportunity to bid for the same contracts?"
Connecting the dots
Mr Omokore, as chairman of Atlantic Energy, similarly got a sweetheart no-bid deal from Mrs Allison-Madueke in three other oil blocks, as detailed in our report last week. Mr Omokore also is a part-owner of Seven Energy. Septa's managing director, Kola Aluko, also is a director of VistaJet, the private jet leasing company. VistaJet has provided private jets for Mrs Allison-Madueke's use, including as recently as last month, to the annual international petroleum conference in Houston, Texas.
Seven Energy, through its lawyer, Femi Falana, who also acts on behalf of the NNPC, has served notice to this newspaper that it intends to file a lawsuit against us. Phillip Ihenacho, chairman of Seven Energy, has told our reporter that his company has conducted itself honourably and legally in the no-tender transaction approved for his firm by Mrs Allison-Madueke. What is more, an oil trading company controlled by Mr Omokore, called SPOG, faces accusations of fraud in a petition to the office of the attorney general and minister of justice. SPOG is alleged to have, on at least one occasion, imported 3,000 metric tonnes of refined petroleum but claimed subsidy refunds on 13,000 metric tonnes from the PPPRA, the petroleum pricing agency under Mrs Allison- Madueke's supervision. The payoff from that single alleged inflated transaction was N400 million.
Mr Omokore did not respond directly to our inquiries. Atlantic Energy was incorporated only in July last year. As far as we can determine, it has no office or personnel. In its registration documents, the company gave Plot 1267, Ahmadu Bello Way, Abuja as its official address. But our inquiries established that no such company has ever operated out of that location. The company has also never executed a single oil-related contract, undertaken any project, or produced one barrel of crude since it was registered under the names of three people who claim to live in the same address listed as the company's offices. 51
But it was to this shadowy and inexperienced company that Mrs Allison-Madueke turned for operating rights to two of the most lucrative oil blocks in Nigeria three days before the end of the last administration. Just hours before she attended her last cabinet meeting on Wednesday, May 25, Mrs Allison-Madueke's subordinates, with her approval, basically handed over OMLs 30 and 34 to this barely functional company Atlantic Energy to fund the Nigerian Petroleum Development Co's share of expenditure in exchange for recovering its cost and sharing profits.
Assigning the blocks without open, competitive bidding appears to be a clear violation of industry guidelines, which demand that allocation of oil blocks and the award of service contracts shall be based on an open competitive bidding process to allow every investor, indigenous or foreign, an equal opportunity to explore and develop Nigeria's petroleum resources. The arrangement also seems a violation of the Public Procurement Act 2007, which regulates all procurements by ministries and agencies of the Nigerian government. Officials breaching this law risk a term of imprisonment of between five and 10 years without an option of fine.
The former minister and spokesperson of the NNPC did not return calls or text messages seeking comment. The Department of Petroleum Resources, the agency statutorily charged with supervising all petroleum industry operations being carried out under licenses and leases in order to ensure compliance with the applicable laws and regulations, requested an emailed enquiry but eventually did not respond to our reporter's questions.
Sweetheart deals
The multiple controversial deals in which the former minister is embroiled has made it all but impossible for the president to reappoint her, according to highly placed political leaders. Atlantic Energy's deal with the NPDC to provide financial and technical services in respect of its 55 percent stake in the lucrative OML 30 is perhaps the most astonishing example of these deals shrouded in secrecy. Shell is selling its 45 percent shareholding in the block, after an elaborative competitive bidding process, to Mike Adenuga's Conoil for $1.3bn. For a field that is so lucrative that it yielded 45,000bbl of crude per day in April, Mrs Allison-Madueke's favourite company is to pay, as entrance fee 30 cents per barrel of oil to the Nigerian government and two cents for gas equivalent.
Industry players are aghast
"These people are truly audacious; I have never seen anything like it," said one industry operator who asked not to be identified for fear of jeopardising business relationships with the all-powerful petroleum ministry and the NNPC. A similar deal, hurriedly packaged and finalized on May 25, was signed with Atlantic in respect of OML 34, where Shell also is selling its 45 percent to the Niger Delta Energy and Petroleum Company for $600 million. Earlier in September, the former minister had entered into a service contract with Seven Energy International Limited, through its Nigerian subsidiary, Septa Energy Nigeria Limited, in respect of OML 4, 38, and 41. According to the agreement signed with the company, the firm is to pay a "paltry" $54 million as entrance fee for participating in the three blocks which has Seplat Exploration Production Company as operator. The company will also recover its cost and share profits with NPDC. It can lift crude from the fields and keep the entire proceeds of its sale abroad, contrary to the guideline that requires companies to keep at least 10 percent of their proceeds in Nigerian banks. In a memo to its stakeholders after NEXT broke the story of its deal with the NPDC last week, Seven Energy claimed that its strategic alliance agreement in respect of the three blocks was "modeled after valid service contracts with oil majors in the past." But NEXT's investigation indicates this claim is untrue.
The NNPC acted right in the past
In 2001, NPDC and Agip Energy went into a service contract agreement for the development of OPL 91 (now known as OML 119) - Okono and Okpohu fields - under a joint operatorship. This newspaper can confirm that Agip won the contract after an open, competitive bidding process. The NNPC had at the time advertised in December 1999 for a partner to develop new fields in the block, which is in about 100 meters water depth, and located in the southeastern Niger Delta. The corporation received applications until December 31, 1999, after which it declared Agip the winner of the bid.
"So if NPDC could follow due process 10 years ago, what has changed now?" said a senior official in the NNPC. "Why must they give away assets belonging to the Nigerian people in such a non-transparent way especially when the country now has a procurement law in place?" 52
A member of the recently defunct Senate Committee on Petroleum (Upstream), which undertook to investigate Mrs Allison-Madueke but was stymied, argued that what the minister did was a tactical reintroduction of single- source procurement abolished in the industry in 2004.
"Single-source negotiation contract has been discontinued in the country since the days of Edmund Dakouru as minister," said the source, who did not want to be specifically identified for fear of reprisal. "It was discontinued because it was causing a lot of fraud. It is shocking that the practice resurfaced under Diezani."
Thine deal be done
As a key figure in this web of secretive arrangements, Mr Omokore cuts an astonishing figure. A wealthy businessman and politician, his Energy Resources Group has an 11 percent stake in Seven Energy International Limited, owners of Septa. Having swung OML 4, 38 and 41 in Septa's favour, Mr Omokore's coup de grace was to corner OMLs 30 and 34, using the newly formed Atlantic Energy. Company documents give Messrs Albert Bassey Akpan, Bankole Opashi and Sanni Mohammed as shareholders and directors of the firm, a veritable WaZoBia of ethnic balancing. But when time came to sign the controversial agreement with NPDC, Mr Omokore emerged, signing as chairman of the company. Atlantic also gave its registered address as Plot 1267 Ahmadu Bello Way, Abuja, which is a former location for one of Mr Omokore's numerous companies, SPOG Petroleum, which has now moved to Millennium Builder's Plaza in central Abuja. Chijioke Isiolu, the Atlantic Energy company secretary, told our reporter that his company is competent to execute the contract awarded to it because it has a sister company in Seven Energy. Mr Omokore was not available for comment. When our reporter called his Abuja office, an official simply directed enquiries at Mr Isiolu, whom he said could speak on Mr Omokore's behalf. Mr Isiolu later said on the telephone that the allegations against Mr Omokore were false. He promised to provide further information if our reporter could agree to a meeting, not in his office but at unspecified location.
Mrs Allison-Madueke is not officially connected to Seven Energy, but she does indirectly enjoy the hospitality of the company. In June 2010, Vistajet, the UK-based private aviation company, extended its operation to Nigeria through an alliance with Seven Energy. Sources said Vistajet Nigeria, headed by Kola Aluko, one of the owners of Seven Energy and the managing director of its Nigerian subsidiary, Septa Energy, routinely provides a private jet for the minister's convenience, including her trip to the Offshore Technology Conference in Houston last month. Mrs Allison-Madueke accepted this expensive hospitality as she was approving the secret no-bid deal to assign production rights in the oil blocks to Septa, Atlantic and Seven Energy - an apparent contravention of section 6 of the fifth schedule of our constitution.
The constitution stipulates that: "A public officer shall not ask for or accept property or benefits of any kind for himself or any other person on account of anything done or omitted to be done by him in the discharge of his duties. For the purposes of sub-paragraph (1) of this paragraph, the receipt by a public officer of any gifts or benefits from commercial wfirms, business enterprises or persons who have contracts with the government shall be presumed to have been received in contravention of the said sub-paragraph unless the contrary is proved.‖
END.
53
By Ramata sore Pr. Rich Hull- / Dept of History / NYU, USA: Well, everyone thought that the World Cup would fail; that the unions would strike and paralyze transportation; that the power plant would not be able to generate enough electricity. There would be power blackout, brown outs, power failure. And South Africa really couldn‘t manage; couldn‘t organize; couldn‘t properly host an international event like that.
BUT WHY IS THERE THIS APPREHENSION FROM WESTERNERS TOWARDS SOUTH AFRICA, WHICH IS YET ONE OF THE LEADING ECONOMIES ON THE AFRICAN CONTINENT? William Minter – Journalist and Scholar - USA: The negative image of Africa and Africans was built up on a parallel first of all with slavery and slave trade. Those images were established in Europe, in the United States to justify slavery and to justify slave trade and then later to justify colonialism, to justify segregation. Chériff Sy –Chairperson of TAEF-Africa: News is valuable, and it is clear that one will sell consumers news that matches their psychological conditioning. Milton Allimadi - Former stringer at the New York Times- USA: How is the coverage going to be? That is the question you ask yourself even before the World Cup. And personally, it was not surprising when I started seeing the focus of the coverage in most of the western media. So most of their stories, initially were ‗‘ooh the high crime rate in South Africa? Many stories where questioning how South Africa was being allowed to host the World Cup?‖ Joel Rantao: The worst one was an article published in one of the UK papers: Tourists coming to South Africa for the World Cup are going to be confronted by these machete wielding, angry thugs who will cut them to pieces, you know. And then I read somewhere else that again England there were some powerful poisonous snakes that was going to attack the English team. These snakes we were told the potential to kill an entire team. And then there was the earthquake. There was a threat of an earthquake during the World Cup.
TO HANDLE THE ORIGIN OF THIS NEGATIVE VIEWS ABOUT AFRICA, WE HAVE INTERVIEWED GS, ALLIMADI, AUTHOR OF THE BOOK TITLED: “THE HEARTS OF DARKNESS, HOW WHITE WRITERS CREATED THE RACIST IMAGE OF AFRICA,” WHO CROSS- ANALYZED THE WRITINGS OF THE FIRST EXPLORERS ON THE CONTINENT AND THE WORKS OF THE FIRST JOURNALISTS WHO COVERED THE AFRICAN CONTINENT. Milton Allimadi: When The New York Times sent one of its most famous reporters, Homer Bigart, to cover decolonization in Africa, he was sent to Nigeria, to Ghana and he described the Nigerians and the Ghanaians in the most negative way, the way involving macabre practices, referred to them as savages, focusing on writing about witch doctors. He said the leaders remind him of witch doctors painted black and he said: ―I actually prefer cannibalism and I think this should be a good solution to the population explosion that everybody is complaining about.‖
LLOYD GARRISON, THE NEW YORK TIMES SENIOR CORRESPONDENT FOR AFRICA IN THE 1960S, STILL RECALLS THE STRUGGLE HE HAD WITH HIS FORMER NEWSPAPER ABOUT THE USE OF CERTAIN STEREOTYPES TOWARDS AFRICANS. Lloyd Garrison: I had stories that I wrote from Africa that the copy desk in New York had to shorten the story or change, they often put into my story clichés such as ―tribal.‖ I always prefer ―ethnic‖ but ―tribal‖ always seemed to creep into my story in New York.
GARRISON SAID HE PROTESTED THE COPY DESK’S INSERTION OF THE WORD “TRIBAL” IN HIS STORIES, BUT IT WAS TO NO AVAIL. Lloyd Garrison: I just happened to be going through a file of letters between myself and my editors and… New York was very, very responsive, but they often did not listen. My editor would say, ―I do understand you and I have talked to the copy desk and I told them not to do this,‖ but often the copy desk would still do it.
THE PAST STILL HAS AN INFLUENCE ON HOW THE WESTERN MEDIA WRITES ABOUT AFRICA. THIS AFFECTED HOW THEY COVERED THE 2010 WORLD CUP HELD IN SOUTH AFRICA. Milton Allimadi: The apocalypse never happened. The mass murder never happened. The mass crime rates never happened. Joseph Lelyveld, Former Correspondent managing editor of the New Work Times: The country was fascinated by the World Cup. Even people who indulge in crimes seem to have made a patriotic decision to show South Africa as well as they could to the world. It was a great success.
NOT ONLY WERE WESTERN JOURNALISTS SKEPTICAL ABOUT THE CAPABILITY OF SOUTH AFRICA TO PROPERLY HOST THE MONTH LONG EVENT, BUT LOCAL JOURNALISTS SHARED THAT FEELING TOO. Elisabeth Boly – Journalist- Cote d‟Ivoire: Just because South Africa successfully managed to host the games does not mean that other countries will be able to do so in the future. I am still skeptical. I still ask myself questions about which 54
country and when will be Africa‘s turn. I always ask these questions because we do not have leaders who can handle their country‘s future, they are always requesting international relief. Pr. Mahamadé Sawadogo - Philosopher, University of Ouagadougou: These representations ultimately create what Bourdieu called ―habitus‖ which journalists reproduce sometimes unconsciously. Pr. Serge Théophile Balima: They use, for example, pejorative words coined ironically by Westerners to cover the African continent. They will write, ―The strong man of Lomé, the number one, the military junta, etc.‖ They embrace the terminology of Western ideology to portray Africa and that is unfortunate. They should overcome the obvious facts and dig to understand the reasons behind the instability in our states. Show that, in fact, Africa is not solely responsible for its instability; there are other hands behind that act that promote instability. Unfortunately very few African journalists cross that threshold. Effect: two second black screen Chériff Sy: When you look closely, the West orchestrates most of the wars in Africa for its own best interests. Pr. Richard Hull: Some of the most critical mineral resources vital to the economic development of the West as well as in the non-West come from Africa. You have to remember the uranium that went into manufacturing the bombs, the atomic bomb that was dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the end of the Second World War. That uranium came from the Katanga province in the Belgium Congo and the diamonds, the gold that was used to fuel the industrialization of Western Europe in the turn of the last century, much of that came out of South Africa. The Kivu region is a major producer of Colton. Colton is a mineral that is found only in four to five places on earth and is absolutely a critical mineral in the manufacture of cell phones. And it is those parts of Africa where you have those critical minerals that you find the most conflicts today
VERY FEW AFRICAN LEADERS ADVOCATE AGAINST WESTERN COUNTRIES THAT TAKE ADVANTAGE OF THE AFRICAN COUNTRIES’ ABUNDANCE OF RESOURCES. Pr. Richard Hull: Unfortunately, it is in the interest of so many countries that do business in Africa, trade with Africa that they want to make sure the terms of trade, the terms of diplomacy are going to be in their terms, not in Africa‘s terms. And that will continue until Africa develops stronger leadership in its own countries. Dr. Nestorine Sangaré: Where are the leaders who tried to carry out their ideas for their people? Where are they? Dr. Abdoul Karim Sango – Lawyer BF: Africa is a continent that still has a lot of resources. Others have used most of their resources. Therefore, the key issue is the control of these resources, and our leaders must consider that in their efforts to lead and manage our countries. Outsiders could not indefinitely control our leaders if our people had a certain level of education, one that would allow them to understand.
IF WESTERN MEDIA PRESENT BIASED VIEWS OF AFRICA, A KEY QUESTION MUST BE RAISED: WHO SHOULD BE GIVEN THE VOICE TO TELL THE CONTINENT AND ITS PEOPLES’ STORIES? William Minter: I‘m very much against making judgments about who should tell the story based on where they are from. I think one needs different stories and I think not necessarily told only by journalists either. Obviously in terms of who should tell Africans‘ stories, most people who tell Africans‘ stories should be Africans, but that does not mean other people should not do it as well and how well those stories are told and how honest will vary. Dr. Nestorine Sangaré: In the West, Westerners build their own images of the West. Western journalists are the ones who build the image of the West and they use selected images. They do not show disparaging images. They only show the part of the West that thrives, the part that enhances, the part of the West, that puts it in tune, that puts it in an ideal qualitative category compared to other countries. But who does that? Not African journalists, but Western journalists.
HOW CAN AFRICAN COUNTRIES HAVE MEDIA THAT AMPLIFIES THEIR OWN VOICES AND STOPS THE SPREAD OF STEREOTYPES ABOUT AFRICA? Pr. Balima Serge Théophile: To fix all this, Africa must work to become strong, work to emerge in terms of values, in terms of exemplarity as Asia is doing today. Dr. Nestorine Sangaré: I think, first, one should be aware. Yet many people are not aware of what is happening. What is at stake is our identity, which is in the process of being reduced to nothingness. They – [the West] turn us into something that masks our identity, that does not show who we are. It is a cultural war, an open war with a well-established financial and political complex system, known to all, but not properly handled. 55
Chériff Sy: A TV channel like Al-Jazeera rose in opposition to the values of civilization, in opposition to the West. Now, it provides a different view of the Arab world, provides news processed by Arab journalists and whether it is appreciated or not, one must acknowledge that this medium is as strong as CNN, as strong or even stronger than Euronews, etc. Therefore, Africans also must work to make that happen. They have the intellectual as well as the financial potential to do so.
WHILE WAITING TO SEE AFRICAN LEADERS WORK TO MAKE THE POSITIVE CHANGES ON HOW TO DISSEMINATE OBJECTIVE IMAGES OF THE CONTINENT, THE SOUTH AFRICAN 2010 WORLD CUP WAS ONE OF THE BEST OPPORTUNITIES FOR WESTERN JOURNALISTS TO APPRECIATE THE CONTINENT, ITS REALITIES AND PEOPLE. Joel Rantao: People who fear that for instance the base camp for the teams will not be up to, that the stadiums will not be up to FIFA standards, that the services will let them down; then actually they became the best ambassadors for this country. Hans van Tilburg: Wonderful. I‘m coming back for holiday because people are so friendly. Everybody wants to help you. It is a beautiful country.
GIVEN SOUTH AFRICA’S SUCCESS AT ORGANIZATION OF THE GAMES, SOME GUESTS EXPECT THAT ANOTHER AFRICAN COUNTRY TO ORGANIZE A BIG GLOBAL EVENT IN THE FUTURE. Rhein Johns – Los Angeles Time – USA: I would not be surprised to see possibly Egypt or possibly Morocco leading in the future for the World Cup. I would love to see the Olympic Games in Durban because it is a beautiful place.
IN THE END, THE 2010 WORLD CUP IN SOUTH AFRICA SHOWED TO THE WORLD THAT AN AFRICAN COUNTRY IS CAPABLE OF EFFECTIVELY ORGANIZING AND HOSTING AN INTERNATIONAL EVENT. MORE EVENTS OF THIS GENRE WILL PROBABLY CHANGE THE WAY THE WESTERN WORLD SEES AFRICAN AND ITS PEOPLE. Joel Rantoa: The World Cup was this powerful tool that dealt I think to a large extent with this perception that people have about Africa. They landed at OR Tambo airport, one of the best airports in the world. As they left the airport and took the bus, they did not come across a lion, you know, they didn‘t see an elephant. We as Africans and South Africans we can now push to go forward to make sure that the legacy of this World Cup is that the perception of us as a dark, corrupt and disease ridden continent is done with. Tabisso Soweto: What was so difficult for us to be hosting it? I wanna see the skeptic. ―Hello skeptics from the western countries. In your face, we did.‖
END.
56
Ivorian Girls Trade Sex For Food
Story: Stephen Nartey OFFICE SPACE FOR KANESHIE354659 INVESTIGATIONS CONDUCTED by The Heritage have revealed a startling revelation regarding Ivorian girls in their early twenties who are trading sex in exchange for shelter, food and a place to have shower with sex-craze men who are willing to take advantage of the barter system at their door steps.
Painstaking monitoring in the two port cities of the country, Takoradi and Tema, where most of these sweet- looking girls are receiving patronage shows that the creeping trend has come about as a result of the desire by these women to survive after the political stand-off forced them to migrate to Ghana.
They have simply run out of money to keep body and soul together hence, they are ready to put up with young and old men who come across them and are willing to provide them with a place to sleep, wash and food to eat and then repay in kind.
These Ivoirians, the paper learnt, after reaching the country used the monies they had to rent single rooms but is usually occupied by at least eleven of them. Thus, in a search of level of comfort, most of these ladies took to dressing in hot-skimpy dresses and walk in the streets of the community they reside in to attract promiscuous men.
The Heritage gathered that after the sex-hungry men, mostly young bachelors, have fully satisfied their libido on these voluntary sex slaves pass them on to their friends to, sort of, have their share of the booty.
Jasmine and Caroline, two Ivorian ladies this reporter interacted with through their interpreter revealed that they charge GHc5.00 to spend a time out with a patron at any joint of patron's choice but an extra fee of GH15.00 and assurance that he would provide them place to lay their head for them to move in with.
They intimated that they migrated into the country when they realized that the political stalemate in their country was assuming life-threatening dimension hence, their escape to the refugee camp.
Though they asserted that they are not happy with the predicament they have found themselves in, but in order to survive, they need to adapt with the situation.
"Ghana is a lovely place to be and the men seem very interested in hosting us. I will prefer that to dying in Ivory Coast," Jasmine remarked.
A young man who gave his name as Dodzi who resides in one of the communities in Tema claimed he had accommodated one of the ladies for the past two weeks and describes the period as the best bonanza that has ever happened to him.
"My fluency in speaking French facilitated the process easily. I did not pay anything but just to give the stranded lady a place to sleep and food to eat and the agreement is she repays with sex," he asserted.
The worrying scenario is that most of these Ivorian ladies are going into prostitution at popular joints in these cities in order to meet their living expenses.
END.
57
By Tereza Ndaga
Report: …………… Insert: a girl child screaming (runs under until end third para) That is a cry from the agony of the desire to lose a life. An unwanted, unborn child. And the process is called abortion. And that service is not for free. The woman crying paid for it. This girl is fourteen and still in school. She says she needed the abortion because of fear of what her parents would say on knowing she is pregnant. That is what she told the medical officer at this clinic. The medic observed that this was illegal but would administer anyway. Other than being expectant, Grace had not been sick. There were no complications. This is critical as abortions in Malawi are legally acceptable where life of the mother is in danger. It is illegal in Malawi to solicit and administer abortions such as Grace received. However, medical and traditional clinics have taken advantage of the absence of policing in this area to tactfully market and supply the illegal service. Abortions are now a lucrative business. Banja La Mtsogolo-BLM-is a reproductive health service provision institution. It is also in the business of providing the illegal abortion services. For over a month, I went around in local BLM clinics investigating what had, hitherto, been speculation in public circles; That this American health provision institution was also conducting illegal abortions in Malawi. So I set out on a month-long investigation. Moving from one private clinic to another. First, of course were Banja la Mtsogolo clinics. In all cases, what comes out clear is that staff at the clinics are mindful that the service is illegal although they offer it anyway. My first destination was the BLM clinic at Falls in Lilongwe. Here, a clinician tells me that I would have to part with 3,500 if I am going to get the service I want: Insert: (he tells me abortion is illegal in Malawi but says if I think it is a problem to have the baby, then the clinic can still help) The scenario is the same at the Banja La Mtsogolo Clinic at Area 25. Here, I did not have to plead for the service. I simply demanded what I was looking for and the clinician rolled up for duty. He demanded a physical check. I cleverly talked him into doing it the next day. But I was wrong, just by gazing at how I looked, the clinician deduced I was in advanced pregnancy. But being a mother of a five months‘ old baby, I nearly burst into laughter. Luckily for me, the clinician agrees to carry out the abortion on the Saturday to come. He proceeds to prescribe PAC for the intention of my visit to the clinic the coming saturday. Insert: (I ask him if it is possible to abort a three months pregnancy to ehich he says it is not recommended. he also tells me the process does not take long. He also explains that the procedure is a bit painful, saying almost all hospital operations are painful) Another woman whose identity we choose to conceal actually got the abortion service here on September 8. BLM clinic receipt number 1355959 shows she paid K3, 500.00 for PAC. The woman was pregnant by a man who did not wish to have children out of wedlock. However, the Country Director for Banja la Mtsogolo Linda Edwards says her organization only conducts abortions when the life of an expectant woman is in danger as the Anti abortion law in Malawi stipulates. Part of her response has been read out in our studios. Insert: Linda Edwards says her organization would investigate my claims that my life and that of the other woman were not in danger when the clinics accepted to offer abortions. Insert: Banja La Mtsogolo is not alone in this lucrative business. I also visited Rex Medical centre, another private clinic in Lilongwe‘s area 25. Insert: (After explaining what I was seeking, the doctor asks how old the pregnancy is to which I say two months. He then asks if I have 3, 500 kwacha which I said I didn‘t have at that moment) When called after a few days why he administers abortion when it is illegal in Malawi, Dr. Rex, sounding terrified, denied it all. He however refused any recorded interview. The culprits in this matter also extend to traditional healers. I called up one Dr. Chokocha. He says he lives at Likuni in Lilongwe. He says he administers abortion at K10,000.00. Insert: Traditional medicine man, Dr. Chatha says conducting abortion costs K4,500.00 with him. Insert: Dr. Edgar Kuchingale is a Gynecologist at Mwaiwathu Hospital in Blantyre. He says the high cases of abortion in Malawi is indication that people are having unprotected sex. This, he observes, could push up chances of spreading HIV, the virus that causes AIDS: 58
Insert: The Population Reference Bureau says tens of thousands of women worldwide die every year due to abortions conducted under unsafe conditions. Many other women, it says, are left with chronic and often irreversible health problems. This is because the service is secretive and those looking for it are generally left at the mercy of those offering it. The abundance in availability of the service in a country where abortion is generally illegal is clear indicator that many pregnant women are getting unsafe abortion services. The question that arises is whether the status quo be left as it is or that legislation be revisited. Public Health spokesperson Mr. Henry Chimbali acknowledges that government is aware that illegal abortion is sought and administered in Malawi, what with the numerous cases of post abortion care service costs government continues to incur at the moment? Ironically, Medical Council of Malawi says it is ignorant abortions are being carried out in Malawi? This is dangerous coming from a body assigned to protect health service seekers. Mr. Abel Kaonga is Registrar of the Medical Council of Malawi. Insert: The position of the Medical Council of Malawi stuns the Malawi Health Equity Network, a health rights non- governmental organization. The Executive director here Mrs. Martha Kwataine says MCM implies that stopping illegal abortions in Malawi could be difficult. Insert: Network Executive Director, Martha Kwataine. The debate on abortion is multifaceted. While others defend the rights of the expectant mother, others advocate the rights of the unborn child. In a recent Zodiak Online poll rating, 96 percent of participants were of the view that unborn babies have a right to life. Four percent said an unborn child has no right to decide whether to live on or not. This took me to an expedition on where the right to life begins in the laws of Malawi. Mrs. Grace Malera is the Executive Secretary for the Malawi Human Rights Commission. Insert: Illegal abortions are increasingly taking place in Malawi clearly calling on a national debate on whether or not the answer could lay in making it legal. Conservative approach to the growing problem among us could lead to unnecessary deaths of women and children. Over 70,000 thousand women in Malawi every year pay unskilled personnel to administer on them these illegal abortions. Some of these women, lose both their life and money. The absence of mechanism to police the law on abortion in Malawi, the unclear legal definition on ownership to right to life, cultural beliefs and the love for money could defeat the whole purpose of the existing campaign to disallow mothers to die while giving life. Humans have the right to decide to have sex. Should humans have right to terminate life?
ENDS.
59
TOYOSI OGUNSEYE
PUBLIC SCHOOL TOILETS, PITS OF DEATHS AND DISAESES
DATE OF PUBLICATION: JULY 3, 2011
The recent death of an eight-year-old pupil after he fell into a pit latrine in a government primary school reveals the unhygienic sanitary conditions that children in primary schools are exposed to. TOYOSI OGUNSEYE visited 10 of such schools in Lagos and reports that stinking latrines that are filled to the brim with faeces are the order of the day.
Nineteen days ago, Lawal Buhari fell into the open pit latrine of his primary school. By the time help came to him, the eight-year-old boy was dead. Immediately his corpse was brought out, the school closed and all the pupils were asked to go home. Buhari‘s best friend, Ahmed, who usually left school every day with the late boy got home that day without his friend.
Buhari‘s mother said Ahmed came home with only Buhari‘s food flask and this made her suspicious.
She says, ―When I saw my son‘s food flask with Ahmed, I asked him why he came home without his friend. He told me that Buhari took permission from the class teacher that he wanted to use the toilet just before the closing hour, but did not come back. Ahmed assumed that Buhari had gone home, but since my son left his food flask and water bottle in the class, he decided to bring them home for him.‖
Mrs. Buhari ran to Irepodun Primary School, Ketu, Lagos, as fast as her legs could carry her. When she got there, two teachers blocked the entrance and prevented her from going in. This aroused her suspicion and she started screaming that she wanted to see her son.
As this was going on, she overheard a group of teachers saying that a pupil fell into the latrine of the school and had just been brought out. Buhari‘s mother ran towards the area of the school toilet and met the corpse of her first son lying on the floor.
She fainted.
The death of Buhari drew the ire of some young men in the neighbourhood who invaded the school to protest the child‘s death. They pulled down the doors of the teachers‘ toilet, which was locked and could not be accessed by the over 1,000 pupils of the primary school. The protesters were miffed that while the teachers enjoyed water closets, the pupils were made to use pit latrines that were wide enough to swallow average-sized pupils. Buhari perished in one of them.
The ill-fated boy‘s mother says the teachers‘ toilet was actually built for the pupils but the teachers converted it to their use. According to her, the teachers kept the new toilet which had six water closets under lock and key and this prevented her son from gaining access to a good toilet.
She says if the teachers were more considerate, her son would be alive.
―The teachers killed my son because of their wickedness. The local council built new toilets for the children in that school, but the teachers refused to allow them use it. To make matters worse, can you believe that it was the pupils that were washing the toilets? They also fetched water for use by the teachers in the toilets because water is not connected to the new toilets. If only the teachers allowed my son to use the toilet that the council built for the pupils, he wouldn‘t have fallen into that pit.‖
It was the day Buhari died that his mother discovered that her son and other pupils were using the pit toilets and not the water closets. He was brought out of the pit with faeces all over him.
The pit Buhari fell into was approximately six feet deep and was filled with faeces and urine when SUNDAY PUNCH went to the school. The primary school has three pit latrines that are filled to the brim with faeces. These latrines, which are located behind the classrooms, oozed nauseating odour which was enough to cause 60
cholera or diarrhoea outbreak. Since the latrines are filled and the pupils who are as young as two-years-old cannot stoop astride them to ease themselves, they defecate in sheets of paper and nylon bags before throwing their wastes into the pits. That was what Buhari tried to do the day he died.
Another pupil who saw him said the deceased spread a sheet of paper on the floor beside the latrine and was defecating with the aim of throwing the waste into the pit. However, this was not to be, as the latrine caved in as Buhari was defecating and he plunged into it. The pupil then ran to inform his class teacher that he had seen another pupil fall inside the latrine.
Buhari‘s mother says the teacher did not pay attention to the pupil who raised the alarm on time and alleged that that was not the first time a student was falling into the pit latrine. She says five years ago, she heard that another pupil died in the same manner but the school authorities covered it up, claimed that kidnappers abducted the child and that when his parents could not pay the ransom, he was killed.
The teachers in the school who pleaded anonymity because they are civil servants denied this allegation. They said it was the first time a pupil had ever fallen into the latrine. They also said that it was not true that the pupils were denied access to the water closets.
If Irepodun Primary School had some water closets that were allegedly coveted by the teachers, the same cannot be said of the other government primary schools that SUNDAY PUNCH went to. From the Mainland to the Island, the story was the same.
In Arowosegbe Nursery and Primary School, also in Ketu, the pit latrines are just opposite the classrooms, subjecting the pupils to the sickening odour of faeces as they receive lessons in their ramshackle classrooms.
At Alapere Primary School, Ketu, the over 1,000 pupils can‘t use the pit latrines because they are flooded with water which leaks out of the latrines that are overflowing with excreta. Even the wooden doors that partition one latrine from another cannot stop the stench. It is challenging to take photographs of the pits without stepping into the putrid water that flows from them.
Another student, Bidemi (again, not real name) says he goes home to use the toilet during the break period. Since he lives on the same street as his school, it‘s easier for him.
If the schools in Ketu have latrines, most of the primary schools in Fagba and Iju-Ishaga areas of the state have none.
Take the First African Church Mission School for example, which has two schools in its compound. There is no single toilet for the thousands of little children in the primary schools. All the pupils have a little space at the back of their classrooms where they defecate and urinate. This space is filled with excreta and the pupils have to be careful not to step on faeces as they bend to ease themselves. Even though the areas the children use are hidden from public view, the odour that oozes from there permeates the environment.
St. Kitzo‘s Catholic Primary School is a stone‘s throw from the First African Church Mission School. There, the teachers refused to show SUNDAY PUNCH the way to the toilet. One of them says, ―We can‘t take you there; you will have to go there yourselves. It is an open place that stinks.‖
The place was just as the teachers described it. Just like the First African School, there is also a dump where the children defecate in the open. Located just behind one of the classes, the pupils were seen defecating, even as flies of all sizes and colours swarmed their excreta and the dust bin.
Beside St. Kitzo‘s is the Fred Williams Memorial Primary School. Here, there is no toilet or facility for the pupils to use. A senior teacher, who pleads anonymity says, ―Toilet? We have no toilets. The children wait till they get home before they can ease themselves. We resume school by 8am and close by 2pm. How the children cope, I don‘t know.‖
Our Lady of Lourdes Primary School, Ojuelegeba, Lagos, has six water closets for about 178 students, but the toilets are very dirty. A senior teacher, who did not want her name in print, says it is difficult to keep the toilets 61
clean because there is no water. She says, ―Our pupils fetch water outside the school because we don‘t have water on the premises. They wash the toilets themselves because we don‘t have cleaners and their teachers can‘t do that for them.‖
The water closets in the school which was founded in 1950 are weak and can sink at any time. Flooded with water, the pupils have to step into the water before they can use the toilets.
The primary schools at the Ebute Metta area of Lagos don‘t fare any better. At Odunfa Nursery and Primary School, the toilet was not accessible because it was flooded with dirty water. The pupils utilise the bushes that surround the school for their convenience.
Kadara Nursery and Primary School, Oyingbo, is just like Odunfa. With over 1,000 pupils for the few unkempt toilets available, the children have to resort to using the bush when they want to use the toilet.
Out of all the government primary schools SUNDAY PUNCH visited, only Shamsudeen Islamic Nursery and Primary School, Surulere appeared manageable. There, an elderly woman cleans the toilet for the pupils. Even though the seven water closets are inadequate for the about 1,500 children in the school, visible efforts are made to keep them clean.
The Lagos State Ministry of Education however absolves itself of any blame. The Public Relations Officer of the ministry, Mr. Tunji Bakare says, ―I can‘t comment about what is happening in primary schools. It is not under my purview and I don‘t want to cross my boundary. Talk to the State Universal Basic Education Board, they are in charge of primary schools.‖
The Chairman of SUBEB, Mrs. Gbolahan Dawodu did not respond to calls made to her phone. However, in response to the text messages that our correspondent sent to her, she said, ―It is unfortunate and highly disturbing but we have started addressing them gradually.‖
Commenting on the unhygenic state of the schools, a medical doctor, Dr. Juwon Afolabi, says exposing the pupils to faeces is lethal. Afolabi explains that one gram of faeces can contain more than 10 million viruses, one million bacteria, 1,000 parasite cysts and 100 parasite eggs.
He says, ‗Untreated human waste, when exposed, is a huge risk. Open defecation and inadequate sanitation create a source from which communicable diseases can spread, placing society as a whole at risk.‖
Afolabi further says diarrhoea, cholera, intestinal worms and trachoma are some of the diseases associated with open defecation and that there would continue to be cases of high mortality, stunted growth and low memory retention among pupils of these schools if good toilets were not provided for them.
Buttressing Afolabi‘s point is a June 2011 release by the United Nations Water Decade Programme on Advocacy and Communication which states that diarrhoea has become the second biggest killer of children under five in the world due to open defecation; and that the best cure is through better hygiene and sanitation.
The Programme Manager of Water Supply and Sanitation Collaborative Council, Amanda Marlin, says while it is important for every pupil in schools to have access to safe and clean toilets, it brings particular benefits to women and girls.
She says, ―Girls just don‘t need toilet facilities just for defecation, they also need privacy and dignity when menstruating. Freed from the need to defecate in the open, they no longer have to suffer the indignity of physical and verbal abuse or humiliation when relieving themselves. Sexual harassment and rape are a risk for girls when they have to defecate in the open.‖
On August 3, 2010, Nigeria was among the 122 countries that entered into a resolution adopted by the United Nations General Assembly pledging to make water and sanitation human rights for their citizens. 62
That day, Nigeria‘s representatives to the Assembly acknowledged that sanitation was an integral component of the realisation of all human rights and the full enjoyment of life. They also promised to halve by 2015, the proportion of people who had no access to sanitation.
Presently, 2.6 billion people do not have access to improved sanitation in the world, while 1.1 billion people still practise open defecation. Out of this number, 33 million are Nigerians says the United Nations Children‘s Fund.
END.
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Leaders complicit in the looting of wood in Zambezia 01/07/11 , Diario Zambeze, Mozambique Abuses of the law Text and photos: Estacio Valoi
Article: This paper presents documentary evidence in this investigation into "piracy" with collusion of the authorities. In recent years, there have been accusations of looting of forests all over the country and of environmental hazards that will result if no measures are taken to contain this situation. Our investigation found in fact that "there is no smoke without fire." During the time we were investigating, we were able to obtain relevant documents that prove the anarchy in the forestry sector, given the apathy of the government. The Green Timber company, which is in majority Chinese, is the main operator in the lumber business. For a long time it has been taking wood logs from Zambezia province to the port of Nacala. The company, that operates in the country since 1991, with a number of seven concessions ranging from 40 to 100 acres, was previously accused of having stormed the reserve of Gile, where, with its 60 chain saws, tractors brought down trees of various species. This was reported by some media. Acquisition of concessions The company is currently Mozambique‘s largest dealer, with seven concessions ranging from 40 to 95 thousand hectares. (They would have had 100 thousand hectares, but the law does not allow for this.) It has concessions in the districts of Gile, Pebane, Maganja da Costa, and High Molócue. There were also some acquired but not used, and in some cases communities were consulted, in the provinces of Niassa, Tete and Manica. In Zambezia, concessions were first acquired on behalf of companies such as Oceanique, Katpark, and Holding.Lda, opened by the first owner Ken Tsou of Green Timber. Ltd. on behalf of his wife Tina Tsou. Tina Tsou is of Taiwanese origin. Both are are nationals of South Africa and 'Dire' in Mozambique. But beyond these there are also simple licenses acquired by the company using personal names, not only in Zambezia province but also in Nampula. Regulations A request for a concession may be made at any time of year, by a citizen of any country, requesting control of a forest area identified by the applicant for a period of 50 years. The forms to apply for grants are similar to those of simple licenses (including the map, the description of the business plan, community consultation), but other details are also required. Since the purpose is to provide support to the industry, the applicants must also submit a plan of industrial development. Initial applications may be submitted at any time of year. Grants of less than 20,000 ha could be approved at the provincial level, but most have to go to the Minister, and those over 100,000 ha to the Council of Ministers. After approval, the operator must within 180 days submit a business plan to the Provincial Forestry and Wildlife Zambezia (SPFFBZ) after which period, if this condition is not fulfilled, the applicant will lose the concession. The SFFB is in charge of approving the application for a licence, generally made between January and February. This process takes about a month. But the license authorization in favor of Green Timber by the governor of Zambezia, Itai Meque, and by the Director of this service, Rafik Vala, completely violates all rules. The governor here is ultimately responsible. Proven facts A person called ‗Mustafa Essumela‘ holds a Green Timber license for felling trees on 5000 hectares in the village of Mamala, located in Mahatxe-Npuria in Gile district. This project was submitted to the department of agriculture in May 2010. It was signed in June by governor Itai Meque, and approved with license number 89/01 / MAD/SPFFB/2010 June 28, 2010. It covered 200 cubic meters. The business plan set out in the procedure was the same as used in the procedures of most Green Timber concessions last year. The data were added in a 'copy and paste' way by the consultant, manager and owner of the company and sent to the SFFB like that. Another example is the Morria concession, also in Gile district. In the presence of our undercover investigation team, the business plan for that concession was discussed. Firstly, the company had written ‗645 000 hectares‘ in the application, in accordance with the proposed activities, but after a phonecall that changed to about 950 000 hectares in terms of protection of wildlife species and flora. (Source): "The Provincial Services of Forestry and Wildlife of Zambezia, SPFFBZ provide technical evaluation of management plans, issue licenses and permits for the cutting, enforce laws, oversee forestry operations and the movement of forest products, including entry into ports and export. They produce revenue for the state forest departments. In exchange for personal income, they help operators and traders to bypass the regulations. They help illegally to prepare business plans, and also provide other services.' The inventories of forestry company files that our research team had access to during and after the time they spent in that company, are mostly (done) by consultants hired for this purpose, on the basis of data provided by business owners and consultants, as in the case of consultant Yolanda Sara. 64
(In one case), after some opposition from staff, the director of agriculture Rafik Vala -reportedly pressured by General Jacinto and the duo Carla Jacinto and Tina Tsou-, flew to Zambezia for an ‗emergency‘ meeting where, in the twinkling of an eye, the problem was resolved in favor of Green Timber company. The only way to reap the personal bonus was to continue the approval process for the cutting of trees. It was also reported that the company Green Timber managed to take timber from the port of Pebane directly to a ship that was docked there. "It was the only company to achieve such a feat." According to the forestry law, companies can only start cutting once the business plan complies with criteria and is completed with other documents. Of the seven concessions of Green Timber, perhaps only one was fully regularized. But the cutting will take place in most of the concessions. The Nahetxte concession also has had its data changed by consultant Sara Yolanda. This was found during the month of September last year by our research team in the company's Maputo‘s offices based in Maputo in the neighborhood of Sommerschield, No. 112 Rua Fernao Lopes. But also, there were several meetings between company administrator Carla Jacinto, and Tina Tsou with Zambezia governors, including Itai Meque and Carvalho Muaria, in the licensing process, including regarding the license in the name of Mustafa Essumela, which belongs to Green Timber. Solicitation of administrators and community leaders (Source) : "Communities are involved in the forestry sector. Formally, they provide the manpower for the concession operators and license holders, but jobs are few (compared to the number of community members), seasonal and often paid below minimum wage and almost no income gets to the communities. The law requires that communities be consulted in the process of licensing, and that they should benefit from the operations, but the consultations are often superficial and involve bribes to community leaders. The commitments made by operators with things such as repairing a road and a bridge, school rehabilitation and construction of wells, are rarely met. " In August, the company manager of the Danube company, put money into the account of Gile manager of Teresa Mawa. "Yes mana and only verify that your account is already all there, my assistant has just let me know" said the manager during his stay in that district during a land conflict over who controlled the concessions. Two operators with a simple license alleged that Green Timber had usurped their land. The amount of 500 000 meticais was enough to make one of the operators, Momade Ussene, give up the area. Three bikes 'Made in China' were also given to some community members. Momade Ussene also obtained some bikes so that he would stop competing with the Chinese timber empire in Mozambique. The former administrator in Pebane, Antonio Santos, also has had his "commission." Night and day, about seven trucks per day transfer smuggled wood from Quelimane, assisted by guides sent by the SFFB in that area, though wood can only be transported officially from the concession-Pebane Nabure, where the company was allowed. But the guides helped to transport wood that actually came from illegal operators elsewhere in the area, such as Milange, which is miles and miles away from the district of Pebane. One load was about 35 000 logs from Pau-Ferro. The impact of these excesses was noted in the electronic archive (SFFB) in Quelimane. In addition to the guides allocated by the Department of Forestry and Wildlife of Zambezia, the company rents forestry operators and sends them to assist illegal partners in other areas. This led to one of the company employees in Mocuba to be held in the town of that district police station for having deflected seven guides towards whichever operator in the areas was interested in using them. Green Timber, after having been assigned one guide by the SFFB, for a single trip and timber transport, used the same guide for six-Zambezia Mocuba trips to the port of Nacala in Nampula. This happened with the connivance of tax and customs officials who, from the checkpoint Ligonha at the river, each received about five thousand Meticais per truck with about 160 logs destined to go to another province. Slavery Most Mozambican workers do not have or never had a contract of employment for two years or more work for that company. They are arbitrarily expelled and some without receiving their salaries. They are subjected to high working hours and overt racism: ―do not come here in this kitchen and do not sit down, you black'. Some are verbally and violently assaulted and unable to protest, because the Chinese citizen will pay the police to go away. Several cases of rape have been perpetrated by Chinese citizens of that company and some ended up in court in the province of Nampula. However, a week later the perpetrators of such crimes were not set free upon payment of a ‗deposit‘ under the table. In the month of August, there was another such case, in which the manager of the company negotiated with the lawyer and judge, and the accused was released. Chinese illegal workers Most Chinese come into Mozambique with a residence permit that is renewable for a period of three months. After this period he must leave the country. But some remain in the country illegally to work with the person who is the Green Timber administrator, Carla Jacinto in Maputo Sommerschield district. She will send the 65
passport to the border with Swaziland, where with the connivance of some elements of the immigration service, visas are assigned to them to remain in the country on payment of about 4000 MT. The identification document of 'Dire' that some citizens of Asian origin in the company have, were acquired illegally by paying about 50 thousand Meticais, according to the conversations of the administrator of the company. For a foreign citizen to be given this ‗Dire‘ one must have resided in Mozambique for more than five years. Most Asian holders of this ID however, have not complied with this rule. The permits are mostly a source of income for some elements of the police. Some Chinese ‗illegals‘ in Nampula, where the Green Timber company is based, prefer to stay locked in their own yard in Muhahivire extension. They are terrified even to leave the premises because they know the cops are waiting for them for being 'trapped' easy Den of prostitution In the main park of the company there is a large container that serves as a den of prostitution. Today there is another structure, made of wood, also attached to the fence: officially this is for security guards, but it is a brothel with condoms scattered all over the place. Girls, including minors, are taken there for sexual intercourse with Chinese men, who often leave without paying them, leaving them naked in the open or at the emergency exit, to run for fear of being attacked after the act. Sometimes the men don‘t use condoms, including Mozambican workers of the company, as confirmed by our report.
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Anne Mireille Nzouankeu
Cameroon: the double life of homosexuals They marry in order to hide their sexual orientation and to avoid reprisals from society. On this International Day against Homophobia, some of them talk about their daily lives as homosexuals. According to Section 347a of the Cameroonian penal code: "any person who has sexual relations with a person of the same gender shall be punishable by imprisonment for six months to five years and a fine of 20,000 to 200,000 francs." Stéphane Koch, vice-president of the Association for the Defence of Homosexuals (Adefho) reveals that "an average of 200 people are arbitrarily arrested and detained each year in Cameroon" on the basis of this section. He mentions the case of a man who was arrested in September 2009 and is still being held today at the main prison in Yaoundé for having been in possession of condoms and lubricants on which was written ―Lubricant for Gays‖.
The report on the investigation by the NGO Human Rights Watch that was published in 2010 and that is entitled "Criminalizing identities" also speaks of dozens of people arrested on the basis of Section 347a. These people "are often held in custody beyond the maximum period of 48 hours permitted by Cameroonian law. When they are charged, the judges refuse them bail and set conditions that are impossible to meet". The report explains: "The police hit the body, head and soles of any individual that they suspect of being homosexual. They sometimes order the inhuman, degrading and intrusive examination of the anus in order to prove the practice of sodomy which, however, cannot be scientifically proven this way". Despite the availability of legal disciplinary measures, "it is rare for detainees to protest. Either they are afraid to complain, they don‘t know that it is possible to complain or they quite simply cannot afford to hire a lawyer. When they do protest, they are either not heard or are subject to retaliation", states the report.
Even when they are not arrested, homosexuals say they suffer daily from rejection. 27-year old Sentinelle was excommunicated from his church on suspicion of being homosexual. 24-year old Duval admitted his sexual orientation to his nuclear family and they tried to take him to see a priest in order to "break the spell‖. "I told them that it was a waste of time because I'm gay, not bewitched. I have had this attraction since childhood", he says. Duval is a chef and manages a catering service. He has a taste for bright colours and tight clothing. His hip-swaying manner of walking does not help matters much; instead, it invites mockery: "When I walk down the street, people insult me by saying ‗gay, homosexual, you are the one destroying the lives of our young people out there‘‖, he complains. For Sentinelle, there is also discrimination regarding the right to healthcare. "When you have sex, you run the risk of being exposed to blood and, usually, when you get to the hospital, they ask to see the partner with whom you had sex. If it is with a man, you cannot take him there. We don‘t dare talk about it. And so we lie by saying, for example, that our girlfriend is travelling. We want things like this to stop", he says. He adds: "My expectation regarding the government is the decriminalization of homosexuality and universal access to prevention and treatment for all. That means that if a homosexual is sick, he can go to hospital and receive the same treatment that a heterosexual would receive".
A double life
The fear of degrading and inhuman treatment leads homosexuals to hide their sexual orientation. Sentinelle says he first had sexual intercourse at the age of 14, with a girl. "I only tried it because of peer pressure. All my friends had girlfriends and I thought, why not me?‖ Since then, he has not had sex with a woman, even though he has had a fiancée for a year now. She is not aware of his sexual orientation and her religious beliefs do not allow sex before marriage. This situation suits Sentinelle just fine. He wants to marry her in order to deflect suspicion from himself, and also because he loves children. "I couldn‘t adopt a child while I am able to procreate. Contrary to popular belief, being a homosexual doesn‘t mean you‘re in a sect or a cult. Rather, homosexuality is a sexual orientation, just like heterosexuality. I‘m currently seeing someone. The person himself is married and it works for him. The missus has her place and he also has his", he says with a smile. This young man, who is currently employed by a computer company, says there are more homosexuals out there than we think. Some are open about their sexual orientation, but "the majority is made up of those who want to live discreetly because Cameroon is a homophobic country. They appear with women in order to deflect suspicion."
Ndibis is in his thirties. He is tall, sturdily built, bearded and has a hoarse voice. He wishes to remove the ambiguity. "Being gay does not mean that we are effeminate. It's really an attraction that we feel deep within. 67
Bullying, discrimination or imprisonment cannot change this feeling‖. Ndibis also has a bride who does not suspect anything. In two years, they have only had sex twice. He keeps himself for his homosexual partner, a married man. "My companion married his wife due to societal pressure. His family practically forced him to bring her home. They have kids. But it's basically just to please his family‖, he says. "If I get married, it would only to do what others are already doing‖, he adds.
Duval has fewer problems. He has a girlfriend, a heterosexual girl who knows that he is gay. "I wanted to tell her before everyone else did. She said she was not surprised because my ways had already made her suspect something. She accepts me as I am‖, he says. To the question of why the girl agreed to stay with him despite his sexual orientation, he replies that ―she knows I cannot cheat with another woman because I do not like women. She is the only girl I have ever slept with in my life and I think she will be the last‖. When asked about the difference between having sex with a man and a woman, Duval replies: "I feel at ease when I'm with a man and I feel my natural pleasure. With women, it's just to satisfy her desire because it doesn‘t do much for me. I get a hard-on, I climax, but in my head it doesn‘t mean anything. In a heterosexual relationship, the man works very hard. He must do everything to satisfy the woman. However, the homosexual relationship is win-win. The two partners are trying to pleasure each other. Oral sex is mutual, everything is mutual. There are no taboos and the sexual act is not limited to penetration".
The decriminalization of homosexuality omosexual that we met in Douala dreams of one thing: "the decriminalization of homosexuality to end homophobia in Cameroon". While waiting for the law to change, gay men find comfort in new information and communications technologies that enable them to meet more easily. "In previous years, it was a bit difficult to find a homosexual. We had to go hunting for men and it wasn‘t easy. But now there are MSM (Men who have Sex with Men) dating websites. It's really easy, "says Ndibis joyfully. END.
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In the name of Ghana‟s development Akosombo still to create more victims… Edem Gabegbeku
Built on the Volta River, Akosombo Dam represents for Ghana what the Nile River‟s Assouan Dam represents for Egypt. The running of the Akosombo hydraulic project has lead to the “creation of the biggest artificial lake in the world, Lake Volta”, says Kweku Awotwi, (director of the Volta River Authority, the body that manages Volta basin operations). As in many West African countries, however, the erection of the imposing Akosombo structure has been to the disadvantage of local residents whose daily lives have been adversely affected since the start of operations at the largest hydraulic infrastructure in Ghana. ―Only 17% of the hydroelectric potential of west Africa is tapped into” reckons Ben Ampomah, member of the Commission for Water Resources in Ghana. If, on average, this figure is enough to fulfil the energy needs of this part of the Dark Continent, it also suffices to ―seal‖ the fate of West Africans living in those areas where such energy mastodons are installed. According to Nii Ayibotele, a Ghanaian environmental consultant, ―the construction of Akosombo Dam had among other negative impacts the forced removal of 80 000 people and the submersion of 740 villages”. Other negative impacts include additional environmental and societal consequences such as ―the mutation of marine and riverside biodiversity (in the catchment areas), coastal erosion in Ghana, Togo and Benin, the rural exodus of inhabitants of surrounding areas who lost their jobs, etc.”, adds Mr Ayibotele, who is also the president of the National Water Partnership in Ghana, a body that oversees the sound management of this resource. This sum total of the detrimental repercussions that followed the start of operations at the immense Akosombo Dam is far from cancelling out the enormous economic and geostrategic advantages that Ghana draws from the same structure. These include, in the main, the supply of electricity for domestic and industrial use to the entire country as well as the delivery of electrical energy to neighbouring coastal countries such as Benin, Burkina Faso, Togo, Côte d‘Ivoire, etc. Nonetheless, this Manichean situation has seemingly remained unchanged for close to half a century! This has been to the detriment of local residents who have paid a heavy price for the creation of Akosombo Dam that has, since 1965, been the cornerstone of Ghana‘s economic development planning…
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A development tool that has turned into a bone of contention!
Located more than 100 km to the north of Accra, Ghana‘s capital city, the town of Akosombo grew as a result of the dam that was built and named after it. According to its mayor, Mr Afriye, "This town has about 25,000 residents and has a surface area of 14.5 km²". Upon arrival, it is easy to distinguish between the modernised downtown section and the outskirts that look like an "abandoned" area. It is easy to draw this conclusion both in Adjina and Apasoo, two neighbourhoods that are located respectively upstream and downstream of Akosombo Dam. Relocated Ghanaian families live in these two areas. These are families that were resettled as part of the installation of the hydraulic structure that has shaped Ghana's energy identity. This group of Ghanaians accuse the central government in Accra of having ―broken its promises‖.
Behind the seeming calm of Akosombo Dam operations lies a litany of evils that does not spare the local, riverside population. (Photo: Edem Gadegbeku / Afriscoop) Elderly people in these communities do not need any coaxing to tell of their daily lives. "We were relocated to this residential area in 1963 because of the works related to the construction of Akosombo Dam that had started a few months earlier. This eviction forced some of our parents to immigrate (...) Look, we live next to a power station but we do not have enough transmission lines to conduct electricity to all our rooms," say senior citizens. They go on to specify the problems they face on a daily basis: "We also have sanitation problems. Discussions of various kinds have been initiated in this vein with the authorities, but we are still not satisfied. For example, the government promised us ideal housing models as part of our relocation, but these never materialized‖. These people who have been "forgotten" in the socio-economic development of the former "Gold Coast" (Ghana) do not hesitate to hammer home the crux of their complaints: "To have electricity in our homes, we are required to pay 200 GHS (about 90,000 FCFA) even though we were promised that we would be given free electricity. We prefer the lives we had before our relocation to this place (...) Trade and agriculture were the main occupations of our women. Today, they are idle. Those of us who were farmers have become fishermen. 70
This is an activity in which we contract parasitic diseases such as bilharzia due to contamination of the lake that is caused by Volta operations. In short, our communities are gradually being decimated‖.
These testimonials are the quintessence of one of the key recommendations made after a "Regional Dialogue" was held on major hydraulic infrastructure in West Africa. This was held from 19 October to 15 November 2009 by CEMR (Centre for the Co-ordination of Water Resources for West African Countries) for the sustainable management of water resources. The abovementioned recommendation stipulates: "We must take stock of each dam at both the macroeconomic and local levels, the benefits mostly being for urban populations while the negative effects are felt more at the local level by riverside residents".
In the face of this problem, Ghanaian authorities nonetheless still attempt to dodge the issue. "Relocated residents are just behaving like spoiled children who want to be treated in a special way. This is an anomaly almost fifty years after the start of the resettlement programme”, says VRA ―Relocation‖ Program Coordinator, Emmanuel Martey. ―In any case, we consider relocated communities to be our bothers and our partners in the development of Ghana. In order to not "disorient" these relocated Ghanaians, those who were farmers among them each received 3 ha of land. It is true that some relocated people have not yet received compensation in good and due form due to certain land disputes‖, he painstakingly clarifies. Gertrude Koomson (Head of Public Relations at VRA) provides a better explanation: "Some of these abovementioned communities do nothing to help us. For example, some of the residents do not hesitate to sell the (home) building material made available to them instead of making appropriate use of it. After the relocation, the houses that were built were equipped with electricity. Today, relocated populations have expanded. We can easily guess the new challenges they face (...). 52 villages were compensated within the framework of the construction of Akosombo Dam. Since 1997, $500,000 (approximately CFAF 225 million) has been allocated annually to these 52 villages. A medical boat providing free consultations is also available to these people, some of whom can only be reached by river”.
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Turbines marking the start of operations at the impressive Akosombo Dam. (Photo: Edem Gadegbeku / Afriscoop) In the end, who is wrong and who is right? "There are no fixed solutions for managing large-scale infrastructure in West Africa. There has to be permanent dialogue in order to balance the positive and negative impacts. We also need to put in place mechanisms for the equitable management of benefits gained from the use of the dams, as well as obliging each country‟s financial partners to respect the rights and responsibilities of other parties to hydropower projects”, advises Dr Gyau-Boakye, a researcher at the Ghana Water Institute. In turn, the aforementioned dialogue has widened the debate: "To mitigate the negative impacts of their dams, West African countries must explore solar, wind and biogas energy sources." Meanwhile, disputes over dams such as Akosombo Dam still have a long way to go.
END.
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Investigation: Benin: Illegal medical practices, is the government complicit? The past scourge of money laundering offices has today been replaced by that of illegal medical practices. The capital city of Cotonou is overflowing with them as they have mushroomed right under the government’s nose. In every corner of every street, these cabinets offer people medical care at competitive prices. However, many people have lost their lives there. Be it the caregiver is qualified or not, their white jacket remains a visa to the paradise of healing. Victims can be counted by the dozens, even thousands, yet health authorities remain powerless against a system that is corrupting the industry. Deliberate silence? A lax attitude? Complicity? Or maybe, quite simply, a combination of all three factors. By Reece Hermine Adanwenoncoat, Thursday 18 August 2010. The clock strikes 9 o‘clock in the morning. Dressed in his white coat, Mr Eustache Savi bustles about. On the old bench positioned at the entrance to his medical practice, there are already 7 people waiting: 2 men, 4 women and a child. In his fifties, Eustache Savi goes out and invites the first comer to come inside for their consultation. The medical office is situated in a dilapidated building in the Casse-Auto neighbourhood not far from the Red Star Square in Cotonou and only has one room. A grimy curtain separates the office from the consultation room that also serves as the treatment room. Occupying the benches, each patient awaits their turn. Each and every one of them will leave with one or more teeth having been pulled out. One of the patients tells us: ―he took out two of my teeth for FCFA 6000‖. Another who was accompanying her husband tells us that she has also previously come to have a tooth removed for FCFA 3000. The young girl who is already whimpering has three teeth pulled out. In the treatment room, there is a rusty sink that is already out of use. For the occasion, our dentist is equipped with bloodied instruments with which he examines his patients. There are no protective measures or steps taken to disinfect the instruments to ensure a minimum of hygiene. The surgical operation at the infamous dentist only lasts approximately 10 minutes, 10 minutes during which no anaesthetic is used. Thus, in less than an hour, the dentist will have pulled several teeth from four patients, one of which is a 5-year old little girl. A staggering spectacle. Pretending to be a patient, I myself almost had a tooth pulled out in the conditions described above. ―The most beautiful woman in the world can only give that which she already has‖, commented doctor E.S. when I refused to undergo his operation. ―I will come back soon because today I am in too much pain‖, I claimed. Fearing that I would ask him to refund me the three thousand CFA francs (3000) representing the consultation and operation fee, he flew off into a blue rage. Of the patients present that day, one fell into a coma two days later. As soon as I heard, I went to Saint-Luc Hospital where the patient had just been admitted. When questioned, Doctor Elire Nougbodoto, who had admitted the patient, confirmed to us that she had undergone an operation that could have cost her her life. ―But thank God, we were able to save her. She is in intensive care and her parents will be able to see her in a few hours‘ time‖, he said. According to Doctor Casimir Echikou, president of the Benin Order of Dentists, this man who passes himself off as a dentist was nothing other than a simple assistant in a dental surgery. ―We have called him to order several times now, but with no effect. It makes one believe that he must have somebody covering for him at the Department of Health‖, he explained. Another lady, ―Mother Samuel‖, told us her story. ―I am one of the many victims of this informal dentist. In fact, I went to consult him for treatment when I was suffering from toothache. But against all expectations, he decided to pull out the painful tooth right then and there‖, she says. Following this operation, ―Mother Samuel‖ assures us that she almost died because a few hours after the operation, her head was swollen and she was in unbearable pain. ―It was thanks to indigenous treatment that I was able to recover‖. Silence or complicity from the authorities? This had to be seen to be believed. As soon as our investigation was finished, we contacted Mr Eustache Savi in order to find out the reasons that drive him to operate as a dentist. ―Who are you? I will make life difficult for you if you continue. My surgery is not illegal and I have all my papers in order‖, he declared over the telephone. A few hours after that phone call came another one, and then yet another one. ―Are you the journalist who wants to publish an investigation on my brother? It is better that you don‘t if you value your job and your life. I am also going to call your superiors immediately‖, I was told by the voice of a man on the other side of the line. This anonymous phone sounded the death knell for my investigation. On the very evening that I was preparing to publish my article, I was invited to postpone its publication. Let it not be said that might is always right. Eustache Ravi has long arms that squeezed with all their power in order to prevent this travesty from ever seeing the light of day. Like him, there are many who pass themselves off as health agents and with the complicity of senior governmental officials. From our investigations, it was revealed that Mr Eustache Savi is the brother of a director within the Department of Health. It was thanks to the latter that he had obtained his papers in order to open his surgery. And thus, without being trained as a dentist, he is operating openly and with everybody‘s knowledge. As with ―Savi‘s Surgery‖, there are many such so-called ―dentists‖ who operate illegally. And yet, this anarchist proliferation of health centres and surgeries has heavy consequences on the lives of people, even leading to the loss of human life. There is a vast multitude of cases and the victims can be counted in the thousands. The head of the baby is ripped off, leaving the body in the mother‘s stomach. A woman is left to fall 73
from the birthing table while giving birth. A glucose serum is administered to a diabetic patient. Are we still maintaining that these are medical errors? No, these are heinous actions by vile individuals in the quest for easy gains who, in order to reach their goals, pass themselves off as something that they are not. They have prostituted the noble profession of health agents. But what do our authorities have to say about this problem? Nothing. ―For some, it is a problem that will never be resolved in our country; for others it is that the authorities are afraid to commit to a combat that has already been lost in advance. ―Who do you want them to blame? These authorities also have medical practices. Who will they go to and demand that they be shut down? They don‘t dare do anything‖, declares Ephrem, the brother of a victim hospitalised at Saint-Luc Hospital. Even the Minister of Health can receive an injunction from the palace of the presidency prohibiting him from closing such or such a medical practice or medical centre. ―A medical practice had been opened illegally and I ordered it shut down but a few days later, the so-called health agent in charge re-opened his doors‖, confided a former Minister of Health who asked to remain anonymous. According to her, it would be difficult to resolve this problem while the question of the recruitment of the new trainees and the resetting of the conditions of opening medical practices have not been resolved. ―They are silent because they do not have any solutions. I remember that many medical practices were closed down but the authorities were quick to abandon the fight because, rest assured, the owners of these practices are usually the major university hospitals. As they are often very busy, they recruit other people who are sometimes ill qualified to run these practices‖, confides another former Minister of Health whose name is being withheld. More than simple complicity, it‘s a partnership between unlawfulness and irresponsibility that easily justifies the silence that is being observed in the face of this worrying phenomenon. When will this uncontrolled commodification of health in Benin end? Currently, Mr Eustache Savi, like many others, continues to take the lives of his clients. Some, as we like to say in Africa, will claim that it is a matter of witchcraft, and others will invoke God who has given and who has taken. To each one his own. The facts are clear A study carried out in Benin in 2005 revealed that 13 cases were identified in the Cotonou trial court as having links to infractions that were more or less due to medical and paramedical faults. Of the 13 cases listed, a health agent was charged not for having carried out an abortion but for having administered an anti-tetanus serum to a patient. In another ruling, a miller was accused of passing himself off as a surgeon. He mistook a hernia for an abscess and cut it. As a consequence, the small intestine of the victim came out of its cavity and this resulted in death. At the Porto-Novo court, 3 cases were listed. The first related to the use of forged, falsified documents for the illegal and clandestine practice of medicine. However, numerous legal texts exist to regulate the opening of health centres or health practices. What is done with these legal instruments? When will these practices that take the lives of the valiant boys and girls of this nation end? A 4-year old handicapped for life Jocelyn, 4 years old, will be handicapped for the rest of his life. His right foot was amputated because it had a “scratch”, a wound that was not healing very well. The doctor in question, an administrative assistant, chose to cut this child‟s foot rather than administer adequate medical care. From now on, he will only be able to walk with a crutch and he will no longer be able to play soccer at school with his friends. This is the sad fate of Jocelyn, a young Beninese boy. Having had his foot amputated in deplorable and disastrous circumstances, this young boy has lost a part of himself. ―My son was born with all his limbs but now he is now handicapped. This so-called doctor is going to pay very heavily for this. I will not rest until I have settled the score with him‖. These are the words of Kodjo, the victim‘s uncle, who is very saddened by the news. He had just learned of the sad news on the morning of 22 August. His nephew, who had been dragging his foot around with an infected scratch for weeks, had been receiving medical attention in a neighbourhood medical practice. From our investigations, it has emerged that it was a medical-surgical centre that was opened in Adjarra, in the department of Ouémé, by an administrative agent. This was done under the guise of a Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO) that is managed by a medical student. The said medical- surgical centre specialised in surgical operations and caesarean section deliveries. The last operation carried out in this now derelict centre was the amputation of the foot of a 4-year old child, who had been treated in the Departmental Hospital Centre of Ouémé-Plateau and whose parents had been referred to this centre. The said centre is made up of a room (which can be described as a roofless operating block) that leads directly to the court way of the Clinic. There is an old operating table. The so-called operating block has no operating light, ventilator or steriliser, let alone running water. It surpasses all understanding that this structure was run by health professionals, both active and retired. The instigator, an administrative agent who was questioned, quickly revealed the names of the health agents who work there.
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The Minister of Health, Professor Dorothée Kindé Gazard, gives an ultimatum to all managers of illegal medical practices and centres in Benin. Informed of the amputation of the foot of a 4-year old child, the Minister of Health has not remained indifferent. Through a press conference, she has sounded the alarm and invited other illegal practices to conform to the existing legislation. Referring to the facts, Dorothée Kindé Gazard affirmed that the regulatory texts governing the health sector have been violated. In this regard, numerous actions have been undertaken to discourage these practices. Thus, the penal system has allowed the arrest of the instigators and those presumed to be accomplices were brought before the State Prosecutor on 11 September. Finally, the Minister of Health invited all promoters of illegal health centres established throughout the entire country to regularise, in the shortest time possible, their administrative situation vis-à-vis the relevant regulations.
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Selay Marius Kouassi, published on 09 May 2011
GOLD: A CURSED MINERAL! It is estimated that there are today millions of people the world over who wear gold jewellery valued at thousands of dollars. But what is the price paid by the people who live on the areas where this gold is mined and who produce it? What is the price paid by local residents in Bonikro, in the south-west of Côte d’Ivoire, where the recent discovery of gold deposits has attracted mining companies? 09 May 2011 Selay Marius Kouassi The town of Bonikro lies in the administrative region of Hiré. Since their arrival in 2007 for the ―Bonikro gold mining project‖, powerful Australian mining companies have opened Pandora‘s Box and local populations now consider gold to be ―a cursed mineral‖! The destruction of cacao and coffee plantations (the only source of income for locals); floods; endless land disputes; the poisoning of natural watercourses due to mining waste and the cyanide used to extract gold; serious epidemic diseases…everything has happened in quick succession, with the complicity of the authorities who are deaf to the demands of local residents. In the local press, the “Bonikro case” was headline news only for a few days and after that, nothing. A total information blackout! While contemplating the idea of going to the mining site in Bonikro with the view of establishing the reality on the ground, I wondered about the reasons for the press‘s sudden disinterest in the ―Bonikro case‖. Was it too risky to an issue to speak about or had the problems that were raised been resolved? In the public transport vehicle that took me to the town of Hiré, approximately 7 kilometres from the main gold mine in Bonikro, the conversation of two ladies in particular drew my attention. One of them was accusing the mine and the dust released by the carved rock of being the cause of her rash. The asphalt road linking the town of Divo to Hiré, the last stop before the Bonikro site, is in a very advanced state of dilapidation. The landscape with its many hills flies speedily past my eyes. We soon arrive at Hiré. My guide is waiting for me. He is Thomas (not his real name), a Bonikro mineworker who is on leave. We exchange warm greetings and the usual courtesies. Thomas gets straight to the point. ―Here, whoever publicly shows his opposition to the mining project is in danger!‖ says Thomas. ―He risks being accused of violence and terrorism and he also risks being arrested”, he explains. Thomas recalls a 2009 uprising by local residents who were exasperated by seeing their land occupied by Newcrest, the mining company that runs the Bonikro site. And on 8 April of the same year, healthy young men from the local population led an operation of active sabotage against the mining installations as they were tired of trying to be heard through peaceful means. They were pummelled and arrested by law enforcement agents. The press barely gave any attention to the story and mining works continue, along with their effects of human and ecological destruction. Inflation and the forsaking of farming At the bus station, I have a brief, friendly chat with a shopkeeper who informs me that the price of staple foods is on the rise. Since the discovery of gold in 2006 and the start of mining operations in 2009, Hiré has not been the same town! Not just anybody can afford to live there anymore. Gold panning has significantly transformed the economic habits of the people of Hiré. In the farming sector, farmers and market gardeners have abandoned their fields for traditional gold panning sites and the Bonikro mine. The forsaking of farming activities, mainly the cultivation of food, has led to a decrease in production and, inevitably, unprecedented inflation levels. At the Hiré market, a trader tells me the prices of the staple products that she sells. ―A kilogram of local rice is FCFA 350. A bunch of bananas costs FCFA 1000 and a 100kg bag of dried maize is FCFA 15 000”. Just a year ago, a kilogram of local rice was FCFA 175, a bunch of bananas between FCFA 350 and FCFA 500, and a bag of dried maize cost between FCFA 4000 and FCFA 4500. ―These prices won‟t drop but will continue to climb, it has been like that since the mine was opened!” remarks Thomas. I leave my luggage at ―Sandrofia‖ hotel where a ―Full‖ sign is on display. Luckily, Thomas had booked my room a bit earlier. In only a few months, the price of a room has increased from FCFA 7000 to FCFA 20 000, and the hotel is never short of customers. Land occupation and destruction of residents’ plantations The 7km laterite road that links the town of Hiré to the Bonikro mine is bumpy and uneven. It leads to immense open-air structures containing a lot of mining equipment such as heavy duty loaders, electric shovels, drills and large trucks. There are immense workshops and imposing warehouses with a system of loading trains. Trucks are to-ing and fro-ing between the mine and the crusher to shed their load. Bonikro mine covers a surface area of 37,5km² and has a gold production capacity of 4 tons per year. It was first tentatively run by Equigold CI, a company that merged on 11 July 2008 with the Australian company LGL to 76
form LGL Equigold. On 3 May 2007, this new joint-venture signed an Operating Agreement with the state of Côte d‘Ivoire only to then give its operating licence to Newscrest, another Australian company and a heavyweight in the global mining industry. The implementation of the Bonikro gold project has had and continues to have a considerable impact on farming in what is essentially a rural area where economic activities are based on farming and where 97.4% of villagers are farmers. The debate around the effect that the treatment of gold by cyanide chemical extraction has had on the soil and on the water continues to pit local residents, expatriate miners and local authorities against each other. Article 22 of law N°96-766 of 3 October 1669 on the Environmental Code grants local authorities the right to refuse all construction permits if the buildings are of a nature that will harm the surrounding environment. It is in violation of this law that the government granted LGL Equigold its mining license. The environmental impact study carried out ahead of the Bonikro gold project and published in December 2007 by the Francophone Institute for Energy and the Environment (l‟Institut de l‟Energie et de l‟Environnement de la Francophonie, IEFF) particularly emphasises the potential damage that could be caused by cyanide chemical extraction. It is described as ―a highly toxic chemical product‖ and suggests that ―appropriate measures be taken to regulate it usage so that it does not negatively affect and put the lives of local residents in danger”. Moreover, the study reveals that the probability of the accidental disposal of mining waste is to be feared in the event of a pierced or burst pipe, a pump leak, or even the overflowing of a percolation vat. ―Mining waste containing cyanide could have a negative impact on the aquatic ecosystem downstream from the project area”. Why then did the government choose to ignore the relevant information contained in this study and rather hasten to authorise gold mining at Bonikro? The question begs the answer. Substantial financial stakes must have motivated the authorities to deliver this precious document that allowed the extraction of gold to proceed. According to law N°95-553 of 17 July 1995 on the Mining Code, the Ivoirian State holds the right to the project and is thus entitled to 10% of dividends from the said project. The relatively high tax rate must also be considered. The State will receive no less than FCFA 1.5 billion in taxes and this over a period of at least 7 years. That is undoubtedly a windfall that is not to be missed but what does this sum represent for the wellbeing of local residents? Not much! An incongruous development and relocation plan The IEFF study laments the fact that the Ministry for the Environment granted the Environmental Approval Decree without first analysing the proposed displacement and relocation plan for local residents. It was against their wishes that local residents of Bonikro, Bandamankro and Petit Bassam were removed from the area that is now a gold extraction site, towards a new area situated four kilometres from there. Narrow houses that are nevertheless described as ―modern‖, with ochre-red walls and running water, were built there to house them. Very few residents drink this water that they presume to be contaminated by the cyanide that is used nearby to extract gold. ―There is a very strong chance that the groundwater where this water is drawn from is contaminated by the cyanide that penetrates into the soil‖, explains Fabrice Django, a resident of the new village. ―Look at the colour of this water and the dirt that has settled at the bottom, but it comes from the tap!‖ He points to a container which he had filled with tap water hardly 30 minutes earlier. ―On top of that, it doesn‟t even taste good‖, he adds. At Hiré clinic, a nurse who has asked to remain anonymous remains cautious. ―There has been a sudden spate of illnesses that have never been seen here before, but given the lack of thorough scientific studies, we cannot confirm that this is due to the fact that the water that local residents use is contaminated with the cyanide used to extract gold […]”. Compensatory measures: all smoke and mirrors We asked Venance Kouadio, a farmer, whether he was satisfied with the financial compensation that he received when his cacao plantation was destroyed. Lying on his hammock and gazing off into the distance, he simply replies: ―‖It‘s all been a big rip off!‖ Venance says that the mining of the quarry still haunts him, as does the dynamite that is used to break up the rocks and that has ended up by causing cracks in the new houses that were built for relocated residents. ―I was compensated, and well within my expectations, but did I have the option to refuse? Was there another way out? No! I accepted FCFA 6 million in spite of myself. What are six million francs worth compared to a plantation? A plantation lasts a lifetime and you can bequeath it to your children”, he laments. Michel Mian, PDG of LGL Equigold, has told the press that the company he directs is committed to the development of sustainable projects for the benefit of the people of Bonikro and Hiré and that each year he spends FCFA forty million on each village that was removed from its original site or whose residents have suffered the negative impacts of gold mining. This rhetoric is in stark contrast to the reality on the ground: it is difficult to verify this alleged investment of forty million francs: the promised modern high school has yet to be built and the promised hospital equipped with technical support will never see the light of day. 77
Contrary to initial promises, no high school has been built; instead, one lone building was erected on the grounds of Hiré‘s high school. The staff at the main hospital in Hiré can only rejoice about having had the walls of their workplace repainted along with the replenishing of some medical stock. As for employment, the youth are still waiting. In the beginning, 225 jobs were promised as reserved for young people from Bonikro. In the end, just less than 80 of them were recruited as mine workers. The vast majority of them have been left to loiter in the wait for unlikely employment at the mine. Komenan Gustave, one of Hiré‘s traditional leaders, expresses his displeasure. ―The mining company is hiring from elsewhere while local people who sold them their lands at a reduced price are getting poorer and poorer… I curse the day that gold was discovered here! And I curse the gold itself!” Koffi N‘Dri is president of the National Committee for Transparency in the Extractive Industry, the organ charged with ensuring that the interests of riverside residents are respected. Ironically, he claims to be satisfied by the commitments of the mining company that runs Bonikro mine. Which commitments is he referring to? Another question that begs the answer. A lethal situation The opening of a mine that was supposed to contribute to resolving the problem of increasing poverty in the region has instead turned into a solution that is as lethal as the malady that it is meant to be healing. Since then, violent land conflicts have started to erupt between natives and non-natives but these are played down. The rate of young children dropping out of school is on the rise; young children of school-going age prefer traditional gold extraction sites rather than going to school. Over and beyond mere discontent, poverty and the disaster created in the farming sector by the Bonikro gold mine, the most frightening prospect is of a time-delayed ecological bomb!
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Hunchbacks: hunted daily, to the grave
(Human Rights activists lobbied)
By Sylvestre Sossou On 04 April 2011, the Beninese public was greeted by the following headline: ―A hunchback found without his hump and heart‖. The crime was committed in the town of Gogounou to the north of Benin. The farmer was found dead in his field after he had gone to work, without his hump or his heart. Less than two months later, another murder was recorded but this time in Ouidah, to the south of Benin, where the victim had been hacked to pieces. The various Beninese television channels took turns to relay the gruesome information by showing shocking images of recently butchered human organs that had been unearthed during the police intervention. The victim was a young man in his thirties who had the misfortune of believing a friend who had been calling every night offering him money. Before leaving his house, the victim took care to inform the household of his destination. Even though it unfortunately did not lead to him avoiding his murder, it was precisely because of this precaution that his predators‘ trail was quickly uncovered. The three assassins, all of them in their thirties, admitted that they strangled and beat him to death. After that, they cut off the hump in question and then buried the rest of his body in a room belonging to one of them. They claimed to have had an appointment with a man who would come from Nigeria and who had promised them the sum of FCFA 100 million, or two thousand dollars. The security forces caught the assassins at the crime scene before the arrival of the buyer. Ironically, the police sources we approached confirmed that the victim was not really a hunchback. He was a handicapped person with a malformation on his back. After having kept his back bent over the years, this malformation came to be identified as a hunch, which information was revealed by the parents and confirmed by the autopsy carried out on the dismembered corpse. A West African network We have learned from sources that are close to certain parents of victims that the hump is something that certain individuals are looking for, individuals who often come from Nigeria or Ghana. An assistant at a morgue in Cotonou told us that people often come to him asking him to give them the hump from any cadaver that is brought to the morgue. ―I often reply by telling them that people don‘t bring hunchbacks to the morgue‖. This is what certain parents of hunchbacks have confirmed. ―These men often come during planting or harvest time‖, says Mr Victor Fagbohoun, president of the EPDI NGO, an organisation based in the Plateau region in the south of Benin and which began by doing serious groundwork. The current head of the Kétou police department (a community from the Plateau) attests to not having registered any cases involving the murder of hunchbacks in his area. The area, however, is renowned as being favoured by these vile individuals who mostly come from Nigeria. A teacher from Kétou tells us of one of the strategies often used by these ―human traders‖. ―Seeing as it is rare for them to easily find accomplices, they go to villages that farm extensively and pretend that they are looking to buy fields that have already been sowed, as per our tradition. When they have convinced you by buying the said field, their regular appearance in the village becomes acceptable. They take advantage of this to ―scavenge‖ through the village where, if they don‘t directly coming across a hunchback, they start to befriend an unemployed person who will easily succumb to this type of market‖, Pierre Adéléké tells us. He then adds that it has taken many years for people to understand this strategy and they are now on the alert as soon as they have a hunchback or a handicapped person in their village. Two hunchbacks missing for years In the village of Kétou, it has been reported that families have lost close relatives who are hunchbacked. The latest one to disappear was a man from the Mouléro family in the village of Igbon-Iloukan. To this day, their son is still missing. According to sources close to the family, the victim was in his forties and already a father. His infirmity had always concerned his parents, obliging them to take every precaution where he was concerned to the extent that he was never left alone in the house. His parents were aware that the least inattention while they were farming could lead to the disappearance of their son as there is permanent danger for hunchbacks, which is why they built a hut in the middle of the bush and installed a roof in which they could hide him. Unfortunately, this was without taking into consideration the skill of these vile individuals who, according to certain sources, were helped by people close to the family. He was kidnapped about two months ago. There is a similar case in the valley region to the south of Benin. His name is Djoï Houéssignakou and he lived in Banigbé Lokossa. A repairman, he has been missing for approximately 5 years, according to his brothers. For the majority of his friends and relatives, Djoï was kidnapped by individuals who were frequenting the area of Sèmè-kraké, a town on the border with Nigeria. This suspicion is justified by the fact that the victim used to frequent this area in his line of work. ―We wanted to confirm his disappearance and looked for him for more than two months without finding him before we went back home. Two days later he was gone and he has now been missing for 5 years‖, says one of his brothers. Hunchbacks targeted even after death 79
Mr Paul Aniambossou tells us of the desecration of his hunchbacked father‘s grave at the cemetery two days after his burial. The perpetrators were not able to commit their crime before the damage was noticed. ―We were obliged to exhume him from the cemetery and rebury him but this time in his bedroom‖. He emphasises that, for the reburial, they were advised to dig a very deep grave, which they did. The coffin containing the body was then lowered to the bottom of the grave before being punctured and covered with a mixture of red earth stones. This grave was then covered by three levels of concrete and finished off with a strong layer of paving. This measure allowed him to definitively secure the remains of his father who was a target his entire life due to his hump and who was hunted even as a cadaver, complains this son. The morgue assistant whom we met maintains that he has not registered the delivery of a hunchbacked corpse in the 6 years that he has been doing this work. However, he says that one of his predecessors was fired after having tried to ―sell‖ the hump from a corpse that had been brought to this morgue, which implies that such practices are probably taking place in morgues where hunchbacked corpses are unwisely brought in. Revelations by specialists and testimony from hunchbacks Are these humps really a source of wealth and power? We tried, in vain, to get certain people to talk to us whose occult practices give the impression that they could be immersed in these realities and who are capable of giving explanations. I.E. is an established healer in the village of Massè in the south of Benin (Plateau). He confesses to never having used any human organs in his practices. He does, however, confirm having received a hunchback as a patient after he had been thrown out on the street after his memory had been affected. He says he could have helped him regain his memory after intense treatment. Following the revelations of the oracle, the hunchback knew that he had been kidnapped from his village of Ifangni and was driven to a town on the border to the east between Benin and Nigeria. The perpetrators checked that he was a real hunchback and his life was spared when it turned out that he wasn‘t. Another witchdoctor agrees that specialists in this human matter often have a magic stick that they tap the hump of their prey with at certain times. If the hump is the real deal that they are looking for, it normally rings out. According to him, false humps do not ring out. Without really revealing the reasons for this practice specifically on hunchbacks, he nonetheless agrees that this would be for reasons of wealth or power. Régis A. is a hunchback with a master‘s degree in geography. He admits to having had a difficult childhood: ―I never went out alone and my parents always told me to pay attention and be careful everywhere I went‖, he recalls. ―When I went to university, my mother rented a room close to campus and I was not allowed to walk alone after 7pm. It has been like that until now. Moreover, I was not allowed to travel right up to the border with Nigeria. It seems that most kidnappers come from Nigeria. My wish is for the State to do something to protect us‖. Régis also recalls the insults he was subjected to by his neighbours. He remembers that his mother‘s first contract was cancelled by the landlord as soon as he appeared in the house: ―I don‘t want to be a witness or a person of interest following the murder of a hunchback‖, he remembers the landlord as having said. Actions to eradicate the scourge Today, the kidnapping of hunchbacks is a reality that is becoming more and more prevalent. Two different kinds of cases are often recorded: cases where hunchbacks are killed on the spot and cases where they are kidnapped indefinitely. For Mr Romuald Djivoessoun, president of the NGO Autre Vie, these disappearances have become very frequent and something has be to be done to eradicate this phenomenon that is becoming more prevalent, as with that of albinos in certain regions of Africa. ―I am in the process of reflecting on this and, very soon, we will have mass actions. Human Rights activists whom we have met locally have promised to do all they can with regard to the passing of laws and with regard to lobbying international conventions in order to grant increased protection to hunchbacks in Benin and in other African countries.
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Child sexual abuse: SILENCE WHILE CHILDREN ARE MOLESTED IN FULL IMPUNITY Updated on Monday, 28 February 2011 13:38 on the website www.fratmat.info in Abidjan, Côte d‟Ivoire By Théodore Kouadio Monday, 7 March 2011 11H00 The silent scourge of child sexual abuse is a reality that is becoming prevalent in Côte d‟Ivoire. The situation does not seem to be a priority for public authorities and is exacerbated by the military-political crisis that has rocked the country for some years now. ―It was the 10th of October 1992. My guardian, a deputy police officer, sneaked into my room at night. He brutalised me violently, tearing my underwear to pieces and raping me‖, says Cynthia K. Over thirty years of age, Cynthia is today a sales executive in a local company. 19 years later, she recalls the atrocious pain she felt that day as clearly as if it were yesterday. She was 15 years old at the time and ―had never had sexual relations before‖. Cynthia explains that, as a student at Grand Bassam High School, she had been taken in by a distant cousin of her widow mother as the latter had been looking after her alone.
―My guardian threatened to throw me out of his house and thus separate me from my aunt if I talked about this situation. Since I did not want to create problems for anybody and seeing as I did not know where I would go, I said nothing‖, says Cynthia with lumps in her throat. Nonetheless, when she went home to Toumodi for the big school holiday of 1992, she told her mother about the rape that she been a victim of. The latter asked her to keep quiet about it. When she returned to school the following year after having won a State bursary, she was able to settled down to life in a boarding school for young girls without too much difficulty. Another unfortunate victim recalls her unbelievable experience. Her eyes filling with tears, Angeline Kouamé tells of the ordeal that she lived through in her own mother‘s house more than 10 years ago. Her stepfather, her mother‘s husband, raped her every time her mother was away from the house. This situation went on for years until Angeline, who had just turned 13 years old and was of a stout build, decided to tell her mother. But she was in for a nasty shock!
Instead of the outrage that she was entitled to expect from her mother, or at the very least maternal compassion, it was rather her mother‘s wrath that she got to face. The adolescent was beaten to a pulp by her mother and accused of wanting to break up the latter‘s home. As for the rapist husband, he denied the facts and, together with his wife, decided to no longer live with the young Angeline under their roof. Worse, the head of the family decided to stop paying for the young girl‘s education. Having never been acknowledged by her birth father, the young girl could only take refuge in the home of her mother‘s cousin, the only person to understand the young girl and to support her when the family at large was informed of the situation. Like Cynthia and Angeline, there are many young Ivoirian girls who have been victims of child sexual abuse in an almost guilty silence. This situation is aggravated by the military-political crisis that has gripped Côte d‘Ivoire for close to 10 years. In fact, according to the estimations of the World Health Organisation (WHO) recently published in an Ocha/Irin document entitled ―Bruised bodies, broken dreams: an update on violence against women‖ which takes into account the situation in Côte d‘Ivoire, approximately 25% of girls and 8% of boys are subjected to some form of sexual abuse. ―Children between the ages of 7 and 13 years are the most vulnerable to sexual violence‖, insists Dr Herman Kassi, a paediatrician. The doctor says that he has had to monitor children who have been victims of sexual abuse. Dr Kassi reveals that when children are sexually molested, their genitals are penetrated by the rapist‘s sexual organ, a finger or an object. Mrs Aline Zadi confirms these obscene practices. She tells how her 6-year old daughter was sexually molested by a neighbour who was over forty years of age. ―My neighbour would watch my daughter each time I went shopping. He took advantage of these occasions to sexually molest her. She would complain constantly of having a sore tummy. I also observed that her way of walking had also changed, she would walk with her legs kept wide apart‖, she says. A visit to the paediatrician showed a large tear in the young girl‘s genitals. In reaction to this attack on her daughter, Mrs Zadi pressed charges against her neighbour who, in addition, is from the same ethnic group as herself. However, following pressure and intervention by influential community members and from her own parents, Mrs Zadi was forced to retract her charge and settle for an amicable resolution of the matter rather than risk antagonising her entire community. Dr Daniel Kouadio, another paediatrician, explains in detail the cynicism of these rapists. ―In order to have access to the genitals of an infant, the rapist has to first create a canal linking the baby‘s genitals to the perianal rectum by forcibly inserting an object. This form of rape immediately exposes the infant to the risk of death following a haemorrhage or an abdominal infection, even when treated‖. 81
Mrs Henriette Blawa tells how her 7 year old boy was lucky. Her neighbour, a young worker who had never been seen in the neighbourhood in gallant company, would force her young one to watch pornographic films. During this time, she says, the molester would show his genitals to the young boy. This carried on until the latter told his mother about it. ―I didn‘t take what my son was saying serious. For me, he just had an overactive imagination, until came the day I caught my neighbour in the act of showing his private parts to my son‖, says this mother. Silence about sexual abuse Lieutenant Oulaye from the vice squad explains that, in many cases, sexual aggressors are people who are close to or who live in the immediate vicinity of the victims. ―Most of the time they are fathers, stepfathers, grandfathers, uncles, brothers, stepbrothers, cousins, neighbours or even friends of the family‖, he stresses, adding that ―it could also be influential people within the community who are abusing the power they have (teachers, religious dignitaries or doctors). In fact, aggressors are sometimes older children or young people: boyfriends, classmates or other people who are known and familiar‖, indicates the Ocha/Irin document entitled ―Bruised bodies, broken dreams: an update on the violence against women‖ on the subject. According to the co-ordinator of the International Rescue Committee (IRC) on sexual violence in Côte d‘Ivoire, Mrs Bakayoko-Topolska, the pressure exerted by the family of the victim as well as by the molester in favour of an amicable arrangement outside the parameters of the legal system are one of the many factors that generally discourage victims and their parents from pressing charges. In fact, according to human rights activists, many Ivoirians do not consider rape to be a serious crime. For them, it‘s just ―a sexual thing‖. They do not understand how someone can be brought before the law or jailed for having raped a girl when the problem can be resolved amicably. Alleged molesters are generally released after only spending a short period of time in detention. Victims of sexual abuse, however, are marked psychologically by this situation for the rest of their lives. According to psychiatrist Professor Amani N‘goran, victims of sexual abuse can develop post-traumatic stress syndrome as well as a propensity for suicide if they are not treated psychologically. Over and above the psychological effects, certain victims also experience physical problems. According to experts, girls who have suffered sexual abuse in their childhood are more likely to adopt risky sexual behaviour, thus exposing themselves, in the long term, to sexually transmitted diseases, etc. ―These girls can be sexually dysfunctional once they become adults‖, explains gynaecologist Dr. Arsène Kouamé, adding that some of them will not be able to bear children. The phenomenon of unmasked rape has also become widespread throughout the country with the military- political crisis that Côte d‘Ivoire has been in the grip of since 2002. In any case, it is the greater western part of the country that is affected by this deplorable situation.
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IN THE IMPLEMENTATION OF THE EDUCATION OF GIRLS IN BENIN
AP Virgil Houessou
The reluctant motherhood of schoolgirls
Harassed by adults, many underage female students are victims of unwanted pregnancies. They become mothers against their will and they are married off at a young age, jeopardising their education. All of this is done in laxity and impunity. The universal education of all school-age children, especially girls, is doomed. Investigation.
A. P. Virgil Houessou
In Péninsoulou, a town in the administrative region of Bassila situated 400 km to the northwest of Cotonou, fifteen underage students have all been impregnated by adults. Alassane Orou Karim, a correspondent for Radio Parakou, has become a target after having dared to denounce the adults who are behind these schoolyard pregnancies. He has been threatened by enemies promising to burn his house down. He fears for his life and the safety of his family. ―Adult males who are responsible for these pregnancies are abusing the innocence of young girls and their lack of sexual education", laments Frank, a local teacher. In Benin, it is a common occurrence for all manner of threats to follow when schoolgirls and underage students fall pregnant. Mrs Dagba, principal of the schooling complex in the suburbs of Cotonou, points out Geneviève (1), a 14-year old schoolgirl in Grade 5. "This one is already the mother of a 1-year old child. She was 12 years old when she was impregnated by a man who was 18 years her senior‖, she says. It is often adults who impregnate students or underage pupils. School legislation recommends they be punished and that such punishment can even take the form of imprisonment. The objective is for the girl not to be the only one to suffer the consequences of her pregnancy, in as far as it being the reason for her dropping out of school. Often, however, nothing happens. Mrs Dagba is opposed to any and all initiative for such punishment. "When the schools‘ inspector wanted to bring to justice the perpetrators in accordance with the laws on the repression of sexual harassment, the protection of victims, and penalties for perpetrators of sexual violence in schools and public or private institutions, I was against it", she says. She prefers to be insubordinate to the inspector, head of the school district, rather than becoming the victim of occult practices. "It is frightening in this area. I want to live with my children instead of dying because I put someone in jail just by following the law‖, she justifies herself. In exchange, during the pregnancy and after the birth of the baby, she acts as a mediator between the family, the perpetrator, the pregnant schoolgirl and the schools‘ inspector.
For her part, Geneviève will cover the costs of her pregnancy alone. She is longer allowed to attend school. Contrary to school legislation, the head of the school district demanded she be expelled from school in the middle of the school year. Usually, girls are not excluded from school if they fall pregnant, as was the case during the revolutionary period. In reality, if the girl who falls pregnant does not feel ashamed, she can continue attending school until she delivers. The goal is to keep these girls inside the school system. But the inspector 83
argues that her presence will serve as a bad example for other girls. However, pregnancy is no longer a taboo in primary schools. During the 2010-2011 school year, Bénédicte (2) was another underage pupil to fall pregnant. Noticing that she was starting to attract all kinds of attention, her parents decided that she must have an abortion. She, however, is not in any way humiliated by that fact. "When people look at her on the streets, she does not hesitate to tell them that she has already aborted‖, says a mystified hairdresser who has witnessed such an incident while watching her walk home from school. For fear of a fatal outcome for their daughter, Genevieve's parents decided against an abortion. An intelligent pupil who is very keen to answer questions in class, she lost two years at home before returning to school. "I had to convince her parents to allow her to return to school. She is currently the best in the class and I'm sure she will get her matriculation certificate‖, says the principal. Like Genevieve, some girls are able to resume classes with the help of mediators recruited by NGOs. However, the majority of underage children or schoolgirls who are victims of unwanted pregnancies permanently leave school.
THE TRUTH ABOUT THE STATISTICS AND THE RESPONSIBILITIES OF ROLE PLAYERS
"As they grow up and reach puberty, the number of girls attending school decreases due to unwanted pregnancies and forced marriages," says a parent from the town of Sinendé, 600 km to the north of Cotonou. An October 2003 survey conducted throughout Benin by the National Institute of Statistics and Economic Analysis (NISEA) showed that 2.5% of primary school girls interrupt their education due to pregnancy. When compared to the age that is often reported as that of girls enrolled in their first year of school, it is a significant figure. This explains the observed decrease in the number of girls from Grade 5 onwards. In 2003, the dropout rate in Grade 5 peaked at 57% to 58% in an environment where the right to education was already affected by gender-based disparities. According to the government's own statistics, the education gap between girls and boys remains wide and is often extremely so in some areas. At the beginning of the 2006-2007 school year, figures from the Department of Pre-Primary and Primary Education indicated that the gross enrolment rate for girls was 92.17%. Only 30.20% of these girls managed to complete primary school, according to ―International Plan‖ in a report entitled'' Because I am a girl'' that evaluated the situation of girls worldwide in 2010. In 2003, out of a total of 1.175 million girls aged 6 to 19 years throughout Benin, 57.53% could not read or write.
Responsibility is shared by all parties to the schooling process, with parents and teachers at the helm. The principal of a home for young girls in Parakou blames the fact that parents are not strict enough and the lack of a sexual education curriculum in schools. "From the age of 12, girls no longer sleep in their mothers‘ huts and some mothers even encourage them to go out at night with older men‖, she says. According to a report by Odile Akpaka and Aimé Gnimadi on the schooling of girls in Sinendé, considerations around education take into account the issue of the educational responsibility of the community but not seriously enough. "The minute that a girl outgrows childhood, her family immediately stops honouring their obligations with regard to her and she struggles to find herself in a society that is filled with vices‖, they say. The very teachers who are charged with rectifying the situation actually make it worse. "47% of teachers in Sinendé consider their female students as potential sexual partners‖, condemn the authors. ―Male teachers are often the first sexual partners in the lives of 84
these future women, with all the risks of sexually transmitted infections that that brings," laments the principal of the home for girls in Parakou. These teachers‘ attitude seems to be an obstacle to girls' education and their progress at school. The introduction of penalties against teachers who are perpetrators of sexual acts on students seems to be an opportunity, provided that parents work for its effective implementation. For E. Medard, a specialist in social sciences, many parents actively encourage this behaviour by teachers. "In some villages in the department of Couffo (Editor's note: 120 km northwest of Cotonou), parents give their daughters in marriage to young, unmarried teachers so that the boys in the family can benefit from the teacher‘s assistance and succeed at school," he says. It is not just adults who are responsible for causing these pregnancies. Sometimes, the guilty parties are underage male students (15 to 16 years) or adult ones. In these cases, the boy‘s education is suspended by law. This set of realities is a handicap to the implementation of Goal 2 of the Millennium Development Goals. Goal 2 states that, by 2015, universal primary education must be achieved where all boys and girls are able to complete their entire primary schooling. This implementation of universal primary education for all thus seems uncertain.
Note: (1) and (2): As they are underage, Geneviève and Bénédicte‘s names have been changed to protect their identities.
END.
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ENTRY: RESIDENTS OF ASUBOI LEFT TO THEIR FATE IN THE ABOFOUR THICK FOREST
BY: OHEMENG TAWIAH, NHYIRA FM-KUMASI, GHANA
BROADCAST ON: 20TH SEPTEMBER 2010
INTRO
The lives of more than 2,500 residents of Asuboi, a farming community in the Offinso Municipality in the Ashanti Region of Ghana are at risk of river blindness unless government and benevolent organizations intervene.
Health officials say over 70 per cent of the population is infected following the invasion of black flies in the area.
Many people especially children are plagued with all manner of skin disorders including rashes and lesions, which cause intense itching.
The inability of health workers to reach the people with medical care due to poor road network appears to be a huge impediment to addressing this precarious health situation.
Nhyira Fm‘s Ohemeng Tawiah has been investigating the plight of these poor farmers and filed this report.
REPORT
An international charity organization, Sight Savers International, estimates about 140 million people in Africa are at risk of river blindness, known medically as Onchocerciasis.
Experts say, the disease which is caused mainly by the filarial worm Onchocerca volvulus is transmitted through the bites from infected black flies.
The black flies are adaptable in fast flowing rivers in Sub-Sahara Africa.
The Asuboi Township is located in the middle of the thick Abofuor Forest, about 50 miles or 80 kilometers from Kumasi. The community is sandwiched by two fast flowing rivers, Subin and Nkyereade.
Though the Offinso Municipal Assembly has provided the community with a mechanized bore-hole, majority of residents especially those in nearby hamlets prefer to fetch water from the river. And they share the water with cattle.
They complain the sitting of the bore-hole in a steep area, about one and half kilometer from Asuboi is not ideal.
The road to Asuboi is unmemorable, with deep gullies that make it difficult for road users to ply, virtually cutting the community from the rest of the municipality.
The easiest means to reach the community is by bicycle or motorbikes which also become dangerous and nightmarish adventure in sunny or rainy weather.
Though strange rashes and signs of river blindness are common among the people they appear to have no idea about their predicament.
Ignorantly, they resort to the use of traditional methods such as warm water and locally- made balms for the treatment of the complicated medical condition.
Thirteen -year old Kwabena Albert is one of many victims who apply local therapy to cure river blindness at Asuboi. 86
He has for two years now been experiencing symptoms of the disease when a Good Samaritan adopted him.
The disease has also affected children‘s education in local schools. Though figures are readily unavailable, many children including Kwabena cannot concentrate in the classroom.
Described as a brilliant chap, the JHS 3 student devotes his attention to scratching his itching body during lessons, a situation believed to be responsible for his abysmal performance in last term‘s exams.
Kwabena told this reporter his parents always administer warm water to his body in order to give him some relieve anytime his skin itches.
‗‘My skin itches as a result of the rashes, I always have sleepless nights and I resort to scratching to ease the discomfort‘‘. My parents will also massage me with warm water to help me to sleep‘‘ he explained in a troubled mood.
Out of fear of the strange condition, many residents have been seeking solace in the Assembly member for the area for virtually non-existence support.
Assemblyman for Kwapanin Electoral area, Philip Amponsah Boakye is tired of receiving complaints because according to him, there is little he can do.
He cannot fathom why it has taken health experts so much a time to respond to the needs of the community.
Out of nothing, he directs some affected residents to the nearby health center at Abofuor, about thirty kilometers which health experts say lacks facilities to conduct any proper scientific examinations into Onchocerciasis.
‗‘There are many children, even adults who have got the rashes. You can see so many children with rashes…Even their skins are getting black. Still people are getting infested. I want to appeal to the Central government to take immediate action if not, the people here all of them can be blind and it is very risky‘‘ he confided in me.
The Municipal Health Directorate appears to have little support for Kwabena and many other residents at Asuboi.
Though tests carried out four months ago under the Rapid Epidemical Mapping for Onchocerciasis programme, established widespread prevalence, officials say there is little they could do.
Bernard Oppong, Municipal Disease Control Officer though described the community as a high transmission area, his outfit dares not to go because the road is inaccessible.
„‘Once the community is located within the thick forest, access to the community is a problem and for that matter, donors who will support us with drugs( Ivermectin ) and other logistics for this treatment wouldn‘t be able to access the community and this creating a problem here‘‘ he explained.
Meanwhile, the Municipal Chief Executive for Offinso, Collins Amponsah says his attention has been drawn to the development, and that steps are being taken to address to deal with the problem.
He says the assembly will ensure routine reshaping of roads in the municipality to create access to communities.
Under the African Programme for Onchocerciasis Control the World Health Organization estimates the sight of 800,000 people will have been saved by the end of 2010.
The people of Asuboi, however, can only hope for a miracle to save them.
End
87
"China Business"
Semlex did business without commercial registration in Mozambique
The Belgian company Semlex began producing biometric documents in Mozambique without the registration needed to operate in the country: there was no deed or provisional registration, according to certified data in our possession.
Lázaro Mabunda [email protected]
The business that the government has concluded with Semlex for the production of all biometric identification documents - ID cards, passports, visas, DIRE, among others -has been awarded directly to that company without an open tender for this purpose, ignoring the position of Attorney General of the Republic, who said that these services should not be awarded to a foreign company.
Under the agreement, signed on 8 August last year, Semlex would begin to produce the first identity cards, even if it had no legal existence in Mozambique. Data in our possession show that this company obtained provisional registration on 30 June this year, a day after it signed the deed, at the First Notary Office of Maputo – on 29 June. After 10 days, it was published in the Government Gazette, Series III, Number 27, 9 July 2010. That means that Semlex exists legally in Mozambique from 30 June this year, from the time it received such provisional registration. After 11 months it started to issue the first documents in a deal closed in early 2009, as per a contract signed by Manuel Chang, the Minister of Finance, representing the Government of Mozambique, and Albert Karaziwan, representing the Semlex Europe, SA. Company
At the time of signing the contract, in accordance with clause 39, b) of the contract in our possession, it was established that the Semlex should inform the Ministry of Finance within 60 days after signing the concession contract regarding their legal domicile in Mozambique.
BUSINESS DONE ILLEGALLY
According to legal experts contacted by our daily, for a company to perform commercial acts, it needs, at first, to register at the registry of commerce, the purpose of which is to state the quality of merchant and legal persons, which is mandatory for the constitution of societies.
The first step to obtaining a business registration is a provisional registration. According to the Legal Framework for the Establishment of Companies in Mozambique, III Edition of 29 June, 2009, a document produced by Sal & Boilers and ACIS, ―the provisional registration is only temporary. That provision exists because of a time problem. Legally, the company is required to apply for registration within 90 business days after the public deed of incorporation. For full registration, outside Maputo, the company shall provide, among other documents, a copy of its statutes published in the Business Registry. Since the publication usually takes more than 90 days, the company is legally obliged to apply for a provisional registration, until the publication has been made in the Business Registry. The proof of provisional registration, together with proof of payment of the publication in the Business Registry allows the continuation of the registration process.‖
The directory for business on the Mozambique Government portal states that ―The lack of registration of companies means that they cannot claim the status of trader in relation to third parties. (Such companies) may be called to answer for the obligations and liabilities incurred in that capacity‖. Now Semlex made a deal 88
valued at 207 million dollars annually, without having even a provisional registration, or deed, much less the commercial registration.
The directory of the Government also prescribes that "failure to enrol leads to a fine, subject to the occurrence of criminal prosecution. The fine amount will be variable, taking into account the company's capital."
(It continues) : "Foreign companies wishing to establish a branch or any kind of social representation in Mozambique can only enrol if they have a certificate issued by the competent consular officer from Mozambique, which is proof of established and legal operations, in addition to documents required as ‗national citizen‖.
The document of Sal & Caldeira and ACIS also states that the process of constitution of business is complete by issuing a certificate of commercial registration, which can take about a month. The society is then formed and finally registered for commercial purposes.
"However, it cannot start operating as a business, until it gets a license issued by the relevant ministry for the sector in which it will operate."
Time limits
• Clearance Certificate: 2 to 3 days; • Obtaining the certificate of the deed: 4 to 5 days; • Publication in the Official Gazette: 90 days; • Full Registration (Final) : 7 days. Looking at these time limits, Semlex could only have obtained full registration from 10 July this year.
Who are the owners of Semlex Mozambique, Lda?
According to the Business Registry, (the form of) which is in our possession, Semlex is a private company with limited liability, established by Ralph Razouk Hajjar, age 30, and Albert Karazawan. It has a capital of 20 000 Meticais, divided into two equal shares amounting of MT 10 000 each, representing 50% of the capital, between Ralph and Albert Karazawan. Razouk Hajjar is the first designated administrator. Semlex is to provide the computer equipment for biometric systems, such as passports, visas, identity cards, residence permits, among others, in addition to providing office supplies and the printing of confidential documents.
The steps for setting up a commercial company
PROCEDURES AND DOCUMENTATION
• Clearance Certificate:
This is a document that must be obtained from the Registrar, upon request, stating that there is no commercial company / business with the same name or a name that resembles the company that you want to register.
• Opening a Bank account:
89
A bank account must be opened at an existing financial institution on behalf of the future company. Some banks do not allow the account to be moved before the presentation of the deed (construction company).
• Statutes of the Society: The draft articles of company must be presented, referring to the following: type of commercial company, the minimum number of shareholders / partners, capital, purpose, action / quotas and corporate bodies.
• Public deed: Documents required: 1. Clearance Certificate; 2. Copies of identification documents of the members (passport or identification document for foreigners - DIRE); 3. Proof of deposit of initial capital (bank deposit slip from the account opened on behalf of future business); 4. Statutes.
• Deed: 1. Documents must be submitted to the Notary to assess the value of writing (usually 10% of capital); 2. The date for the execution of the deed must be marked and the payment made.
• Provisional registration: Once the deed is in hold and the certificate issued, the provisional registration of the company should be done in the Commercial Registry (with the names of the managers or administrators). . • Publication of Statutes in Business Registry (National Press) With the extract of the certificate of the deed, the statutes of the commercial company are now published.
• Final Registration:
The final registration of the commercial society is done after the publication of company statutes in the Government Gazette. This is done at the Registry Office upon submission of an application form and presentation of a copy of the Business Registration with the published statutes.
Pacheco does not enlighten
Lázaro Mabunda The Minister of home affairs, Jose Pacheco, said yesterday that the deal with Semlex ran within the law, but he assumed that this company has been operating since October 2009. At that time, according to the Official Gazette Series III, Number 27, dated July 9, Semlex had no legal existence in the country.
When he was questioned yesterday afternoon by the newspaper "O Pais", outside the meeting of the Cabinet, to clarify in what circumstances the government awarded the business of biometric documents to the Belgian company Semlex, the minister of home affairs said that he ‗swore that everything was transparent‘ but he could not present any evidence to support this. He could not disprove the legal documents in the possession of our newspaper.
AN ADDRESS ...
THAT DOES NOT EXIST
Moreover, the thirty-ninth clause requires Semlex to indicate, within 60 days after signing the contract, its address in Mozambique, We have no confirmation that this has happened.
However, the address on the statutes says: ‗Semlex office, avenida Emília Daússe, n.o 687, Maputo‘, but there is another company called Elgas operating there, which has nothing to 90
do with Semlex. Our reporting team spoke to some officials from Elgas, who confirmed that the company has occupied the office "for several years." Therefore, it is understood, that they came before there was even talk of Semlex coming to Mozambique, or providing services in Mozambique.
We were told that several people went looking for Semlex at that address, but they repeat the same story: Elgas had nothing to do with Semlex and they do not even know why this company was using that address. The strange thing is that Semlex was recorded in a recent Government Gazette - 9 July, 2010 - so, strictly for one month and 16 days. The statement was made on 29 June - nearly two months ago. At that time, the owners knew that their company was not located at that address. Why, then, did they maintain it?
TECHNICAL ASSISTANCE
The home affairs minister insisted that the business was legal. He refused to comment on the opinion from the Attorney General's Office (PGR) on the subject. In February 2009, the Technical Board from the PGR produced an opinion opposing the concession for the production of civil identification documents (to a foreign company), because it is understood that this is the sole responsibility of the State, since it relates to a issues of sovereignty . The Mozambican government has ignored this advice from PGR. Now, Pacheco says that
"the Government is satisfied with the business."
Inexplicably, Pacheco said that the contract between the Government and Semlex is for technical assistance. We went to revisit the contract between the government and Semlex and see what it says on the subject of this commitment: It provides indeed a technical assistance component, but, it goes far beyond this. The second clause says: "This contract is subject to the granting, on an exclusive basis by the concessionaire to the concession, the right to supply, installation and servicing of systems and production of civil identification documents, travel, visa and immigration control movement (. ..)."
That means that, in addition to supply, install and assist the Government in terms of systems, Semlex is allowed to produce identification and other civil documents.
The newspaper "O Pais" asked Pacheco if he knew Semlex's past, particularly in Guinea-Bissau and Chad. The minister skirted the question, reiterating that "the Government is satisfied, and what happens elsewhere does not concern us."
When he was asked about the reasons for the exclusion of most reputed companies in the area, Pacheco replied as follows: ―I do not know these giants and reputable companies that you are talking about. I just say that we are comfortable and the contract signed with Semlex complies with all legal procedures. The rest is just speculation and promotion of intrigue.‖
But it is not an intrigue to say that Gemalto and Sagem companies are more reputable than Semlex: the first is the global leader in digital security, it is listed on the exchange; covers more than one billion people around the world, has a turnover of close to 2 billion euros, 10,000 employees of 90 nationalities, based in 40 countries.
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C.D. Seydou What salaries do Ivoirian sportspeople earn? The million dollar question is: how much do Ivoirian sportspeople earn? Nobody is willing to talk about this taboo subject. If the amounts of the contracts, match bonuses and other extras that are signed by Ivoirian sportspeople who play in European championships are reported in the international and local press, local sportspeople, the majority of whom earn a trifle, do not like to speak of their earnings. From soccer to handball, basketball and other sports, Ivoirian sportspeople are suffering heavily due to the economic crisis. And if soccer clubs have continued as best they can to ensure the payment of monthly salaries, the majority of other disciplines are limited to only paying signing and winning bonuses. The time for financial extravagance is over! In the 90s, certain Asec Mimosas and Africa Sports players were paid in excess of FCFA 500 000, excluding match allowances that were often in the region of FCFA 1 000 000. Now, everything has been lowered with salaries practically cut in half! The ceiling for most well-paid Premier League players is around FCFA 300 000, with salaries varying between FCFA 100 000 and FCFA 300 000. Premier League players (a first division championship in Côte d‘Ivoire) are not rolling in cash. As the current champions and recent winners of the National Cup, Africa Sports nonetheless pays its athletes enough for them to live an acceptable lifestyle. The biggest salary is FCFA 400 000 and the lowest FCFA 150 000 for the first team. Narcisse Kuyo Téa, president of the club, has cancelled signing bonuses but endeavours to offer some of the best salaries to players who are playing for his club. He also offers them transport allowances of FCFA 40 000. Those who play for the current champions are well taken care of. As for Asec Mimosas, the other giant in Ivoirian soccer, salaries also vary between FCFA 150 000 and FCFA 400 000. The two aces are leading the pack. Behind them follows Séwé Sport de San Pedro, a club that has been ranked towards the top end of the league for a few seasons now. It is one of the rare inland clubs that can be compared to clubs from the capital. Eugène Diomandé has been at the helm of the club since 2003 and has given it its second wind. The club won the Houphouët Boigny Cup and played in three African campaigns. The club‘s budget per season is in the region of FCFA 400 million, and players are treated well financially for an inland club. Nobody is willing to talk about salaries, however. ―Suffice it to say that I cannot say anything about salaries because that is a professional secret. However, I am able to tell you is that the club budget is around FCFA 400 million‖, explains Mr Donatien Aman, Director-General of Séwé de San Pedro. Salaries of between FCFA 150 000 and FCFA 300 000 imply a few discrepancies. Like Asec Mimosas and Africa Sports, the major clubs in the capital, Séwé de San Pedro pays its players a successive bonus of between FCFA 50 000 and FCFA 100 000, according to the importance of the match. The majority of clubs pay winning bonuses and these are regularly set between FCFA 25 000 and FCFA 35 000. Bonuses of FCFA 25 000 are even sometimes given to players on certain nights after they have won a game. For four seasons, Adzopë FC has fought and repeatedly failed to join the first division. It remains a second-division club with a budget of FCFA 84 million per year. Mr Jean Assi, vice-president in charge of administration and the general manager of the club, says that this budget is entirely absorbed by the club‘s different annual expenses and that it is even not enough to cover them. ―We don‘t even talk of salaries at our club. We offer monthly allowances of FCFA 20 000 to players who are lodged and fed in-house‖, he explains. ―We don‘t pay salaries but we offer substantial bonuses for a second division club. For a match won in Abidjan, we give FCFA 40 000 and for a match in Adzopé, FCFA 35 000. And we spend more than FCFA 250 000 on average on expenses for each championship match, aside from the bonuses‖, adds Mr Jean Assi, lamenting that the subsidy from the Ivoirian Football Federation is only for an amount of FCFA 8 million. The picture is equally bleak when it comes to women‘s soccer. For the most part, players only receive a basic transport allowance of between FCFA 1 000 and FCFA 2000. Club managers often contribute towards paying the school fees of certain players, as is the case with rugby. TBO and Burotic, the star Ivoirian rugby clubs, only offer transport allowances of between FCFA 1000 and FCFA 2000 and match bonuses fixed at between FCFA 5000 and FCFA 10 000. TBO is responsible for the education of its players who, for the most part, are high school pupils and students, as well as finding work for those who are looking for work. The same applies to Burotic. For basketball and handball, things are different. Africa Sports women‘s handball team has 18 players and won the 2010 National Cup. They are currently the club that pays its athletes the best. Players receive FCFA 100 000 per month. ―We don‘t call it a salary because they are paid for the 7 or 8 months of the year during which the competition runs‖, explains Mr Paul Gogoua, a.k.a. Pablo, club president. They also receive winning bonuses of FCFA 10 000 for each match that they win and FCFA 5000 in case of a draw. For basketball, ABC, one of the star clubs of the championship, pays salaries that vary between FCFA 100 000 and FCFA 200 000 for men, and between FCFA 50 000 and FCFA 100 000 for women. As for CSA, they refused to comment about their salaries. The majority of players are high school students and are educated by the club. A basic fee ranging from FCFA 20 000 to FCFA 30 000 is paid to girls. They also receive a transport allowance of between FCFA 1000 and FCFA 2500. Given this detailed picture, we have come to realise that Ivoirian sportspeople are far removed from the billions that circulate in European professional soccer. 92
C.D. Seydou Poor cousins Ivoirian sports players are not paid the same amount of money. Whereas there is remuneration for soccer players and players of certain hand-ball sports such as handball and basketball, many other disciplines such as the martial arts are still ranked as amateur sports. Players have to pay their own club memberships as well as a monthly or quarterly fee, according to each dojo. Tariffs vary between FCFA 3000 and FCFA 10 000 per month. In athletics, certain clubs have a transport allowance but for martial arts, athletes have to dig deep in their own pockets. They only receive an allowance if they are selected for the national team, at which point the Federation pays a travel allowance, or when they take part in an international competition. Then, they qualify for a massive allowance. For example, in taekwondo, during national competitions such as the Championship and the National Cup, winners must be content to receive a trophy and a medal. When the competition is organised by a League, in addition to the trophies, allowances from FCFA 5 000 to FCFA 25 000 are paid. As for international trips, in addition to these massive allowances, athletes receive medals and individual rewards of up to FCFA 500 000 from the Department of Sport. Sometimes, they are also received by the Head of State who often gives them a special allowance of FCFA 1 000 000. ―There is no club that pays its members a salary. This system is totally geared towards amateurs. Athletes even have to pay the club a fee in order to train and to improve themselves‖, concludes Mr Etienne Assemian, communications officer for the Ivoirian Taekwondo Federation.
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93
Charles Nforgang, Jade
Published on 22 June 2011 on http://www.jadecameroun.com/news.php?detailAct=189 Corruption, lies and the violation of legal procedures Suspects‟ rights often flouted Citizens who are taken in for questioning are often tortured and arrested by the police, with complete disregard for the law. Case files are deliberately “doctored” by the police, and these files are then used by prosecutors or judges to send suspects directly to prison… It will be a while before Léon D. forgets the events that led to his three-month incarceration at the New-Bell prison in Douala. One day in November 2010, he was enjoying a drink with his friends when, at around 9pm, he was approached by two gendarmes who ordered him to follow them. Once at the Bépanda-Ndoungué gendarmerie station, they gave him the following order: “Take your clothes off and get into the cell. Your investigating officer and the station commander will only be here tomorrow morning to explain the charge against you”. This was in direct contravention of the new code for penal procedures that governs all arrests after 6pm which states that suspects must be informed of the reason for their arrest, their right to remain silent and their right to legal representation. The following day, Léon D. was taken to the commander, who was astounded by his presence and, after a discussion, ordered his release…before backtracking and demanding the presence of a member Leon‘s family. Rejection of corruption On Friday, the third day that he had been under arrest without having being charged, he was taken out of his cell and told to sign some papers. “I refused to sign without first reading the contents. „Whether you sign or not doesn‟t change your fate‟, I was told by the investigator when he took me back to my cell”, he recalls. Once again removed from his cell, he was brought before the Ndokotti trial court with a police statement that accused him of being an accessory to robbery. The court declared itself incompetent to deal with the matter. Léon D. was eventually transferred to a cell at the judicial police and, the following Tuesday, brought before the Bonanjo trial court. From there, he was sent back so that he could meet with his co-accused, which meeting never took place. His investigating officers never allowed him to do so, but they wrote in their statement that the said meeting supposedly took place. He thinks that his actual crime was having refused to pay the investigating officers a bribe of 400 000 francs. He was sent to prison after close to a month of being under arrest and was only released three months later due to inconclusive evidence. The luckier Stephen A. only stayed for 10 days in the same prison before being released after being given the benefit of the doubt. Taken in for questioning by a police patrol unit following a fight, his opponent was released after he paid the police 5 000 francs. As for Stephen, was placed under arrest in a cell at the port police station. “My investigating officers asked me for money in order for them to release me. As I was not complying, they threw the charge of robbery at me before bringing me before a judge who then sentenced me to prison”, he explains. Ten days after his incarceration, he went to court and was discharged thanks to the ferocity of his lawyer. Damning reports “Illegal arrests and detention continue and remain the most frequent violation of Human Rights in Cameroon”, according to the 2009 report on the State of Human Rights in Cameroon, published by the National Commission on Human Rights and Freedom (NCHRF). According to this report, many judicial policemen blithely violate the prescriptions relating to arrests and, as in the past, they continue to take individuals in for questioning and detain them without motive. “At the end of these illegal and abusive arrests, the individuals concerned are obliged to negotiate their own release through the payment of a certain sum of money”. An investigation by Transparency International Cameroon that was made public in 2007 already identified the police and the gendarmerie as the sectors that are most affected by corruption, as voted by 81% of the people consulted. The judicial system also occupied an honourable position with 61% of the vote. It is not surprising that the reports compiled by judicial police officers and submitted to judges or prosecutors for a pre-trial judgement are sometimes riddled with incongruities. Through lack of evidence to the contrary, pre-trial magistrates base their judgements on these false reports and therefore often rule that suspects be remanded in custody while awaiting their turn to appear before the trial court. “The examining judge or prosecutor will visit the suspect detained by the police in a parquet-floored cell. He will ask one or two questions while referring to the statement that the judicial police gave him and then sign a pre-trial mandate of arrest sending the suspect directly to prison. Only the lucky few are spared and released”, decries a Human Rights activist anonymously, admitting to having already witnessed these events. Victims are complaining “Victims of police abuse can lodge a complaint with the branch of the police that has been established for the purpose of supervising the police. They are at the offices of the judicial police and victims can contact the 94
supervisor of the police agent concerned, or the State prosecutor”, advises a police officer who also asked to remain anonymous. He also says that, aside from public raids, all arrests require a judicial warrant from the prosecutor. “The police sometimes even have to phone the prosecutor in order to get his authorisation”. With the help of associations for the defence of Human Rights, victims are no longer scared to take the judicial police and even the magistrates to court for abuse of power. In its reports, the government usually publishes the names, grades and disciplinary measures taken against policemen, members of the gendarmerie, correctional services administration or legal officers who are penalised, some of whom are fined and then relieved of their duties.
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