www.africa-confidential.com 4 May 2001 Vol 42 No 9 AFRICA CONFIDENTIAL CONGO-KINSHASA 3 GHANA War economy A report by a United Nations’ expert A hundred days of Kufuor group on the pillage of Congo The new government scores high on political tolerance but is blames Rwanda, Uganda and their struggling over how to tackle the economic mess it inherited rebel proteges for most of the damage. The business activities No one can blame President John Agyekum Kufuor for the economic chaos he inherited on 7 of Zimbabwean, Angolan and January, when he took over from Jerry John Rawlings. However, plenty of Ghanaians blame his Namibian forces fighting on the government for its slow start. In the first hundred days, he has won high marks for handling the government’s side are scarcely transition and making government more tolerant, low marks for dynamism and economic management. discussed. There still is much goodwill towards the President and his New Patriotic Party. He confidently fielded questions when national television broadcast a press conference live from the Castle at Osu ETHIOPIA 4 – something Rawlings never allowed during his 20-year rule. Journalists are no longer ‘enemies of the people’. Kufuor came over as presidential but accessible, Storm after the in an inquisition managed by his spokesperson, Elizabeth Ohene; she and Attorney General Nana storm Akufo-Addo want the obnoxious criminal libel laws abrogated this year. Since the NPP is the party of business, it is obviously much warmer towards local entrepreneurs of all political hues. A leading Ethiopia is in political crisis after businessman, Kwabena Darko, was in Kufuor’s office throughout the press conference. 41 people were killed in riots in Addis Ababa. However, the The government has begun to dismantle the militarist paraphernalia of the Rawlings era, stopping underlying crisis is a split in the state expenditure on the celebrations of 4 June – the hitherto sacrosanct commemoration of TPLF, one of the main elements of Rawlings’ first successful coup d’état in 1979. That was followed by the execution of eight generals, the ruling EPRDF. During two including Akwasi Afrifa, Kutu Acheampong and Fred Akuffo, all of whom had been military years of war with Eritrea, no one heads of state. They will now be exhumed so that their families can give them a proper burial. Kufuor spoke out in public against Premier Meles. But they are doing so now. has also authorised the return of a house allocated to the family of first President Kwame Nkrumah, confiscated by the Rawlings regime, and of the property of former Prime Minister Kofi Busia, confiscated by Acheampong’s regime in the 1970s. SOUTH AFRICA 6 Bringing the torturers and assassins to book The plots thicken A much slower and trickier business is to address human rights abuses committed under Rawlings. Security Minister Steve Tshwete The government favours a South African-style Truth and Reconciliation Commission to hear shocked many when he evidence from victims and perpetrators. Attorney General Akufo-Addo is enthusiastic in principle; announced that police would investigate allegations of a plot by the human rights campaigner and journalist Kwesi Pratt claims that more than 400 Ghanaians were senior ANC figures against ‘disappeared’ during the Rawlings era, with many more illegally detained and tortured. Yet there President Mbeki. Few give the is little agreement on how the torturers and assassins can be tracked down and brought to book, and allegations credence but many how this might affect the (so far) polite relations between Kufuor and the previous regime. Akufo- want to know the political Addo’s priority is to unjam and reform the judicial system generally. The backlog of cases, the machinations that lie behind them. corruption of legal officers and the widespread resort to direct action to enforce contracts or deal with suspected criminals made nonsense of the legal system. NIGERIA 6 Kufuor must also deal with corruption, past and present. Multi-million dollar frauds at the Social Security National Insurance Trust and the Ghana National Petroleum Corporation are under Exit top brass investigation and expected to rope in several former apparatchiks. There is talk of tracking down President Obasanjo’s sacking on overseas property bought by former officials, partly to bring home some of the ill-gotten gains, partly 24 April of the three service chiefs to deflate the reputation of Rawlings and his National Democratic Congress as anti-graft crusaders. – General Malu, Air Marshal Alfa Some lawyers suggest that the Quality Grain case (AC Vol 42 No 8) could ensnare Rawlings and and Vice-Admiral Ombu – sparked his Vice-President, John Atta Mills; they are accused of negligence in allowing the state to talk about coup plots. In fact President Obasanjo’s decision guarantee loans of US$20 million to Juliet R. Cotton and her Quality Grain company, which followed months of argument about promised 20,000 acres of rice and planted only 500. Last month, Cotton told a court in Atlanta, military reforms and US advisors. Georgia (where she is being sued by her erstwhile United States’ business partner) that some of the money was used to buy a mansion there and a Mercedes-Benz car for senior Ghanaian officials. Any POINTERS 8 attempt to involve Rawlings and Atta Mills in the affair would be a political as much as a legal decision, open to interpretation as revenge. Angola, Côte Just before his January inauguration, Kufuor told journalists that his first priority would be ‘securing the state’ – no small matter, given the number of Rawlings-supporters in the army, police d’Ivoire & France- and intelligence. The appointment of his brother Kwame Addo Kufuor as Minister of Defence got Africa mixed reviews. Addo is a physician with no experience of the military and not best placed to sniff 4 May 2001 Africa Confidential Vol 42 No 9 out coups. Yet he has assiduously toured the barracks and key debt is now running at $6 bn. The cedi lost half of its value although military formations, effusively praising the soldiers’ professionalism. the cedi-dollar exchange rate has now stabilised to 7,525:1. No one is We hear that many of the commandos, Rawlings’ ultra-loyalists who quite sure why but it seems some payments are being deferred and were integrated into the mainstream army last year, have been foreign creditors are trying to give the government some breathing redeployed within the conventional military hierarchy. Addo Kufuor space. Growth in gross domestic product, which slowed to 3.7 per cent has welcomed closer military cooperation with Washington, which in 2000 from 4.4 per cent, isn’t likely to boom this year. Cocoa and respects Ghana’s army and wants to involve it in more peacekeeping gold earnings fell last year and their export prices remain flat. Foreign operations. American soldiers are training and being trained at reserves are at their lowest for a decade: enough to cover just one Ghana’s jungle warfare school at Achiase. month’s imports. Bizarre rumours circulated in Accra late last month about a coup, Faced with the cash crunch, Osafo-Marfo and Kufuor decided to planned for 15 May with the backing of officers from the Fante enrol in the World Bank and IMF’s Heavily Indebted Poor Country (coastal belt) and northern regions. No one suggested the supposed scheme, annoying NDC critics, who argue that it labels Ghana a plotters had any links to the former regime, though officers from the bankrupt state. Osafo-Marfo’s response is ‘That’s right and it’s your Bureau of National Investigations have annoyed some old politicians fault!’ The risk is that, if Ghana gets relief on its debt, Japan (which and civil servants by their tactics in corruption investigations. Over- has just changed its prime minister again) will slash its bilateral aid zealous agents bungled the recent arrest of former Deputy Minister of programme, though the Japanese Ambassador promises that aid from Finance Victor Selormey, giving rise to criticism that arbitrary arrests Tokyo will hold up regardless. and detentions, common under Rawlings, were still going on. Some claim that the BNI deliberately leaked the story of an attempted coup Britain backs debt relief for Ghana to test public and military reaction, others that a genuine plot was With Ghana’s former position as IMF and World Bank economic uncovered by US agents. reform star in Africa, a reputation much diminished in recent years, The rumours did not fluster the Kufuor government. Insiders say its Britain has promised it will back fast-track debt relief under HIPC. biggest enemy is inertia. To get things done, according to some of The Bank and Fund, keen to keep their former showcase on the Kufuor’s advisors, the executive will have to throw its weight around reform road, are likely to agree. The HIPC debate, about national and push ahead with unpopular decisions – which would mean pride and worries about credit ratings, seems to have fizzled out. sidelining parliament, where the NPP has only 98 of 200 seats. That The Pro-HIPC group in cabinet won the argument because the technique worked under Rawlings but his NDC had a comfortable government desperately needs breathing space to restructure its majority and could be relied on to rubber-stamp executive edicts. domestic debt. The World Bank recommends Kenya’s approach of converting short-term treasury bills into three-year bonds; but if Finding the right policies the government is going to wind down its short-term borrowing, it Kufuor, trying to run a more constitutional and consensual government, will still need a pool of capital ready for those investors who didn’t has to delay tough decisions such as putting up fuel prices, selling off want to buy the bonds.