KENYA Kenya improves foreign investor bourse incentives
NAIROBI, June 15 (Reuter) - Kenya's Finance Minister Musalia
Mudavadi announced on Thursday reforms aimed at boosting foreign
investment on the Nairobi Stock Exchange (NSE) and the
privatisation of major state corporations.
Mudavadi said during his budget speech for the 1995/1996 year the
ceiling on foreign ownership of share capital of any one stock
listed on the NSE was being raised to 40 percent from 20.
Foreign investors were invited into Kenya's bourse, Sub-Saharan
Africa's third largest, in January this year but many complained
the access was too limited.
Mudavadi said foreign investors' individual ownership of any
particular stock would be raised from 2.5 per cent to five per
cent. Foreign investment has so far been cautious.
``These changes will open up new sources of investment in Kenyan
companies,'' Mudavadi told parliament.
He announced his government's intention to privatise the national
carrier Kenya Airways (KA) and its freight-handling arm by the end
of the year. A portion of KA will be floated on the NSE, officials
have said in the past.
Other state corporations he said would be restructured or
privatised included Kenya Railways, Kenya Ports Authority, Kenya
Posts and Telecommunications and the power sector.
Kenya's currency was made fully convertible last year, but some
restrictions remained.
Mudavadi said ``modalities have been worked out to repeal the
exchange control act completely'' by the end of parliament's
current session.
Transmitted: 95-06-15 06:10:30 PDT
SOMALIA Somali allies of Aideed declare him president
By Aden Ali
MOGADISHU, June 15 (Reuter) - Clan factions allied to Mohamed Farah
Aideed, the warlord who drove a United Nations peacekeeping force
from Somalia, voted him president of the anarchic country on
Thursday.
While the announcement was hardly likely to give blighted Somalia a
functional government again, it could signal more war.
None of Aideed's rival clan militias were involved in the
conference that led to the decision and tension in the city is
certain to rise.
Mohamed Kanyare Afrah, chairman of the 15-faction conference in
south Mogadishu, said Aideed had been unanimously elected to rule
for three years.
Shortly after the announcement, Aideed emerged to applaud his
supporters for their ``courageous resistance against foreign
intervention'' and what he called their ``puppets'' -- a reference
to his Somali enemies.
Aideed became famous worldwide as the man who led his militia in an
undeclared war with U.S.-led United Nations forces, killing dozens
of them and effectively closing down the peacekeeping mission in
March.
Only last Sunday, a meeting of officials declaring themselves to be
the central committee of Aideed's own Habre Gedir clan militia
voted to oust him from the leadership and installed his one-time
financier Osman Hassan Ali Atto instead.
The reaction of Osman Atto, whose complex of houses lies a a few
hundred yards (metres) from where the conference was held, to his
latest move was not yet known.
Scores of gun-wielding militiamen in ``technical'' battlewagons
stood guard outside the conference building. A crowd of thousands
of supporters cheered when they heard the news.
Kanyare said the conference had also decided to have five deputy
presidents under Aideed.
He said the announcement ``will hopefully end the endless political
disputes and clan rivalries'' which have destroyed Somalia over the
past four years since dictator Mohamed Siad Barre was overthrown.
Many expect it to do just the opposite, especially if Aideed moves
to assert military control over key installations in the capital
such as the sea port, which he and his rivals agreed to jointly
administer when the United Nations evacuated in March.
Somalia's has not had an internationally-recognised government
since Barre's overthrow in January 1991. The country has no
ministries, telephone systems, national police force, army, state
hospital or education systems.
Aideed holds sway over parts of south Mogadishu and clan territory
in central Somalia but nowhere else. But his declaration as
president meant he would no longer take part in reconciliation
moves.
It was too early to know what Aideed's most bitter rival Ali Mahdi
Mohamed, leader of the Abgal clan militias in the north of the
city, would do. Ali Mahdi also styles himself president.
Aideed was a military leader in the civil war which ousted Siad
Barre. He always denied wanting to become president but the south
Mogadishu conference has been heading towards such a declaration
since it started last November.
^REUTER@
Transmitted: 95-06-15 05:29:34 PDT
BURUNDI Burundi ambush survivors recall attack details
By William Wallis
BUJUMBURA, June 15 (Reuter) - Survivors of an ambush in northwest
Burundi from which the U.S. ambassador, Burundi's foreign minister
and the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) envoy escaped unhurt
recalled details of the attack on Thursday.
An OAU observer from Burkina Faso was killed and three other OAU
employees were injured in the ambush on Wednesday. Four Burundian
escort soldiers were wounded, one of them seriously, plus a French
photographer.
``They were firing at us from about three metres (yards) on top of
a verge. They must have had at least three AK-47s going at one
time,'' said the photographer, who was hit by fragments of a bullet
and declined to be named.
``One of the OAU guys returned fire. He was hit in the head. Our
car got hit by at least six bullets. I couldn't take any
photographs because I thought I was dead,'' she said.
The ambush took place just before 5.00 pm (1600 GMT) when the
six-car convoy, escorted by Burundian government troops and OAU
soldiers, was driving between the villages of Rusenda and
Bukinanyana in the northwest province of Cibitoke.
The photographer said the assailants appeared to fire mostly on
those in military uniforms. She added that the Burundian escort did
not return fire.
Gordon Duguid, First Secretary at the U.S. embassy, said that
ambassador Robert Krueger's bullet-proof car which was travelling
second in the convoy was hit by one bullet.
Burundian Foreign Minister Jean Marie Ngendahayo and OAU special
envoy Leondre Bassole were in the same vehicle. They were on a
visit to observe the situation in the region.
Duguid added that the cars at the tail end came under the most
fire.
Officials said that the three wounded OAU workers were flown out of
Cibitoke by helicopter late on Wednesday. The convoy drove on to
the northern town Kayanza and Krueger was set to be flown out by
helicopter on Thursday, they said.
Cibitoke has become increasingly dangerous in recent months, with
Hutu guerrillas making hit-and-run attacks against the mainly Tutsi
government army.
Since the weekend, the government army has intensified search and
destroy missions against the Hutu guerrilla gangs.
Aid workers returning to the capital Bujumbura, which was gripped
by its own violence last week, reported seeing houses burning,
villages deserted and many soldiers on patrol.
Transmitted: 95-06-15 05:13:46 PDT
AFRICA Reuters Africa Highlights
COTONOU - UNITA leader Jonas Savimbi, who went back to war after
refusing to accept defeat in 1992 elections, has said he would
accept the Angolan vice-presidency if it was offered to him in
talks on a new government.
``I have never refused anything. I have told (President Jose
Eduardo) dos Santos he is my president, I support him and I am
ready to work with him,'' Savimbi told reporters after talks with
Benin's President Nicephore Soglo. ``Negotiations are under way on
both sides, if in the division of posts, I get the vice-presidency,
I will take it and UNITA will accept the portfolios it is
offered.''
- - - -
MOGADISHU - Somali clan factions allied with Mogadishu warlord
Mohamed Farah Aideed voted him president of the anarchic country.
The announcement was certain to raise tensions in the capital since
none of Aideed's rival clan militias were involved in the
conference that led up to the unilateral decision.
- - - -
LOME - Port authorities in Lome said they had sent a second tug to
rescue a Nigerian vessel drifting off the Togolese capital without
power or anchor and with 257 people still on board. ``We had to
send a second tug boat because the ship doesn't have any power. It
doesn't even have an anchor,'' said port commandant Philippe
Ahodikpe.
- - - -
ASSIUT, Egypt - Police shot dead a suspected Moslem militant near
the violence-ridden town of Mallawi in southern Egypt, security
sources said. They said he was a member of the Gama'a Islamiya
(Islamic Group) which has been waging a bloody campaign to topple
the government and set up a strict Islamic state.
- - - -
HARARE - A Zimbabwean court postponed the trial of three newsmen
charged with defaming a judge and a cabinet minister in stories
alleging President Robert Mugabe secretly wedded his former private
secretary.
- - - -
KHARTOUM - Sudan's partly privatised telecommunications company
Sudatel has agreed to reduce its telephone rates which have sparked
parliamentary criticism, Khartoum newspapers said.
- - - -
CAPE TOWN - Gerry Adams, leader of the IRA's political wing Sinn
Fein, praised South African right-wing leader General Constand
Viljoen for having the political will to break with the past to
promote peace.
Viljoen heads the white rightist Freedom Front, which broke with
militant white groups last year to participate in the country's
first all-race elections.
- - - -
HANOI - Vietnam has condemned the killing of a Vietnamese
university teacher in Algeria, the official Vietnam News Agency
(VNA) reported. Lecturer Nguyen Nhu Vien, 61, was shot dead by
``armed terrorists,'' the official name for Moslem fundamentalist
guerrillas, in the western city of Tiaret on Monday.
Two Vietnamese were killed in Algeria last year, VNA said.
Transmitted: 95-06-15 05:39:45 PDT
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