A spokesman for Ivory Coast's incumbent leader who refuses to cede power says Laurent Gbagbo's government has seized four major international banks that had shut down operations in the West African country.
Gbagbo government spokesman Ahoua Don Mello read a decree on state TV late Thursday saying that the banks did not respect the law and closed without proper notice. According to Ivorian law banks have to give three months’ notice.
He said they had seized Britain's Standard Chartered, France's BNP-Paribas and Societe Generale along with U.S. bank Citibank. These banks hold a majority of the bank accounts for civil servants.
Don Mello said that Gbagbo's government would nationalize the banks and would pay February salaries. The banks closed because of financial sanctions from the international community intended to force Gbagbo out.
In another development it is reported that Laurent Gbagbo’s government in Ivory Coast continues to take money from the country’s central bank account, more than three weeks after the bank said it would only recognize requests from the rival administration of Alassane Ouattara.
Our government is withdrawing money on a daily basis,” Ahoua Don Mello, an adviser to Gbagbo, said by phone today.
The withdrawals have frustrated Ouattara, who was hoping that Gbagbo would lose the support of the military if he was no longer able to pay their wages. Ouattara, the internationally- recognized winner of the Nov. 28 election, remains holed up in the Golf Hotel in Abidjan, protected by United Nations peacekeepers and surrounded by soldiers.
Ouattara called for a national strike tomorrow to force 65- year-old Gbagbo, who has ruled the world’s top cocoa producer for a decade, to step down.
Ouattara, 69, was declared winner of November’s vote by the electoral commission. The victory was overturned by Ivory Coast’s Constitutional Council, with cited fraud in parts of the country’s north, and gave victory to Gbagbo.
The call for strike action comes as Kenyan Prime Minister Raila Odinga plans to meet with Ouattara and Gbagbo in Abidjan, the commercial capital, today, according to a statement from his office in Nairobi.
‘Will of Ivorians’
“The only way forward to a peaceful Cote d’Ivoire lies in respecting the will of Ivorians as expressed in the outcome of the November elections which were certified as free and fair by the United Nations and other independent organizations,” said Odinga, the African Union’s envoy in the conflict. It will be his second attempt to find a resolution to the standoff.
The Senegal-based regional central bank said on Dec. 23 that it recognized Ouattara as president elect and that only people authorized by him would be allowed to make withdrawals.
Patrick Achi, a spokesman for Ouattara, said “non- authorized representatives” have withdrawn money amounting to 70 billion CFA francs ($141.8 million) since then, according to an e-mailed statement Jan. 14. Don Mello declined to confirm the figure.
Marie-Laure Digbe, spokeswoman for the bank, was not immediately available to comment, according to a person who answered the phone at her office and declined to give her name.
Eurobond
While Gbagbo continues to defy the central bank ruling, he doesn’t plan to use the funds to make a missed interest payment on Ivory Coast’s Eurobonds until creditors recognize him as winner of the election, Don Mello said.
“We did our part of the job, and pledged to pay” the $29 million payment that was due on Dec. 31, Don Mello said. “It is now the turn of the lenders to do theirs.”
The bonds declined 0.3 percent to 37.625 cents on the dollar as of 2:56 p.m. in Abidjan, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. That drove the yield on the 2.5 percent debt due 2032 up 4.9 basis points to 16.893 percent. Gbagbo will invite creditors to the nation to discuss the terms of the coupon payment, Don Mello said.
Cocoa prices climbed for the fifth day in six, adding $67, or 2.3 percent, to $3,019 per metric ton at 2:47 p.m. in London trading today, the highest since Dec. 31.
A 7 p.m. to 6 a.m. curfew in the Abidjan districts of Abobo and Anyama was extended to Jan. 22, according to a decree read on state television on Jan. 15. Clashes between pro-Gbagbo security forces and residents of the areas, which voted in favor of Ouattara, have left 11 people dead, including seven policemen, the UN said last week.
