Guinea junta names former civil servant Beavogui as prime minister

Compagnie des Alpes SA

06/10/2021 23:06

CONAKRY, Oct 6 (Reuters) - Guinea's military junta on
Wednesday named Mohamed Beavogui, a former civil servant and
expert in agricultural finance, as prime minister to preside
over a promised transition back to democratic rule following a
coup in September.
    Beavogui, 68, is also the nephew of Diallo Telli, a
celebrated Guinean diplomat who served as the first
secretary-general of the Organisation of African Unity, the
predecessor to the African Union, and was killed by the regime
of dictator Sekou Touré in 1977. 
    Beavogui, whose nomination was announced in a decree read on
national television, will oversee a transition whose precise
contours have yet to be defined. 
    Colonel Mamadi Doumbouya, leader of the Sept. 5 putsch
against President Alpha Conde, was inaugurated as interim
president last Friday. He promised to organise free and
transparent elections but did not say when.  urn:newsml:reuters.com:*:nL8N2QX3G5
    The coup against Conde was the fourth in West and Central
Africa since last year, following two putsches in Mali and one
in Chad. He angered his opponents by changing the constitution
to allow himself to stand for a third term.   
    West African states, fearing a contagion effect across the
region, agreed last month to impose sanctions on junta members
and their relatives.  urn:newsml:reuters.com:*:nL8N2QK07O
    In the 1980s, Beavogui worked as a civil servant and at the
Compagnie des Bauxites de Guinee (CBG), one of the country's
leading producers of bauxite. Guinea possesses the world's
largest reserves of the aluminium ore. 
    He later worked for the U.N. Food and Agriculture
Organization and, more recently, as director general of African
Risk Capacity, an African Union agency that helps governments
plan for natural disasters. 

 (Reporting by Saliou Samb; Writing by Aaron Ross; Editing by
David Gregorio)
 ((Aaron.Ross@thomsonreuters.com; +221 77 569 1702;))