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As questions are raised about oil production, cash and crude both need a clean up

Congo-Brazzaville is broke, chronically indebted and at odds with the International Monetary Fund, whose technicians say that 57 billion CFA francs (US$102.3 million) of this year's oil earnings have evaporated (AC Vol 43 No 23). None of this fazes warlord-President Denis Sassou-Nguesso, still at work on schemes to enrich his family and that of his son-in-law, Gabon's President Omar Bongo. A $1.22 mn. grant by the African Development Bank on 2 December should help a little: $500,000 are to fight an epidemic of Ebola fever and $720,000 for 'economic management capacity building'. Having run Gabon for over three decades and married Sassou-Nguesso's daughter, Bongo is also taking an increasingly big stake in the Brazzaville economy. Sassou and his family now enjoy a new agreement negotiated with TotalFinaElf after years of stalemate over compensation for a botched privatisation....

(This article contains approximately 908 words)

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Keywords:

Denis Sassou-Nguesso, Gabon, Omar Bongo, Presidential relations, Pascal Lissouba, Angola, Jonas Savimbi, Congo-Kinshasa, Philippe Jaffré, British, France, União Nacional para a Independência Total de Angola, fonds de dépôt et de garanties, programme général d'accord, Société Nationale des Pétroles du Congo, Président Directeur Général, Société Générale

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