Guinean President Alpha Conde appointed a finance minister and central bank governor as he opted for “experienced” administrators to develop the country.
Assuming the post of defense minister himself, Conde retained Finance Minister Kerfalla Yansane and named former Mines Minister Lounseny Nabe as governor of the central bank, according to a statement read on Radio Television Guineenne late yesterday in Conakry, the capital. Both have previously worked in government ministries.
“The president knows that he’ll only move forward by relying on experience and expertise,” said Mohamed Camara, a political analyst and law professor at Conakry’s Kofi Annan University. Yansane, a former central bank governor, “has been able to handle development partners with great diplomacy,” Camara said today in an interview from Paris. “He inspires a lot of confidence.”
Conde’s victory in a Nov. 7 election runoff marked the end of two years of military rule, which followed the death of Lansana Conte, who ruled the West African nation for two decades. The vote was Guinea’s first democratic transfer of power since its independence from France in 1958.
Guinea holds as much as half of the world’s reserves of bauxite, more than 4 billion metric tons of “high-grade” iron ore and “significant” deposits of diamonds and gold, according to the U.S. State Department. Bauxite is the ore used to make aluminum.
Rio Tinto Group, the world’s second-largest mining company, United Co. Rusal, the biggest aluminum producer, and Brazil’s Vale SA, the world’s No. 1 iron-ore producer, are among mining companies operating in Guinea.
General Keleti Diallo was named as the chief of staff of the country’s army, taking the place of Nouhou Thiam, Conde’s statement said.
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