Hopes for the future depend on clean elections - Continued

Election fears Opposition parties have warned that the rushed voter registration process has already been marred by irregularities and many a fear a rigged poll. Agnello Ragalla, head of independent radio station, Radio Bombolom shares that concern. Bombolom was taken off the air by the authorities in February, for "broadcasting false information that could jeopardise national sovereignty and the stability of the country”. But the widely respected radio station was allowed to resume broadcasting three months later after judges ruled that its closure was illegal. Their action followed an international protest campaign led by the international press freedom watchdog Reporters Without Borders. Ragalla described Yala as “one of the most important enemies of the freedom of the press in the country.” He said the media climate in Guinea-Bissau today was markedly worse than under the old PAIGC one-party state. “This government simply doesn’t accept different opinions, different points of view”, Ragalla said. But recently there have been hints of at least a temporary rapprochement between the state and the independent media. The new Secretary of State for Communication, Julio Fernandes, is seen as markedly more moderate than his predecessor, Joao Manuel Gomes. During a recent visit to Lisbon Fernandes agreed to the return of Portuguese state television and radio correspondents to Guinea-Bissau after an absence of more than six months. Joao Perreira da Silva, the bureau chief of Portugal's state-run TV station RTP, was expelled in December 2002 after RTP ran a programme on Ansumané Mane, a political activist who was killed during an alleged coup attempt in November 2000, a few months after Yala came to power. Although attention is currently focused on the elections, the country is overshadowed by the worst economic crisis in its history. Most government employees have not received a single pay cheque this year - a situation which has made corruption at all levels of the civil service a vital strategy for survival. Unpaid teachers, paralysed schools The country's schools have meanwhile been paralysed by a series of strikes by unpaid teachers. These stoppages have led to two academic years in a row being written off. At the headquarters of the National Union of Guinean Workers (UNTG), Guinea-Bissau’s biggest union federation, UNTG Secretary-General Desejado Lima Costa warned of “a continuing degradation in the living conditions of workers in Guinea-Bissau.” “You can’t simply blame on all our current problems on the residual effects of our war”, he argued. “We’ve had four prime ministers in the course of one parliament. We’ve had more strikes than anywhere else in West Africa because the government has broken all its agreements”. Lima Costa said the government's failure to pay salaries meant that in most urban families the wife rather than the husband was now the main breadwinner. “In eighty per cent of households in Bissau, it will now be the wife who is sustaining family life, who is head of the household," he said. Amongst those forced to seek a living outside their usual job are schoolteachers. Vença Mendes, president of the National Teachers’ Union (Sinaprof), complains that Yala has done nothing for education in Guinea-Bissau, even though he himself used to be a teacher. “We don’t have desks, we don’t have classrooms, we don’t have salaries”, Mendes said. “When Kumba Yala was elected, we hoped he would do a great deal for us, but things have turned out just the opposite”. After a series of strikes and the government's failure to provide even the most rudimentary service in state schools, the 2002-2003 academic year was formally declared null and void . Mendes said the previous year was equally frustrating. “In a country where there is 73 percent illiteracy, education has to be the best way out of poverty”, he told IRIN. “We can only hope that whatever government comes out of the elections will do better. Our pupils certainly understand our problems.” Doctors earn US $40 a month The health sector has also been hit by strikes. Government-employed doctors in Guinea-Bissau earn around about US $40 a month and nurses around US $26, so many have simply left the country to earn a decent wage elsewhere. At Bissau’s Simao Mendes hospital, nurses’ representative, Benjamin Correia, say the staff do the best they can. “We have very capable people working here, but as with everything else in Guinea-Bissau, there are critical shortages. We are always crying out for new material”. Health Minister Antonio Serifo Embalo painted a more optimistic picture. “I wouldn’t say there was a crisis”, he told IRIN. “You’ve got to remember this is a post-war situation, that health infrastructures were destroyed during the conflict”. Embalo acknowledged serious problems, not least the loss of skilled personnel to countries like Portugal, Senegal and Cape Verde. But he said partners like the World Bank and World Health Organisation (WHO) had applauded the government’s efforts. Hospital bosses at Simao Mendes said the facility provided affordable services, but patients waiting for medical consultations complained of long delays in being treated and a serious shortage of medicines. Health expert Isabel Maria Garcia de Almeida, who heads an AIDS programme run by the Guinean Association of Studies and Alternatives (Alternag) said the health service “lacks just about everything you can think of." She said that following a period of expansion in the mid-1990s it was devastated by the civil war. “We have yet to get back to the levels we were at before the conflict”, she said. “The most important thing is to have proper structures in place: basic work conditions, reasonable salaries, some sense of order”. She says women and children, particularly in rural areas, suffer the worst neglect. “If you don’t have money in your pocket, you won’t get treated,” she said. While government officials appeal for a more flexible and generous approach from donors, institutions like the World Bank and the European Union have complained about Guinea-Bissau's inability to channel funding properly and the lack of continuity caused by so many ministerial changes. Business leaders, trade unionists and foreign donors all acknowledge there will be no upturn in the economy until Guinea-Bissau's main political problems have been resolved and there is a credible administration in place, with a clear electoral mandate and a coherent vision of the future. Empty promises from donors A donor conference organised by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in Geneva in May 1999 drew pledges of over US $200 million to help Guinea-Bissau recover from the devastating effects of civil war. Donors emphasised the need for major housing and infrastructure programmes, a rehabilitation of social services and investment in the private sector. But although follow-up conference took place in Bissau in June 2000, little of that money has ever materialised. In December 2000, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank agreed to wipe out US $790 million of external debt under the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) initiative, emphasising the need to reduce poverty and stimulate growth. At the same time the IMF approved a Poverty Reduction and Growth Facility (PRGF) for Guinea-Bissau to underpin fresh donor support. But, handicapped in part by a major slump in the world price of cashew nuts, the country has failed to meet most of the IMF’s performance criteria. Reports from Washington make copious reference to over-spending, and poor budgetary management. And economists warn privately that massive corruption has severely reduced revenue of customs duty and other taxes. “When you talk to most donors, the feeling is bad”, a senior economist said. “There is no clear policy on the part of the government. One minister will be pulling to the left, another will be doing something completely different. People want to cling on to power, no matter what.” You can still invest and get something back But amid the chaos, there are one or two optimists. “It’s safe here, you could not find more peaceful people anywhere and you can invest and get something back”, said one Portuguese businessman who first got to know Guinea-Bissau as a soldier in the colonial army. Although government has virtually ground to a halt, the flourishing informal sector of the economy still manages to keep the country going. The economic heart of the capital is the Praca de Bandim, a bustling market that sprawls along the main road to the airport, where stalls sell everything from umbrellas to mangoes. Business is modest, but still brisk enough to draw traders from neighbouring Senegal and Guinea-Conakry and even from far-off Ghana and Nigeria. And Guinea-Bissau’s new Secretary of State for Tourism, Joao de Barros, is a born optimist. A newspaper publisher who was imprisoned twice by Yala for stories run by his papers, Correio Guiné Bissau and Diario de Bissau, he is selling now working for his former jailer, selling the golden beaches of the Bijagos islands as an exotic offbeat destination to tour operators . “We have bathing, we have eco-tourism, we have culture,” de Barros said. “But we are also suffering the logical consequences of bad government over 30 years”. He reckons that tourism could pave the way for a broader economic regeneration, particularly if it’s accompanied by investment in roads and airports. “We have to take responsibility for this”, says de Barros. “Everything depends on us now”. [ENDS]