Government dissolves Red Cross board

The executive board of the Central African Republic (CAR) Red Cross has been dissolved and an interim team appointed in its place, state-owned Radio Centrafrique reported on Saturday. In a decree heralding the dissolution, Social Affairs Minister Lea Koyassoum Doumta, accused the board of "mismanagement", although she did not give specifics. However, the chairman of the dissolved board, Francois Fara-Frond, termed the decision illegal. He said the Red Cross was an NGO comprising volunteers, with an "autonomous management". He said he would lodge a complaint as the dissolution was motivated by "internal misunderstandings". He added that the CAR Red Cross Society was not audited by the government, which "has not granted any subsidy since 2000". Fara-Frond, a former minister of state for finance in the early 1980s, and his team were elected in May 2000. Their mandate was to expire in May 2004. Operational since 1966 and present in 14 of the country's 16 provinces, the Red Cross has 10,000 volunteers, among whom 3,500 are "instantly mobilisable", Fara-Frond said. The Red Cross took part in humanitarian and sanitation operations during the 1996-7 mutinies in the country, as well as in the crises that followed. It was involved in the reburial of badly-buried corpses and the disinfection of wells in areas where such corpses were found. Its headquarters were looted and then destroyed following the 15 March coup in which Francois Bozize overthrew President Ange-Felix Patasse. The dissolution of the Red Cross board has occurred as the transitional government has embarked in an anti-corruption war, both in the private and public sector.