Donor conference in Lisbon will seek to cover $84m budget deficit

Guinea-Bissau will organise a donor conference in Lisbon in early February to raise funds to try and cover this year's expected budget deficit of 42 billion CFA francs (US$84 million), Prime Minister Carlos Gomes Junior has said. Portugal, the former colonial power in this small West African country, and France have agreed to help to organise the meeting, he told reporters before leaving on a tour of Europe and Latin America at the weekend. The economy of Guinea-Bissau was ruined by a civil war from 1998 to 1999 and the country remained in a mess during three years of chaotic rule by former president Kumba Yala thereafter. International donors returned to support the country following Yala's overthrow in a bloodless coup in September 2003 and the formation of a broad-based civilian government to return the country of 1.3 million people to constitutional government. Massive pay arrears owed to civil servants, teachers and soldiers have been paid off, but the current government, which was elected in parliamentary elections in March 2004, is still strapped for cash. The authorities are relying on aid from Portugal, Libya and Senegal to fight a locust invasion, which threatens this year's harvest of cashew nuts, Guinea-Bissau's main export. And the government recently appealed to donors to provide $5 million to help organise presidential elections which are due in May. Gobin Nankani, the World Bank's Vice-President for Africa, said during a flying visit to Guinea-Bissau on Monday that his organisation was prepared to increase its aid, but only on condition that the presidential elections went ahead as planned and that a climate of peace and stability prevailed in the country. A military uprising last October led to the assassination of the head of the armed forces and compelled the government to replace the entire military high command with nominees chosen by the mutineers. Nankani, who visited the power station in Guinea-Bissau said the World Bank was particularly keen to finance new projects aimed at rehabilitating Guinea-Bissau's dilapidated infrastructure and promoting rural development through the provision of small loans to farmers. Carlos Gomes Junior, the prime minister, visited France to attend a UNESCO biodiversity conference in Paris, where he pushed for Guinea-Bissau's marine national park in the Bijagos offshore islands to be given world heritage status. Before leaving Paris at the weekend, Gomes Junior said he would fly on to Cuba to ask the authorities in Havana to send more doctors to Guinea-Bissau and then to Venezuela, to seek help in resuming exploration for offshore oil.