Three ministers suspended over fraud allegation

Three ministers in the Central African Republic were suspended on Tuesday for three months without pay over allegations of misappropriating public funds, Prime Minister Elie Dote has said.

They are the ministers of tourism, Anne-Marie Ngouyombo; of urbanisation, Bernard Gonda; and of communications, Job Izima. They allegedly received allowances and other payments to which they were not entitled.

Their suspensions followed a recent government investigation into the number of ghost workers on the civil service payroll. Dote had declared that 1,699 ghost workers had been discovered, so far, in an ongoing census of the civil service. As a result, 17 people have been arrested and are due for trial at the end of the census.

"This figure may change anytime," Dote had said. "The census has not ended because many public sector workers have not yet been counted."

The suspended ministers are also likely to appear in court, he said.

The government's decision to conduct a census followed a recent discovery of an inflated public sector wage bill. The census is also part of a wider effort to shore up the country’s battered economy, as it is a prerequisite for further World Bank loans to the country.