RUF leader criticises cabinet appointments

Revolutionary United Front leader Foday Sankoh criticised President Ahmad Tejan Kabbah on Thursday for not offering former rebel groups the ministries of justice, finance or foreign affairs in the new unity government. Kabbah has offered the Ministry of Trade and Industry, which his spokesman, Septimus Kaikai, said on Thursday was a senior portfolio, to former rebel Mike Lamine. Kaikai told IRIN that the determination of what constituted a senior ministry was Kabbah’s to make. Under the Lome peace treaty signed on 7 July between the rebels and the government, the rebels are to get “one of the senior cabinet appointments such as finance, foreign affairs and justice”. The government is interpreting the words “such as” to mean “for example”, Kaikai said. Sankoh told AFP on Thursday that this was “a wrong interpretation of the peace accord”.