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{{The World Bank Group has placed a ban on Zoomlion Ghana Limited for two years over alleged bribery in Liberia.}}

The bribery allegation involved the World Bank-financed Emergency Monrovia Urban Sanitation Project.

According to a report published on the World Bank’s website, Zoomlion paid bribes to facilitate contract execution and processing of invoices.

Accordingly, Zoomlion will not qualify for any contract financed by the World Bank Group for a period of two years.

The two-year ban took effect on September 24, 2013.

The World Bank said Zoomlion needed to demonstrate full and satisfactory compliance with the World Bank Integrity standards in order for the ban to be lifted.

The bank said Zoomlion had itself acknowledged wrongdoing and had accepted full responsibility.

“This is a case where a company under a World Bank investigation is demonstrating responsibility for wrongdoing by enforcing disciplinary action and committing to a new standard of integrity governing its operations,” said Leonard McCarthy, World Bank Integrity Vice President.

“Promoting this type of corporate responsibility while holding companies accountable for wrongdoing is one of the strategic pillars of the World Bank’s anticorruption strategy,” he added.

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{{Zimbabwe: The poaching syndicate that has been killing elephants by cyanide poisoning in the Hwange National Park has been operating for the past five years.}}

This was revealed by two members of the alleged syndicate when they appeared before Bulawayo magistrate Ms Gladmore Mushove on Thursday.

Clever Khumalo (44) and Sipho Mafu (54) are being charged with delivering, or offering toxic substances and also illegally possessing ivory in contravention of the Parks and Wildlife Act and the Environmental Management Act.

The two are jointly charged with Sanelisiwe Dube of 15099 Nkulumane 12 who is still at large. They were allegedly selling the ivory in

Harare and South Africa. In their warned and cautioned statements, Khumalo of 59864/2 Iminyela Flats and Mafu, of Pelandaba Village in Tsholotsho, said they committed the offence in the company of Mthandazo Tshuma, who is on the run and several other people from Bulawayo and Harare.

Khumalo said Mafu supplied him with 25kg of ivory in 2008 which he sold to a Mr Mutemwa in Harare for US$1 000. He said in 2010 he got 54kg of ivory from Tshuma of Binga and used it to make bangles which he sold in Cape Town, South Africa for US$13 000.

Khumalo said Mafu supplied him with 130kg of ivory in 2011, which he smuggled to South Africa using a cross border commuter omnibus operator commonly known as umalayitsha but alleged that he lost the consignment to robbers.

He said last year he was introduced to a person identified as Mr Albert Buzizi, a former teacher at Mpopoma High School, who supplied them with 50kg of cyanide, which they used to poison the jumbos.

Khumalo said he took the cyanide to Mafu’s homestead in Tsholotsho and in August last year, Mafu supplied him with 240kg of ivory after poisoning some elephants.

Some of the members of the syndicate, according to Khumalo, were a woman identified as Mrs Anna Moyo of Number 16734 Millas Road, Romney Park, Mr Daniel Mba who knew the buyer in Harare, Tshuma, a woman identified as Mai Rumbi from Harare, another woman identified as Anna Mvereche and his wife Ms Elfina Mzizi.

He said last year in August they used Mrs Moyo’s vehicle after she allegedly lied to her husband that she wanted a car to visit her ill sister in Kwekwe and the husband gave her a Toyota Hilux to use, not knowing that she had been hired to carry the ivory.

According to Khumalo and Mafu’s statements, the syndicate was intercepted by police in Harare and fled, leaving the vehicle, which was then impounded. They said some policemen led by an officer only identified as Gankata demanded US$10 000 bribe to release the vehicle after tracing it back to Mrs Moyo’s husband in Bulawayo.

The syndicate allegedly gave the police US$3 000 and three officers from Harare allegedly came to Bulawayo after seven days to collect the balance of US$7 000.

Khumalo and Ncube said a man identified as Gumbo was facilitating the transactions and when they accompanied the police officers back to Harare, they stopped in Norton when the officers phoned Gankata and they drove to his house with the money.

While in Harare, Khumalo and Mafu alleged that they slept at Cranborne Police Station at a cottage belonging to a policeman identified as Musoma.

Mafu told the police that after receiving the cyanide, he would either apply it on the soil where elephants spent time or in buckets full of water which he would submerge in the ground for jumbos to drink.

Mr Buzizi, whose statement was also recorded by the police, said he used to work at NFS Chemicals, a company which supplied different kinds of chemicals.

He said they would sell the cyanide only to people personally known to the company executives because they had no EMA certificate of storage and sale.

Mr Buzizi said he sold a drum of sodium cyanide to Dube because they were long time friends and she later gave it to Khumalo who then supplied it to Mafu.

He said Dube told him that they had a gold mine claim and wanted to use the cyanide at the mine. Khumalo and Mafu will next appear in court on 8 October and they are remanded in custody.

Mafu also has another case of hunting without authority and violating EMA Act, in which he is jointly charged with his brother, Misheck and Farai Chitsa, and they will next appear in court on 4 October.

At least 87 elephants were killed by poisoning at Hwange National Park, Africa’s third largest wildlife sanctuary after Serengeti in Tanzania and Kruger in South Africa .

Three of the poachers Robert Maposa (42), Thabani Zondo (24) and Dedani Tshuma (25) were on Wednesday sentenced to 16 years in prison each for illegal possession of ivory and contravening Section 73 (1) of EMA Act.

Maposa and Zondo were further ordered to pay US$600 000 restitution to the Zimbabwe National Parks and Wildlife Management Authority by 31 December 2013 while Tshuma was further asked to pay US$200 000 by the same date.

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{{The Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court has threatened legal action against anyone instigating violence during Guinea’s legislative polls held on Saturday.}}

Ms Fatou Bensouda’s threat comes at a time when the country’s political temperature is high following deadly clashes last week.

This is also compounded by rumours of an imminent coup d’état in reports published by a reputed French newspaper.

The Gambia-born prosecutor warned that the court will prosecute those who will directly or indirectly instigate violence throughout the voting process.

“I would like to solemnly remind the public that anyone trying to instigate violence disrupts order or help in any way to commit crimes will be prosecuted by the court,” she said in a statement on Friday.

She appealed to Guineans to remain law-abiding and conduct themselves in a peaceful manner during the voting process.

It can be recalled that scores of prodemocracy protestors were killed by the Dadis Camara-led military junta as they protested against his ambition to stick to power.

Guinea has held elections Saturday to pick 114 lawmakers in a poll earlier postponed several times since President Alpha Condé won a controversial poll in 2010.

September 28 remains a very symbolic date in the political history of Guinea since it was on that date when the late President Ahmed Sekou Touré grabbed independence from France.

To date, Guineans are very proud of Mr Touré’s slogan countering General Charles de Gaulle of France: “we prefer to live freely in poverty than to be rich in slavery,” at the time Guinea moved out the French community.

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{{Sudan will not reverse its decision to hike fuel prices despite days of deadly protests and criticism from within the ruling party, Information Minister Ahmed Bilal Osman said. }}

“No, it is not possible at all. This is the only way out,” Osman told reporters in an interview on Sunday.

The near-doubling of petrol and diesel prices last Monday sparked the worst unrest in the 24-year history of President Omar al-Bashir’s regime.

Authorities say 33 people have died over the past week, but activists and international human rights groups say at least 50 have been gunned down, mostly in greater Khartoum.

Osman said authorities had to intervene when crowds turned violent.

“This is not (a) demonstration,” he said. “They attacked the gas stations. They burned about 21.”

Osman said the government knew “riots” would occur if the cost of fuel went up but the reduction of subsidies on petroleum will save billions of dollars.

“Our economy cannot tolerate such support,” he said. “We have to carry on. We know it is a bit heavy for the people.”

Call for measure end

Sunday’s statement comes as a retort to calls by Islamic religious leaders and ruling party reformers for the government to cease fuel price increases which sparked a wave of deadly protests.

“We advise the government to turn back to God and provide justice for all Sudanese people, Muslim and non-Muslim,” the unofficial group of Muslim leaders – who often criticise the regime from straying from Islam – said in a statement late Saturday.

The increase in cost of fuel, which followed a similar hike last year, came as part of a series of government austerity measures trying to stabilise a stricken economy.

Sudan has lost approximately three quarters of its oil production when South Sudan became independent in 2011.

At present, more than two million people live in poverty in the region with 300,000 living without proper access to food or water.

Source: AFP