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Ivory Coast to form new government after toxic scandal
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Ivory Coast to form new government after toxic scandal
Ivory Coast’s Prime minister Charles Konan Banny was due to form a new government yesterday, a day after his cabinet resigned over the dumping of toxic waste that has killed three people and made hundreds ill.
Banny offered the resignation of his cabinet to President Laurent Gbagbo during an emergency meeting in the political capital Yamoussoukro. Gbagbo asked Banny to form a new government in the world’s top cocoa grower and said those responsible for the dumping of the waste must be hunted down. “All the managers at the port of Abidjan, the Transport Ministry, the Environment and Waters Ministry, the Abidjan district authorities must be punished if they are guilty,” Banny told Gbagbo at the meeting.
Authorities said the pungent waste, which contained hydrogen sulphide, was unloaded from a Panamanian-registered ship at Abidjan port on August 19 and then dumped in at least eight sites around the densely populated lagoon-side city.
The government said three people had died and 1,500 had fallen ill. Hospitals struggled to cope, running low on medicines and X-ray machines. Environmentalists say developing countries are often targeted for the dumping of toxic waste because of weak regulation and corrupt local officials. Greenpeace said in a report that accidents or exposure to toxic waste had killed hundreds of people in developing countries such as India, Pakistan and China, especially in the ship-breaking industry.
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