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CAPE VERDE: Clandestine housing squeezes cities

Sat, 08 Nov 2008 09:14:17 GMT

Saturday, November 08, 2008

Illegal housing precariously built on the volcanic archipelago of Cape Verde threatens to increase erosion, land disputes, disease, flooding, and crime, according to the government and its NGO partners who are trying to contain the damage of clandestine urban sprawl.

Cape Verde’s population is estimated at close to 500,000 for 2008, with about 125,000 living in the capital Praia on the island of Santiago, according to the government’s National Statistics Institute.

Vicious cycle

Sara Lopes, Minister of Decentralisation, Housing and Land Management, told IRIN successive droughts and persistent unemployment have pushed people from Cape Verde’s eight inhabited islands into Santiago, overwhelming unprepared city officials: “The municipality of Praia has not planned well. Up until now, land has been developed without any planning.”

Lopes said if structures are not in place to allow people to rent or buy land, they build: “At night, they mark a plot and start building, basically by ‘junta mao’ [Creole phrase for “hands together,” communal work].”

In Safende and Calabaceira in the north section of Praia, the Italian NGO Africa 70 estimates that only five percent of the homes are legally built, based on its 2005 figures.

Consequences

Pointing out the homes that scale the hilly terrain of Safende, Africa 70’s architect Gian Paolo Lucchi told IRIN haphazardly planned housing poses immediate physical dangers: “You see that dirt staircase? Can that staircase support fire fighters answering an emergency? Are these homes strong enough to survive the inevitable dirt avalanche caused by erosion from the illegal housing being built farther up the valley?”

Lucchi said precarious housing, even when built with solid cement or brick materials, disrupts a community: “It will be hard to build roads since there was no planning. No roads and no drainage means more flooding. ” He said in the past two years, flooding shut down schools.

He added that illegal settlements can lead to disease outbreaks: “Drainage and roads are the essential elements to urbanisation. Its absence can create conditions for [waterborne] diseases, and worsen flooding in coming years.”

Housing Minister Lopes said the situation is worse in the islands of Sal and Boa Vista: “You don’t see it so much here [Santiago], but the houses [in Sal and Boa Vista] are made of plastic and tin.”

Clandestine poor

Based on a May 2008 government anti-poverty strategy paper, about 25 percent of the national population lives in absolute poverty. Five years ago, the World Bank estimated this rate was 37 percent.

Brothers Orlando Jose and Jose Armindo Dias Bareto, 50 and 44 years respectively, told IRIN they have lived in Safende for more than 20 years. Orlando Jose said none of their neighbours live in legal housing: “The government occasionally arrests people who cannot show housing permits, which is most everyone here.”

Minister Lopes told IRIN: “At some point the government has to say ‘enough’.” But when asked if tenants squatting illegally are violating the rights of the municipal government, the minister responded: “Yes, but they [the city of Praia] are also violating the right of residents. [If] Praia doesn’t plan, people build.”

Depleting city resources

Lopes said illegal settlements have worsened the already tough energy problems facing the island: “How can we extend the electrical network with so many clandestine neighbourhoods? You can get a contract with [state electricity company] Electra only if you have a certificate of occupancy.”

As a result, people steal electricity, said Lopes: “If they [tenants in illegal housing] have electricity, and they often do, it is illegal, ‘clandestine plugging in’….So much electricity is stolen. It is awful. They [tenants] damage cables, they break cables.”

Lopes said the government passed a law in October criminalising energy theft.

Power cuts increased by 15 percent between 2003 and 2006, according to the government.

The minister said people living in illegal housing also do not pay the three percent tax the state should collect on the value of a building -- money that goes toward construction, sanitation and other city services.

Response

The state Institute of Housing Promotion estimates that tens of thousands of homes need to be built and rehabilitated, especially on the island of Sal. Lopes told IRIN the government is launching a yet-to-be financed urbanisation management programme in 2009, which includes a national housing needs survey, land regulation reforms, and environmental protection in urban areas.

Lopes said changes are already underway: “We must legalise [well constructed] houses [that do not block roads.] If it’s a good house, leave it.”

But for architect Lucchi, housing and land reforms must address not only physical structures, but also social security: “To manage urbanisation and prevent land disputes, erosion and other physical damages, yes it will take judicial and administrative reforms. But then you will still have a concentration of poor people on one piece of land. You will need more than bricks and concrete to transform that community.”

IRIN

CAPE VERDE: Money laundering taints economic growth

Tue, 04 Nov 2008 08:41:16 GMT

Tuesday, November 04, 2008

Faced with a growing number of drug trafficking, money laundering and organised crime investigations, the head of Cape Verde’s judiciary police told IRIN his agents may know who the traffickers and money launderers are, but do not have enough resources to catch them all.

Oscar Silva dos Reis Tavares, who directs high-level crime investigations at the judiciary police, told IRIN his agents are handling 150 investigations, including 10 money laundering cases. But the police should be looking into more, he said: “We can’t just go up to someone on the street and use what they say as evidence in a court of law. This is a small community. People may know who earns money illegally, but we need proof.”

In the past five years, the islands have increasingly been used as a transit point for drugs coming from Latin America, destined for Europe and West Africa, according to the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC).

Minister of Justice Marisa Morais told IRIN Cape Verde’s geography has left it open to transatlantic traffickers: “Our geographical location is both a privilege and a threat.”

Based on government records, Cape Verde, with a growing tourist economy, controls more than 700,000sqkm of water that include 10 islands and eight islets with 1000km of volcanic, at times difficult to access, coastline.

But despite a recent jump in tourism dollars, the government reported about 10 percent of its population living in extreme poverty as of May 2008. Illegal housing settlements continue spreading out in northern Praia neighbourhoods like Safende, Calabaceira, and San Pedro, which lack drainage, roads and easy access to water.

Mirage of economic growth

In a recent UNODC report, researchers wrote that what appears as legitimate economic growth in some West African countries may be explained through the drug trade: “Once the channels for disguising drug money have been established,” wrote UN researchers, “they can be used for concealing all manner of criminal proceedings.”

According to the 2008 African Development Bank and Organization of Economic Development report for Cape Verde, its economy grew more than 10 percent in 2006, in large part from tourism investments, which increased more than tenfold from 2004-2006 to $509 million. Since then, the government has passed legislation to attract additional foreign investment.

Josep Coll, European Commission ambassador in Cape Verde, told IRIN legitimate foreign investments can be undermined by money laundering: “Yes, we can have the mirage of a booming economy, but this is false if there are illegal investments, condemned by international law, in the mix which lead to unfair competition.”

Coll said Cape Verde’s economic growth reflects legitimate investments. But if the government is not careful, he added, money laundering can force these businesses to fight against much more well-financed illegal business fronts funded by drug dollars: “If an economy is based on businesses with questionable [illegal] funding sources, then growth is not sustainable.”

Economists call this the “Dutch disease” effect, when illicit businesses generate more money and jobs than the legal economy.

Proof missing

Police chief Tavares told IRIN the country’s crime lab has limited chemical analysis capabilities and relies on analyses conducted in Portugal for investigations. But it is more than lab improvements that are needed, said Tavares. “It has been impossible to pin down one of the most well-known traffickers here [Cape Verde] when we don’t have phone recording equipment to investigate."

IRIN spoke with several Cape Verdeans who described an arts patron, businessman and alleged local drug baron, “Joy.” The problem, said Tavares, is catching him: “We can’t dismantle organised crime based on rumours. But we do what we can.”

Iceberg?

The number of organised, drug and money laundering cases jumped from 19 to 60 between 2007 and 2008. There may be more, said Tavares: “We don’t know if we are addressing 10 percent or 90 percent of the problem. It may be the tip of the iceberg, or we may be at the base.”

Tavares said in the last four years, the government has frozen 12 accounts worth more than US$1 million as a part of ongoing high-level crime investigations. He added that since 2007, the government has seized $1 million worth of land and homes, and cars worth more than $622,000.

The Ministry of Justice created a money laundering investigation unit January of 2008, and on 31 October passed legislation to make it easier to prosecute such cases.

Though legislation criminalised money laundering in Cape Verde in 2002, the most recent amendment requires for the first time that those working in financial transactions, including lawyers, bill collectors, auditors and accountants, report any suspicion of money laundering.

In passing the amendment, Cape Verde’s Council of Ministers wrote that money laundering in Cape Verde is “connected to a circuit of organised crime, such as traffic of arms, people, drugs.”

When asked to quantify trafficked contraband circulating in Cape Verde, Justice Minister Morais pointed to the Atlantic Ocean behind the Praia hotel where she spoke at a recent high-level ministerial conference on drug crimes: “How big is our problem? Well, how big is the ocean?”

IRIN

WEST AFRICA: Clandestine cannabis farmers feed growing drug abuse

Sat, 01 Nov 2008 10:32:28 GMT

Saturday, November 01, 2008

Farmers in West Africa are turning to cannabis as a quick cash crop, feeding the biggest illegal drug market in the world. UN Office on Drugs and Crime’s (UNODC) director for West Africa, Antonio Mazzitelli, told IRIN clandestine farmers are lured by quick earnings: “Faced with the choice of cannabis or cassava, some choose easy money.”

Of an estimated 42,000 metric tons of cannabis grown worldwide in 2006 – sold as marijuana or hashish – 25 percent was grown in Africa where it is the most common drug of abuse and cultivation, according to the most recent UN World Drug Report.

Liberia’s Deputy Minister of Justice Joseph Jalloh told IRIN at a high-level drug conference in Cape Verde on 29 October that marijuana abuse spread during Liberia´s civil conflict from 1989 to 2003, and is now an increasingly popular cash crop: “Within three months, farmers see profits verses seven years for rubber, or three years with palm [ingredient for oil].”

Jalloh said farmers are turning to highly profitable cannabis farming, which relies on cheap labour and low set-up costs, to feed the high demand among youths for relatively inexpensive marijuana.

The street value of cannabis grown in West Africa annually is about US$600 million, according to the UN. Most of it stays in the region, with only a small amount sold to Europe, according to an October 2008 UN report that links increased drug trafficking in West Africa to growing drug abuse.

A director of Ghana’s Narcotics Control Board, Micheal Addo, told IRIN agents destroyed 660kg of cannabis plants in September.

The executive director of Gambia´s DEA told IRIN one ton of cannabis was destroyed in 2007.

Facing down farmers

Starting in June 2008, Liberia’s Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA), with support from the UN police, reported burning more than 400,000 cannabis plants over four months in the central Liberian Bong county, 100km northeast of the capital Monrovia, and Nimba county, 150km from Monrovia near the Guinea border.

DEA reported seizing some 20,000kg of already-harvested marijuana in 2007.

DEA’s director, James B. Jaddah, said the raids would not have been possible without military backup: “We have known about these farms for some time, but you can’t just storm them without weapons. We did not know the resistance we would face. Some of these are ex-fighters [from the civil war] who held on to their weapons [during disarmament programmes].”

Jaddah said government regulations allow only a specially trained police unit to carry weapons, so drug agents must rely on the UN for protection. “We are able to arrest drug dealers. Not all dealers have weapons. But it is different with potentially violent farmers in remote areas. They are likely to protect their property with guns.”

When asked how the government can prevent farmers from replanting cannabis after raids, the Ministry of Justice’s Jalloh said the agency does not even know who the farmers are: “It’s not like the farmers are waiting for us when we show up to burn their fields. They have workers on the farm, but the owners have fled or are based far from their farms. If we don’t know who they are, the government cannot retrain them to take up other livelihoods.”

Easy money

Jalloh said cannabis farmers must be prosecuted. “These farmers could have planted things our country actually needs, like coffee, rice or pineapple. We don’t have enough food for our people and they go and plant marijuana because of greed. Rice takes work. It is not easy money. But at least it can feed people, rather than an underground economy.”

Liberians are among the hungriest people in the world, according to the 2008 Global Hunger Index, a situation that has changed little since 1990.

During its first raid on marijuana farms, Liberia´s DEA destroyed about 438,000 plants based on hectares destroyed, the agency estimates.

The challenge is wiping cannabis out for good, said Deputy Justice Minister Jalloh. “We will send in people, both openly and undercover, to monitor the [burnt cannabis] fields. But the agency has only three cars, and about 70 men total. It will be difficult.”

Regional problem

At the conclusion of the ministerial drug control conference from 26 to 29 October in Cape Verde’s capital Praia, West African ministers adopted a regional political declaration on drug trafficking, organised crimes and drug abuse.

An action plan lays out steps to fight growing drug abuse in the region through detoxification centres, job training and prevention, among other activities.

But UNODC´s top director, Antonio Costa, told conference attendees that the challenge is now to find funding during a global financial fallout to turn “words on paper to deeds on the ground.”

IRIN

WEST AFRICA: Drug seizures tip of “cocaine iceberg” – UN

Thu, 30 Oct 2008 08:49:09 GMT

Thursday, October 30, 2008

The head of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) has warned West African government ministers of the corruptive power of drug trafficking, saying it “pervert[s] weak economies” and compromises political elites.

UNODC Executive Director Antonio Costa told participants at a ministerial conference in Cape Verde, closing on 29 October, that drug trafficking threatens public health and security.

In a report on drug trafficking and security in West Africa released on 28 October, UN authors wrote: “[C]ocaine trafficking adds spark to an already highly flammable tinder, and the security implications are real.”

Based on data from the France-based international police organisation, Interpol, the UN estimates that about 50 tons of cocaine worth US$1.8 billion is trafficked through West Africa to Europe annually.

UNODC links this traffic to an increase in violence, smuggling of small arms, and a steady growth in crime and perception of corruption in affected West African countries.

Most of the drugs entered West Africa since 2004 through Guinea-Bissau or near Ghana by sea, or were seized in Senegal, Nigeria, Mali and Guinea on commercial flights, according to the UN report, “Drug Trafficking as a Security Threat in West Africa”.

Dirty money

In recent years foreign money has poured in to cash-strapped countries, its source suspected to be the drug trade, according to the West African anti-money laundering group, GIABA.

Guinea-Bissau had $42 million in foreign investments in 2006, totalling one-sixth of its total budget, according to the UN. In six years, foreign investment to neighbouring Guinea increased tenfold. Both countries have been identified as drug hubs by Interpol and the UN.

In addition to possible money laundering, the head of Interpol’s drug investigations unit, Stephen Brown, told IRIN there is a legitimate parallel economy that has sprung up to support trafficking.

“This very legal economy feeds traffickers’ demands,” he said. “Duct tape manufacturers for endless drug-packing needs. People in these industries who see their incomes climb will once again be broke if we are successful and shut down trafficking operations. We have seen these people turn to illegal activities to maintain their drug-inflated incomes.”

Cape Verde

Experts say the conference host, Cape Verde, is increasingly showing signs of trafficking’s destructive effects, despite an increase in government efforts over the past four years to fight back.

European Union ambassador to Cape Verde, Josep Coll, told IRIN the country is at risk of slipping from its good governance perch if trafficking continues unfettered: “Cape Verde is facing a difficult situation because drug traffickers are already affecting the fundamental forces of good governance and the state’s ability to develop sustainably.”

The new UN report says most of the couriers -- drug "mules" who either swallowed drugs or hid them on their bodies and luggage -- arrested in former colonial power Portugal in 2007 were Cape Verdean.

Cape Verde’s Minister of Justice Marisa Morais told IRIN the government is acting as quickly as possible to contain the threat. “Fighting money laundering is the best way the government can cut off traffickers’ money flow,” she told IRIN.

But Interpol’s Brown told IRIN legal reforms are often too slow to control the damage from trafficking: “Drug trafficking is like an army of ants. Once you set up the barricade, it’s too late.”

But he said governments must react, nevertheless, or be faced with drug barons gaining undue power. “No, we cannot end trafficking. But we can disrupt it. Yes it will happen elsewhere eventually, but that is no reason to give up. Even if preventing one murder won’t stop all murders, that is still one life we are saving.”

IRIN

CAPE VERDE: Tourism boom carries hidden cost of increasing HIV

Thu, 10 May 2007 05:31:43 GMT

Thursday, May 10, 2007

CAPE VERDE: Tourism boom carries hidden cost of increasing HIV

The white sandy beaches, inland salt formations and volcanic landscapes of Sal island, in the Cape Verde archipelago, off the coast of Senegal in West Africa, have been drawing in tourists from across the world, but experts warn that it has become vulnerable to the spread of HIV/AIDS.

The boom in Sal's tourism industry, fed by an international airport that used to be the only one in the island chain until a few years ago, has been the backbone of the country's sturdy economic growth of around seven percent per year.

Charter flights and package deals make access even easier for tourists, mainly from Europe, who flock to stay in the picturesque beachside town of Santa Maria, where widespread construction is further proof of increasing confidence in the economy.

When Cape Verde, a cluster of 10 islands and five islets with a population of less than half a million, gained independence from Portugal in 1975, many questioned the country's economic viability without the colonial power, but over time it has prospered.

"At the moment, the key sector is tourism," the country's president, Pedro Pires, told IRIN/PlusNews. "Cape Verde has become an interesting tourist destination for lots of other countries, European nationals in particular. In accord with these demands, the tourism sector in Cape Verde is being developed."

Although Cape Verde's capital city, Praia, is situated on Santiago Island, Sal is the wealthiest island - unemployment is at 12 percent compared to the national average of around 24 percent - with a relatively low rate of poverty.

Cape Verdians as well as foreigners are lured to Sal by the promise of work and business opportunities, prompting annual population growth estimated by local officials at 6.7 percent, against a 1.5 percent natural increase.

"With the tourism and construction boom, we are importing poor people from other islands. We also have immigration from [West] Africa and Europe," said Jorge Figueiredo, president of Sal's local government administration and a medical doctor.

Low prevalence, high risk

Unlike its continental neighbours, Cape Verde's average HIV prevalence rate is less than one percent and so far has been spared an epidemic of the disease. Statistics from the Praia-based Committee of Coordination and Combating AIDS (CCS-Sida), the national anti-AIDS body, indicate that Sal is one of the least-affected islands.

In 2005, 16 new cases were reported in Sal, compared to 32 on the island of Sao Vicente and 165 on Santiago, the main island. Some 223 new cases were reported in Cape Verde as a whole.

But Sal is among the islands most at risk of the spread of HIV, along with Boa Vista and Sao Vicente, where international airports will open this year. Sal's at-risk populations, particularly in Santa Maria, where most tourists stay, include commercial sex workers, drug users and vulnerable children.

"We receive around 160,000 tourists per year in Sal. As we know, HIV is linked directly to sexual behaviour. So, naturally, the danger of transmission grows with this flow of tourists," said Figueiredo. "Sal is extremely vulnerable, even if statistics don't show it."

Prevention is better than cure

Of the people known to be living with HIV in Sal, some are foreigners and one is a child, infected by mother to child transmission. Four people, all adults, are receiving antiretroviral treatment, which is provided free to anyone who needs it, including those in country illegally.

Carla Andrade, a medical doctor and the local government's health delegate, says efforts in Sal are focused on the prevention of mother to child transmission, sensitising the population and encouraging people, especially pregnant women, to be tested.

"We would like to increase the number of tests we carry out. The rate of testing among pregnant women is good but we would like 100 percent of pregnant women to be tested," she said.

National data in 2005 showed that over 70 percent of men and around 45 percent of women used condoms when they had high-risk sex, but Andrade said condoms were not always used, many people had multiple partners, and the virus was still mostly spread by sexual contact.

"We can say between 80 to 85 percent of HIV-positive people are infected through sexual transmission ... We speak about prevention, about using condoms, but we see that often people don't use them."

Source: PlusNews

Abdou Jammeh seals Russia deal

Thu, 12 Apr 2007 08:31:45 GMT

Thursday, April 12, 2007

Abdou Jammeh, commonly known as T-Boy, former Steve Biko and FC Zarzis defender has signed a one-year deal with Textile Telecom FC, a first division side in Russia, Observer Sports has confirmed.

Jammeh will have an option of extending his deal upon expiry.

Jammeh moved to Russia after the expiration of his two-year deal with the Tunisian giants, FC Zarzis.

During his two-year sting in Tunisia, the prolific Jammeh inspired his Zarzis side to clinch the 2004/05 FA Cup title.

The versatile defender was also instrumental in Gambia’s 2-0 home victory over Cape Verde in Scorpions’ first game in the 2008 Nations Cup qualifier campaign.

Author: Written by Nanama Keita

Source: The Daily Observer