/ 15 August 2006

President names new E Guinea prime minister

President Teodoro Obiang Nguema of Equatorial Guinea on Monday named Ricardo Mangue Obama Nfubea the country’s new Prime Minister and asked him to form a government, national television said.

Mangue Obama Nfubea’s predecessor, Miguel Abia Biteo Borico, and the whole government of the West African state, sub-Saharan Africa’s third-largest oil producer, had resigned on Thursday.

Mangue Obama Nfubea (45) is the first member of the country’s ethnic Fang to become prime minister since the country’s independence in 1968. The Fang make up 80% of its population.

He has held several ministerial posts and was also deputy prime minister in his predecessor’s Cabinet.

Obiang had sharply criticised Abia Biteo Borico over the past few months, for corruption and incompetence in particular, and a change of government had been widely expected. — Sapa-AFP