Kenya can turn corner in six months-Odinga
NAIROBI, March 1 (Reuters) - Kenya can restore confidence among international investors and lure back tourists within six months if the coalition government agreed this week can get down to work, the country’s future prime minister said on Saturday.
Opposition leader Raila Odinga will take the post of prime minister under a power-sharing deal with President Mwai Kibaki intended to bring to an end two months of violence and political turmoil that have cost Kenya its reputation for stability.
Tourism, the country’s biggest foreign exchange earner worth nearly $1 billion last year, has all but collapsed since television footage of violent mobs on the rampage was beamed around the world.
Beach resorts on the Indian Ocean coast and safari operators inland are begging for customers, while the Kenyan currency, the shilling, has fluctuated wildly before bouncing back after Odinga and Kibaki signed their deal on Thursday.
The violence erupted after Kibaki was sworn in as president after Dec. 27 elections that Odinga said were rigged, a charge Kibaki denied. More than 1,000 people were killed and 300,000 forced to flee their homes.
Odinga said that now that the dispute over the elections had been resolved, calm had returned to the country and people could start going back to work in the coming days.
Soothing international nerves might take a little longer, the Orange Democratic Movement leader told Reuters in an interview at his party headquarters in Nairobi.
“It’s going to require quite a bit of campaigning internationally to restore the confidence of the international community in Kenya. Because it is also going to depend on how fast the coalition government gets to work,” Odinga said.
‘TURN THE CORNER’
“But I know that it is possible to campaign successfully and that within six months we should be able to turn the corner and to see that tourism is back ... and also investor confidence in the country generally is restored.”
Parliament meets on Thursday to ratify the power-sharing plan mediated by former U.N. secretary general Kofi Annan.
Odinga said the country would require international help with reconstruction after the upheavals of the last two months.
“Reconstruction is going to require quite a bit of funding, which is out of reach of this government, so we are going to need some assistance from our international friends,” he said.
He was grateful to British Prime Minister Gordon Brown for offering to convene an international aid donors’ conference and hoped other countries would follow suit.
Odinga, whose fractious relationship with Kibaki will be put to the test when he starts work as prime minister, said he would be responsible for carrying out reforms and making sure the government runs efficiently.
This would mean attacking bureaucracy and corruption with a view to winning back confidence locally and among international aid donors and investors, Odinga said.
It would also be necessary to hold meetings with leaders of Kenya’s polarised ethnic communities to start the process of reconciliation.
“We are also going to need public lectures in order to inculcate the values of unity among our people,” he said.
Tribal difference had been exacerbated by discrimination in giving people jobs in the public sector and this too would have to be addressed, Odinga said.
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