Mali's New Premier to Focus on Security, Reconciliation
Mali's new prime minister said on Wednesday he was forming a government which would prioritize security and reconciliation as the deeply-divided nation recovers from months of ruinous conflict.
Former planning minister Moussa Mara, 39, was promoted to the premiership on Saturday after Mali's first post-war prime minister Oumar Tatam Ly quit just six months into office.
Mara, 39, said that "the safety of all Malians wherever they are, and on the whole national territory" would be the focus of his administration as he gave his first public address.
Reconciliation is also at the top of the agenda, he said at a ceremony transferring the premiership in Bamako, adding that Malians needed "to mend the social fabric that has been particularly traumatized by the troubles of the previous years".
President Ibrahima Boubacar Keita's office gave no reason for the resignation of Ly and his ministers, but it later emerged that the outgoing prime minister had become frustrated over being unable to enact reforms in the administration.
Mara said he wanted to strengthen governance and public services, improving relations between citizens and the state.
"We will lead the government with the mindset of absolute integrity among its members," he said, promising loyalty to Keita.
Mara is expected to announce his cabinet team by the end of the week.
The new administration will be expected to make good on the president's pledge when he was inaugurated last September to unite Mali, get the economy back on track and end endemic corruption.
Keita's landslide victory in the first presidential polls since 2007 was seen as crucial for unlocking more than $4 billion (2.9 billion euros) in aid promised by international donors who halted contributions in the wake of Mali's 2012 coup.
Army officers angry at the level of support they had received to combat a separatist Tuareg rebellion in Mali's vast desert north overthrew the democratically elected government of president Amadou Toumani Toure on March 22, 2012.
In the chaos that followed, the Tuareg seized control of an area larger than France before being ousted by Al-Qaida-linked groups which imposed a brutal interpretation of Islamic law on the local population, carrying out punitive amputations and executions.
Their actions drew worldwide condemnation and prompted France to launch a military offensive at Mali's behest in January last year that ousted the Islamists.
Source: Agence France Presse
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