[ 2012-09-03 ]

Ivory Coast's 'violent and corrupt' universities reopen
ABIDJAN (AFP) - Ivory Coast's President Alassane
Ouattara on Monday reopened one of the country's
universities in Abidjan, after a closure of almost
one and a half years and major renovation work on
the campuses.

"The universities had become a place of violence
and corruption... The decision to close them was
one of the most difficult to take, but it was
necessary," Ouattara said at the newly baptised
Felix Houphouet-Boigny University in the plush
Cocody district of the economic capital, named for
the west African country's founding president.

"Investing in universities is what brings the
highest development rewards," he added, amid the
new amphitheatres, dorms and sports facilities.

The head of state symbolically presented the keys
of each university to their deans, who will decide
when classes begin.

"I am happy to hear that there will no longer be
machetes and stones in the universities...
Students need to understand that going to
university is a stage in life and not a way of
life," Prime Minister Jeannot Ahoussou-Kouadio
said last week.

That was a warning to the powerful student union
Fesci, which was long allied with the regime of
ousted president Laurent Gbagbo (2000-2011), and
which was considered responsible for racketeering
and violence on campuses.

Closing the universities was one of Ouattara's
first decisions on taking power in April 2011
after a post-electoral crisis following Gbagbo's
refusal to admit defeat at the polls, which
claimed some 3,000 lives.

The cost of renovating the country's five
universities was officially estimated at 110
billion CFA francs (168 million euros, $211
million).

Ouattara has ordered a probe into the conditions
of tenders made for the work done in Abidjan and
sacked the financial director in the ministry of
higher education.

Source - AFP

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