Det nordlige Mali er nok blevet befriet fra oprørsgrupperne, men intet fungerer. I byerne hersker totalt kaos, og appeller til embedsmændene om at vende tilbage og få sat styr på tingene, har ikke hidtil haft megen virkning.
BAMAKO/GAO, 22 April 2013 (IRIN) – Residents in the northern Mali towns of Gao and Timbuktu are calling for the rapid return of officials to re-start basic services and help run their towns, which they say are in a state of “complete chaos”.
French, Chadian and Malian armies have ousted insurgent groups from most the main towns in the north, including Gao and Timbuktu, following a 10-month occupation. But despite an appeal from the federal government, only skeletal teams of administrators have returned to their posts.
In the absence of officials, town residents – including village elders, chiefs, women and youths – are working to operate basic services and clean up the damage as best they can.
Disarray
At the beginning of April, Gao’s governor and prefects returned, as did the director of the academy that oversees the region’s schools. In Timbuktu, the governor and two prefects are in place. Officials responsible for health, energy, education, planning and other programmes have yet to return.
For Kidal town, which is still under the control of the National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (MNLA), the government has named a governor and advisers, all of whom are still in Bamako, the capital, and the MNLA has nominated a governor of their own.
Almost all the regional services in Gao are in disarray, said Aliou Touré, a teacher from Gao town. “Health, agriculture, taxes, social development, police, civil protection, the treasury, the banks… all are in disarray… Officials must return to [put] their city back on track.”
The return of administrators would offer some reassurance of stability, and could deter any insurgents who remain at the outskirts of the town, he said.
Gao, Timbuktu and Kidal were all attacked in March and April by insurgents hidden in nearby villages.
The Minister of Internal Security, Gen Tiefing Konaté, promised last week that police would be re-deployed in Timbuktu before the end of April.
Oumar Sangaré, another teacher in Gao, is angry. “The administration has to return to sort things out. You can’t live like animals in a jungle, with no rules, no basic sanitation, no protection. Government and banking services must re-start immediately,” he said. “It’s complete chaos here.”
Government teachers must travel to Mopti, 500km away, to pick up their salaries, he said, due to the lack of banking services. “It’s ludicrous.”
While local and international aid groups are providing basic food, healthcare, water and sanitation and other essentials to many vulnerable people in northern regions, essential emergency programmes like large-scale fodder distributons and vaccination campaigns for livestock – critical as herders approach the lean season – require government oversight.
Self-organizing amid shortages
With so many civil servants displaced, the federal government has asked elders and village chiefs to set up management committees in Gao and Timbuktu to try to run things as best they can.
Touré, the teacher, said these committees were struggling: “They can’t continue their work because they don’t have the experience or the means.”
Women and youths formed a group in Gao to help clean up the town, said local journalist, Daouda Traoré.
Læs hele historien på http://www.irinnews.org/Report/97892/Plea-for-return-of-officials-to-northern-Mali
