Malabo – Equatorial Guinea’s president on Saturday said he had fired the country’s top judge after he confessed to being involved in a kickbacks scam altering expiry dates on food and pharmaceutical products.
Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, who has ruled the tiny oil rich central African state for almost 43 years, sacked Supreme Court head David Nguema Obiang Eyang over “irregularities committed in the exercise of his functions”, according to a decree read over state broadcaster TVGE.
Vice President Teodoro Nguema Obiang Mangue, the president’s son and heir, tweeted that Eyang had admitted receiving some 100 million CFA francs ($155 000) from Comercial Santy, one of the country’s biggest distributors to supermarkets and pharmacies.
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There was no indication if Eyang would face legal action over the scandal concerning Comercial Santy, which in June was found to have changed the expiry dates of foodstuffs and for selling unauthorised pharmaceutical products.
The family-run group, set up in 1960 eight years before independence from Spain, was fined 411 million CFA, while the products affected were impounded and destroyed.
The group’s supermarkets and chemists were also closed but have since re-opened, apparently without official authorisation.
Five other magistrates are being investigated in connection with the affair, according to TVGE.
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Source: AFP
Picture: Pixabay
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