ABIDJAN (Reuters) - Legislators in Ivory Coast have proposed a general inquiry into corruption in the world's top cocoa grower, focussing on rampant graft in the cocoa export sector and continued diamond smuggling.
Kobenen Adjoumani, president of parliament's commission for graft cases, said the inquiry would also investigate claims of theft of public funds by interior minister Desire Tagro, but this investigation was separate from a judicial inquiry ordered against him last week.
President Laurent Gbagbo ordered an inquiry on June 19 into allegations Tagro stole cash from public programmes, including compensation for victims of a toxic waste dumping and cash advanced by French security company SAGEM, owned by Safran, for election registration logistics.
Tagro is also accused of stacking the National Police Academy with members of his own tribe.
Adjoumani said Gbagbo loyalists in parliament were proposing a parallel investigation with a wider reach that would probe the notoriously opaque cocoa industry, a supplier of roughly 40 percent of the world market, and official and rebel collusion in diamond smuggling.
Allegations of corruption and mismanagement culminated in the arrest of senior cocoa industry figures in mid-2008.
"On July 7 we will work on fraud at the police academy and on the 14th, we'll look at diamonds and cocoa," he said. "This is our right as overseers of the executive".
Parliament's mandate ran out in 2005 and it has no real legitimacy in the absence of fresh elections, but it can make recommendations to press charges based on its findings.
Despite a U.N. embargo on diamond exports, a lucrative trade in stones has flourished, especially in rebel-held areas. Analysts say profits from the business have made rebels more reluctant to comply with vows to disarm and restore government control.
Some critics see these inquiries as an attempt to sow chaos that could further delay elections which are needed to end the country's political crisis but are already years overdue.
Gbagbo's supporters say he has always made clean governance his priority and is determined to take action.
