Burkina Faso: President Kafando asks civil society to consider government as 'servant'

Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso (PANA) – Burkina Faso's acting president, Michel Kafando, has in a meeting with the civil society organisations on Tuesday asked them to consider his team as their “servants”.

"Let’s consider ourselves as your servants," president Kafando told dozens of civil society organizations he received at the lecture room of the presidency in Ouagadougou.

According to president Kafando, members of his government were guided by a spirit of "patriotism".

"If we are here (at the presidency), it is because (the people) have decided to oust a regime which they did not want." President Blaise Compaore was ousted by popular uprising after he tried to amend the constitution to contest the presidential election again despite being in power for 27 years.

The Burkina Faso acting president, however, called for leniency from civil society, for "we have arrived as new leaders".

"We are open to criticisms … but let them be positive criticisms," he said.

Since the formation of the interim government by Prime minister Yacouba Isaac Zida, a minister who failed to prosecute the alleged murderers of a journalist, Norbert Zongo, as well as several state-owned and private company managers have been forced out of office by demonstrators.

In his New Year address to the nation, president Kafando said that there would be no place for "unjustifiable" remarks intended to "intimidate" the government.
-0- PANA NDT/TBM/MSA/MA 6Jan2015