Gabon president pledges inheritance to charity

Gabon's President Ali Bongo has pledged to give his share of the inheritance from his father to charity and said his family was also handing over properties including a villa in the capital, Libreville, and two homes in Paris to the state.

The pledge came after France opened an investigation earlier this month into Bongo's chief of staff, Maixent Accrombessi, on suspicion he took a bribe from a French company that makes military uniforms. Bongo's office criticized the investigation as an attempt to humiliate Accrombessi.

Two French judges have also been probing the source of money spent in France on luxury homes and mansions by Omar Bongo, Equatorial Guinea's President Teodoro Obiang Nguema and Congo-Brazzaville's President Denis Sassou Nguesso. The charges were brought by Transparency International, an anti-corruption campaign group, which alleges several African leaders and their relatives spent state funds from their countries on lavish purchases in France.

Bongo has led the central African oil producer since winning a 2009 election that followed the death of his father, longtime President Omar Bongo.

The Bongo family's wealth is believed to include millions of dollars held in foreign bank accounts, real estate and stakes in Gabon's main industries. 

Gabon's oil wealth has put its per capita gross domestic product among the highest in Africa and the World Bank ranks it as an upper middle-income country. However, wealth is unevenly distributed and while the World Bank reports a GDP of $11,571 per capita based on data for 2013, it estimates that one in three Gabonese citizens is living below the poverty line of $1.25 a day.

Ali Bongo made the announcement about his inheritance in a speech broadcast on state-owned television late on Monday to mark the 55th anniversary of independence from France. He said the decision was in honor of his father.

"All the revenues from my share of the inheritance will go to a foundation for youth and education because everyone knows — and I say it again — that the youth were sacred in the eyes of President Omar Bongo Ondimba," he said.

Omar Bongo's heirs had together agreed to hand over to the Gabonese state a villa in Libreville that would house a university, he added.

Two private homes in the 7th and 8th arrondissements of central Paris that had belonged to the late president would also be handed over to the state for "cultural and diplomatic use," Bongo said. He added that he and his siblings would give the two properties to the state for "a symbolic franc."

Gabon maintained excellent relations with France during the elder Bongo's four- decade rule under a system known as "Francafrique," whereby France gave political and military support to leaders of its former African colonies in exchange for business favors. The relationship has since cooled amid the French investigations.

Wire services