While Prime Minister Mohamed Beavogui is gone, Guinea’s military junta has appointed an interim leader Bernard Gomou, state television said late Saturday.
The reason for Beavogui’s leave of absence or the duration of his absence were not specified in the notice.
“Commerce and Industry Minister Bernard Gomou has been named acting prime minister during Mohamed Beavogui’s absence,” the statement added.
Beavogui, a seasoned civil servant and expert in agricultural finance, was appointed prime minister in October to supervise the revolution’s promised restoration to democratic rule.
A three-year transition to elections proposed by Guinea’s junta has been rejected by ECOWAS, the main political and economic union in West Africa. The junta has until the end of July to provide a new timetable or risk economic sanctions.
The Ministry of Trade, Industry and small-and-middle-sized Businesses is a Guinean government ministry. The current minister is Bernard Gomou.
Beavogui has sought to foster dialogue about the transition between Guinea’s main political parties and civil society leaders, but talks have been marred by boycotts.
Béavogui was born in August 1953 in Porédaka, the son of a diplomat, and the nephew of former Chairperson of the African Union Commission, Diallo Telli. He began studying at Gamal Abdel Nasser University of Conakry in 1972.
He then earned a master’s degree in engineering from the Kalinin Politechnical Institute in the Soviet Union, and a degree in executive management from the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University in the United States.
From 1982 to 1986, he worked in Nigeria, before being recruited as a consultant by the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations. In 2001, he was named the Regional Director for West and Central Africa for the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), a post he held until 2011.
In October 2011, he became the Director of Partnership and Resource Mobilisation and Senior Advisor to the President of IFAD. In 2015, he was named director of the African Capacity Building Foundation.
