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Sao Tome oil minister sacked for "irregular" payment

http://www.reuters.com/article/marketsNews/idINLF53224120081015?rpc=44

SAO TOME, Oct 15 (Reuters) - Sao Tome and Principe's president sacked his oil minister on Wednesday after he was accused of making an irregular payment of government funds to a college he owned.

President Fradique de Menezes issued a decree sacking the tiny African archipelago's Natural Resources and Energy Minister Agostinho Rita, a day after Prime Minister Rafael Branco requested his dismissal over the allegation.

In his request, Branco said Rita committed an irregularity by ordering the state power and water company EMAE to make a $3,000 advance scholarship payment to his accounting and administration college for three EMAE employees to study there.

Rita is secretary-general of the Movement of Democratic Forces for Change (MDFM), one of the parties in de Menezes's ruling coalition.

Tiny Sao Tome and Principe lies in West Africa's oil-producing Gulf of Guinea just south of the continent's top crude producer Nigeria.

At present the former Portuguese colony of just 200,000 people produces no oil, but foreign companies like U.S. Chevron (CVX.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz), China's Sinopec (600028.SS: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) and Swiss Addax (AXC.TO: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) are prospecting its promising offshore zones under a joint development agreement with Nigeria. (Reporting by Ricardo Neto; writing by Alistair Thomson; Editing by Pascal Fletcher and Jon Boyle)