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A COVID-19-19 was already felt in several countries, which led Cape Verde to start applying some restrictions and preventive measures, when, on 19 March, confirmation from a 62 year old English tourist infected on the island of Boa Vista with the new coronavirus, which days later would end up dying, marked the beginning of the archipelago’s total stoppage.
International commercial flights were suspended, to contain the pandemic, till 12 October, and tourism, which guarantees 25% of the Gross Domestic Product (START), disappeared, leaving 2020 with an expectation of just over 300 thousand tourists, compared to the historical record of 819 thousand in 2019.
With the first effects of the crisis and COVID-19-19, the Minister of Finance, Hello Correia, did not go out of his way to describe the effects on the 2020 accounts: “The budget failed.”
Cape Verde’s tourism demand, according to the Government, should go back 15 years in 2020, losing half a million tourists in a year, with economic implications that only the increase in public debt (around 145% of the START), donations and budgetary aid granted by various countries and financing contracted with global entities, such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank, helped stifle.
The archipelago entered at the end of March in a state of emergency, for the first time in its history, which lasted differently by islands, until May, and for several weeks the calls interwave They have been suspended to try to stop the progression of the disease.
Cape Verde arrives December with about 11,000 cases of COVID-19-19 confirmed but also with the ‘title’ of one of the most tested countries in Africa, for a total of just over one hundred deaths from complications associated with the disease since March.
Closed businesses and schools, deserted streets, markets and beaches, as well as limited travel marked the first months of the pandemic in Cape Verde, whose deconfiguration started in June did the numbers of the COVID-19-19 to the sharp reduction in November, reaching about 250 cases active throughout the archipelago.
“To have the greatest possible control over the situation of the pandemic“, justified at the end of April the Prime Minister, Ulisses Correia e Silva, regarding the limitations imposed and assuming that the first objective is to “survive” as people and society to pandemic, and then “relaunch” life, although “in very different ways.”
Without tourism to generate exercise In companies and tax revenues for the State, 2020 was marked in Cape Verde, in addition to the health crisis, by the deep economic crisis, which invested years of growth above 5%. This year a recession of around 10% of GDP is expected. START, something never seen in the 45 years of independence.
With the archipelago closed to regular international flights, stopover to refuel on the island of Sal, on the 12th June, ended in controversy and placed Cape Verde at the center of the international dispute between the Nicholas Maduro, in Venezuela, and the leadership of Donald Trump, in the United States of America (U.S).
That day, while traveling as “Special Envoy” from Venezuela, with a diplomatic passport, the Colombian businessman Alex Saab, considered by U.S as the “front” of Maduro that was on that plane was detained by the Cape Verdean authoritiesverdianas and by Interpol at the request of the US Justice, which issued an international arrest warrant and then requested his extradition.
The Tribunal da Relação do Barlavento, on the island of São Vicente, authorized the extradition in July, but the Saab defense, led by mediatic former Spanish judge Baltasar Garcon, appealed to the Supreme Court of Justice and various international entities, accusing Cape Verde of yielding to “pressure” from the United States.
With no final decision to date, Alex Saab remains in detention in Cape Verde, and the Government of Venezuela accuses Cape Verde of violating “international standards”, such as “behavior of aggression and siege against the Venezuelan people, undertaken by the Government of the United States of America “.
Internally and on a stage of pandemic that became uncontrolled, especially in Praia, and with the effects of a deep economic crisis, Cape Verde October, without fear of pandemic, to choose for the sixth time mayors of the 22 municipalities of the archipelago.
The Movement for Democracy (MpD), which assumed control of the Cape Verdean governmentVerdean in 2016, he confirmed the leadership in local power, guaranteeing 14 chamaras. However, it lost ground, compared to the 18 won in the previous municipal elections, but above all it saw the opposition direct to grow: Cape Verde’s African Independence Party (PAICV) went from two to eight camerasmaras and, when few expected it, he conquered Praia in a surprising way.
In the middle of an electoral night, before a representative silence of the highest leadership of the MpD, the leader of PAICV, Janira Hopffer Almada reaped the fruits of victory in the country’s largest constituency: “Great victory for praienses and humility and desire to do more and better for Praia “.
The elections were held a month and a half after the historic floods in the capital, which caused, after several hours of unprecedented rains in recent years, the death of a baby and the destruction in several places, mainly houses, estimated at more than two million. euros.
After three years of drought, the rain that fell on several islands of July a October It gave agriculture some relief, but everyone expects it to be repeated early next year.
“We need much more to be able to have the reserve of Water Undergroundanea, which is essential not only for the practice of agriculture, but also for the distribution of Water in some islands that are in a more critical situation and with higher consumption, ”said Agriculture Minister Gilberto Silva.
Despite this hope, the Cape Verdean authoritiesverdianas kept its focus on alternative sources of Water, immediately treatment of Water from the sea for use in agriculture, draft which will have the financial support of Hungary, worth 35 million euros and which has already closed in December.
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