Africa’s only female head of state, Mauritian President Ameenah Gurib-Fakim, has resigned and will leave office on Friday, her lawyer says.<\/p>\n
Ms Gurib-Fakim has been engulfed by an expenses scandal.<\/p>\n
She denied any misconduct amid claims that she made large personal purchases on a charity bank card.<\/p>\n
But on Saturday, just days after she rejected any idea of resigning, her lawyer Yusuf Mohamed told local media she would be stepping down.<\/p>\n
The president has issued no statement.<\/p>\n
The\u00a0country’s prime minister had originally said she would stand down last Monday.<\/p>\n
When Ms Gurib-Fakim failed to do so, this led to fears of a constitutional crisis on the Indian Ocean island nation.<\/p>\n
Local L’Express newspaper reported in February that the country’s first female president, a renowned scientist, had used a credit card given to her by the Planet Earth Institute (PEI) in London to buy jewellery and clothes abroad.<\/p>\n
According to the paper, she was given the card for serving as the NGO’s unpaid director and it was to be used to pay for the promotion of a doctorate programme named after the president.<\/p>\n
Ms Gurib-Fakim’s office said she “had an identical credit card from the same bank [and] inadvertently used the card from the PEI for expenses not linked to her mission”.<\/p>\n
It added that $27,000 (\u00a319,335) had been refunded and Ms Gurib-Fakim would defend herself with “legal action”.<\/p>\n
In a statement to the BBC, PEI London said that Ms Gurib-Fakim had refunded the money to its Mauritian sister organisation.<\/p>\n
The organisation said it had given her a credit card to cover travel expenses while promoting African science, technology and innovation.<\/p>\n
–<\/p>\n
Source: BBC<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Africa’s only female head of state, Mauritian President Ameenah Gurib-Fakim, has resigned and will leave office on Friday, her lawyer says. Ms Gurib-Fakim has been engulfed by an expenses scandal. She denied any misconduct amid claims that she made large personal purchases on a charity bank card. But on Saturday, just days after she rejected […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":410606,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[107],"tags":[17763,18034,18035],"yoast_head":"\n