Sao Tome - A new government has taken office in Sao Tome and Principe, a small West African archipelago believed to hold large oil reserves, after the previous prime minister was fired in a corruption scandal.
Former Labour Minister Damiao Vaz Almeida's cabinet was sworn in on Saturday night in the tiny country of 160 000 people.
The cabinet includes seven new faces but the ministers in charge of key areas such as defence, foreign affairs and natural resources retain their posts from the old government. The premier's MLSTP-PSD party remains the strongest in the cabinet.
President Fradique de Menezes fired previous prime minister Maria das Neves on Wednesday for alleged involvement in a corruption scandal involving aid funds from abroad.
Neves, who denies the accusations, was the fifth head of government sacked by Menezes since he began his term in 2001.
The president said he hoped the new government would work with him in the spirit of national reconciliation forum held in July to calm political turbulence which culminated in an attempted coup last year.
"I hope that the recommendations of the forum will help us to find better relations between each other, which will benefit the stability and development of our country," Menezes said.
Sao Tome is one of the world's poorest countries, but oil firms hope to find six to 11 billion barrels of crude in the waters it shares with Nigeria and produce up to one million barrels a day in a decade.
The former Portuguese colony's oil potential has caught the eye of the United States, which is keen to find alternative crude supplies outside the Middle East and has said it would consider building a deep-water port in the archipelago.