A woman sells bottles of gasoline on a war-damaged street
in the capital
Courtesy United Nations (John Isaac)
The president and twenty-three appointed ministers formed the Council of Ministers in 1988. The council's portfolios included agriculture and rural development; civil service; commerce and industry; culture, youth, and sports; defense national veterans, and war victims; education; finance; food security and afflicted groups; foreign affairs; information and civic orientation; interior; justice; labor; livestock and rural water; mines and energy; planning and reconstruction; posts and telecommunications; public health; public works, housing, and urban development; social affairs and the promotion of women; state; tourism and the environment; and transportation and civil aviation. The president held the portfolio for defense. Only one woman served on the Council of Ministers. Executive appointments were divided among most regions of the country, although northerners dominated most organs of government.
The general responsibility of the Council of Ministers was to carry out the wishes of the president, although constitutional language defined its task as overseeing national reconstruction, establishing a democratic way of life, guaranteeing fundamental rights of individuals and associations, and guaranteeing the effective participation of all social classes in the managing of public affairs. The council was also responsible for maintaining a national army, reorganizing the national police, reorganizing public enterprises and parastatal, developing an effective health care system, assisting victims of war, relaunching the economy, reforming the school system, devising an investment code to encourage domestic and foreign capital formation, reconstructing the communication system, and regaining Chad's self-sufficiency in food.
Article 18 summarized ministerial responsibilities in foreign policy. These responsibilities were to maintain friendship and cooperation with all peaceful countries, to uphold the principles of the United Nations (UN) and OAU, to support legitimate struggles by people under racial and colonial domination, to combat all forms of expansionism, and to practice nonalignment in foreign policymaking . Article 19 restricted ministers from holding a second office in government, although many government officials in 1988 also held office in UNIR.
Data as of December 1988