Cape Town — One of the world's longest-serving leaders, President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo of Equatorial Guinea, yesterday announced a far-reaching programme of reforms to consolidate democracy and the rule of law and introduce transparency on oil and gas revenue.

Mr Obiang, who has been in power for 30 years, used the platform of the Fortune-Time-CNN Global Forum to announce his programme, which he hoped would encourage investment in his country, once the poorest in Africa and now its fourth-fastest growing economy.

Equatorial Guinea has been strongly criticised by human rights groups for not extending the benefits of its oil revenue to its poverty-stricken population and for not holding free and fair elections. Human Rights Watch has described its government as one of the most abusive and corrupt in the world.

Mr Obiang appealed to them to accept his bona fides and put aside their scepticism, emphasising that it was only through reform that investors who were initially disinterested would be persuaded to invest. The forum gathered about 350 business leaders from some of the top multinationals to discuss global business trends and investment opportunities in Africa.

Mr Obiang committed his government to fighting corruption, illiteracy, tribalism, political opportunism and so forth, and to turn the country around by 2020.

"Our objective is to create an atmosphere of peace, political stability, legal and administrative institutions and transparency in government," the president said in his speech. "We also want to create trust with investors and provide fair treatment and opportunity to enjoy a reasonable rate of return."

The five-point reform programme included the rational use of resources and the transparent accounting of revenue to comply with the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative, and the establishment of a social sector development fund so the population benefits from oil revenue for education, housing, heath and infrastructure.

Last year, the fund disbursed 1bn for the establishment of universities, medical colleges, hospitals and teacher training programmes, among other things. Legal institutions would be reformed, press freedom guaranteed by law and the Red Cross invited to conduct independent probes of all allegations of human rights violations. Jails had already been upgraded to meet international standards, Mr Obiang said.

"We have a long way to go to achieve this ambitious programme of reform and transparency. In many ways we have to fundamentally change."

Questioned on oil revenues, Mr Obiang denied these had been ferreted into foreign bank accounts. On criticism of his reign -- he was elected with 98% of the vote in November -- he said this was the democratic choice of the electorate.