CARACAS, (Reuters) – Suriname’s Central Bank Governor  Andre Telting died yesterday of an apparent heart failure just  before he was to relinquish the job due to a change of  government in the South American nation.

Telting, 74, whose death was confirmed by President Ronald  Venetiaan’s outgoing government, had run the bank since 2000.  He held the same position from 1993-1996.

“It was a shock,” said Venetiaan, who awarded Telting the  nation’s highest decoration last week. “We really thought that  for him the time had come to enjoy a rest.”

Telting had been due to step down after Venetiaan hands  power to incoming president Desi Bouterse on Aug. 12.

Bouterse has named Gilmore Hoefdraad, an economist with the  International Monetary Fund, as his new central bank governor.

Wonnie Boedhoe, manager of the state-funded National  Development Bank and chairwoman of the local Economists’  Association, will be Bouterse’s finance minister.

Bouterse, a former military strongman who previously seized  power in two coups, is accused of rights violations and is  wanted in the Netherlands to serve a drug sentence.

He has sought to reinvent himself as a defender of the poor  drawing influence from Venezuela’s President Hugo Chavez.

A sparsely populated former Dutch colony on the region’s  northeastern shoulder, Suriname won independence in 1975 and is  now a gold and bauxite miner with a nascent oil industry.