South African Airways has received a further $346 million from the Department of Public Enterprises, which the struggling airline will use to complete severance payments that form part of its rescue plan. In October, the South African government approved a $650 million bailout for the struggling airline in its mid-term budget. The state-owned airline has…
Nigeria’s annual inflation rate jumped 0.72% to 16.47% in January from the previous month, marking a 17th monthly increase as the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic weighed on the index. Africa’s most populous country is facing its worst economic recession in 37 years, triggered by a COVID-19 pandemic-induced crash in global crude oil prices that…
Compounded by crises in the north with the fighting in Tigray and a simmering land dispute with its western neighbor which threatens to spill over into a full blown war, Ethiopia’s president Sahle-Work Zewde took a much-needed break from mitigating multiple conflicts to visit another Eastern African in a bid to improve ties with regional…
Lagos-based Africa Finance Corporation (AFC) will shift its energy portfolio towards greener projects to attract greater investment from institutional partners, its new chief investment officer Sameh Shenouda announced. Shenouda joined the pan-African infrastructure bank from Blackstone-owned energy group Zarou on Monday, and he said the AFC board had agreed to a plan to bundle new…
Sudan’s government has accused Ethiopian troops of entering its territory, further escalating a dispute over land that straddles their border. In a statement, the Foreign Ministry said, “Sudan strongly condemns the aggression carried out by Ethiopia, in which its forces entered into territories that legally belong to Sudan.” It described the incident as “a direct…
Kenya will raise more money from foreign than domestic sources, as it restructures its debt portfolio to take advantage of growing appetite for high-yielding debt. The National Treasury said it is seeking to raise $1.13 billion in sovereign bonds in the next four months and an additional $1.14 billion during the financial year starting July…
Nigeria’s president Muhammadu Buhari has approved the creation of a new entity that will focus on infrastructure development, with a seed capital of $2.63 billion, the office of the president said in a statement. The company, named Infra-Co, will be a public-private partnership, and the initial capital will come from the central bank, the Nigerian…
Guinea is battling a new outbreak of the deadly Ebola disease which has so far claimed the lives of four people with several others testing positive. The World Health Organization (WHO) warns that the number of new cases recorded so far may be a sign that the deadly hemorrhagic fever is resurging again in the…
Kenya Airways has received a government bailout worth $92 million, as part of efforts to prop up the national carrier after the COVID-19 pandemic hurt global aviation over the last financial year. The airline, which is majority owned by the government with Air France-KLM holding a small stake, secured $76 million from the National Treasury…
The African Union has denied halting the use of AstraZeneca’s COVID-19 vaccine but will target its use in countries that are yet to report cases of the South African strain of the disease, the head of the African Center for Disease Control (CDC) announced. South Africa’s temporary halt of the rollout of the vaccine because…
Uganda’s Ministry of Finance expects public debt will surge to 50% of its annual economic output by June this year, driven by fresh borrowing to fund financial stimulus packages as the country suffers economic fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic. That marks an increase of about 9% in the debt-to-GDP ratio, from 41% in the financial…
South Africa’s largest mobile operator by subscribers – MTN Group – projects its 2020 earnings to almost double, powered by gains from the sale of Ghana and Uganda tower joint ventures. MTN is in the middle of a $1.67 billion divestment plan aimed at simplifying its portfolio and reducing debt over the next three to…
Angola’s government has formally asked a Dutch court to hand over a $500 million stake in the Portuguese oil company Galp linked to Isabel Dos Santos, the daughter of ex-president Jose Eduardo dos Santos. As part of the request, Angola says that top officials of the former regime took advantage of high oil prices in…
One woman has died of the deadly disease of Ebola in the Democratic Republic of Congo raising fears of a fresh outbreak of the deadly haemorrhagic fever. The National Institute of Biomedical Research confirmed in a statement that the death had been identified three days after samples taken from a patient with symptoms who had…
Nigeria’s president Muhammadu Buhari has called on the African Union (AU) to undertake large-scale reforms that will enable the body to remain relevant. As Africa’s most populous country and largest economy, Nigeria holds huge sway in the 55-nation bloc that was formed to promote international cooperation and harmonise member states’ policies. The African Union decided…
There is a common adage that time is a healer, but in Somalia, memories of times gone by evoke painful memories of the good old days in both the elderly that witnessed them and the young who can only fathom such glories. To know how much has changed in this country, picture this. In 1967,…
Coca-Cola will sell a stake in its South African bottling unit to local investors for $669 million, in order for the beverages firm to comply with South Africa’s post-apartheid racial equity policies. Coca-Cola also confirmed in a statement that the deal was a condition for its 2016 buyout of former partner SABMiller, now part of…
Ongoing tensions over the Nile waters have heightened after Sudan’s Minister for Irrigation and Water Resources Yasser Abbas warned that any unilateral move by Ethiopia to fill its Grand Renaissance Dam (GERD) “would threaten Sudan’s national security.” His comments come at a time when both countries have accused each other’s security forces of attacking civilians…
The World Health Organisation (WHO) has excluded Burundi and Tanzania from the list of African countries set to receive COVID-19 vaccines through its COVAX scheme. The global health body aims to start shipping about 90 million COVID-19 vaccine doses to Africa in February, and the list of countries that will receive them, together with their…
Ghana has signed an interim trade agreement with the U.K., one of the last bilateral deals hanging in the balance following Britain’s withdrawal from the European Union. The signed agreement restores the duty-free and quota-free access Ghanaian exporters had to the U.K. market pre-Brexit, according to a joint statement posted on the U.K. government website….