Africa

Nigeria’s central bank paused its steep campaign of monetary tightening, after an overhaul of the data used to calculate inflation showed it had significantly slowed, Bloomberg News reported. The monetary policy committee maintained the policy rate at 27.5%, Governor Olayemi Cardoso told reporters in Abuja, the capital on Thursday. Eight out of nine economists in a Bloomberg survey correctly predicted the decision. “The MPC noted with satisfaction recent macro economic developments,” Cardoso said, citing recent stability of the naira.

Over the last quarter century, Zimbabwe has failed to pay $21 billion in debt. Now, as the country struggles with the impact of a once-in-a-generation drought, ordinary Zimbabweans are paying the price, Bloomberg News reported. A prolonged hot and dry spell caused by the El Niño weather phenomenon has ravaged southern Africa, withering crops and leaving 26 million people across seven nations hungry, according to the United Nations’ World Food Programme. Zimbabwe has been hardest hit, with the corn crop falling by more than two-thirds from previous years.

Zimbabwe’s Finance Minister Mthuli Ncube said the southern African nation needs to regain access to credit lines before it can adopt the ZiG as its sole currency, Bloomberg News reported. “We need a few things in place” before the nation can have a mono currency, including making progress on restructuring $21 billion in debt, Ncube said. The nation has been locked out of capital markets since 1999 after defaulting on its debt.

Zimbabwe has started paying reparations to nations and farmers whose land was seized in the 2000s, a step toward the restructuring of its $21 billion debt pile, Bloomberg News reported. Initial disbursements were made to Denmark, Germany, Netherlands, Switzerland and the former Yugoslavia last month for 94 farms that were taken, Finance Minister Mthuli Ncube said. Fifty-six farmers from those countries, which had bilateral investment-protection agreements with Zimbabwe, were also paid. “Payments are being made to the claimant’s bank accounts of choice,” Ncube said in a statement on Friday.

South Africa's largest airline, FlySafair, has been given a year to reduce its foreign shareholding, or it risks having its license suspended, Business Insider Africa reported. If the airline fails to meet the deadline of a year from Jan. 23, it will be required to appear before the Domestic Air Services Council to explain why its license should not be revoked, according to a statement from the Department of Transport on Wednesday.

Kenya's central bank cut its main interest rate for the fourth meeting in a row on Wednesday, saying it wanted to do more to support lending and boost economic growth, Reuters reported. The Central Bank Rate was lowered by 50 basis points to 10.75%. The bank's Monetary Policy Committee also decided to cut the Cash Reserve Ratio - by 100 basis points, to 3.25% - and said it had started on-site inspections of banks to check they were passing on the benefits of lower funding costs to customers.

Uganda's police have detained nine finance ministry officials as part of an investigation into accusations of hacking the central bank's electronic systems that resulted in theft of 62 billion shillings ($16.87 million), the ministry and police said, Reuters reported. In November last year, State Minister for Finance Henry Musasizi confirmed reports in local media that the central bank's accounts had been hacked and money stolen.

Zimbabwe must be ready for the bitter medicine of higher taxes and spending cuts if it takes up a staff-monitored programme (SMP) with the IMF, the World Bank warns in a new report, according to NewzWire.live. Under an SMP, the IMF and Zimbabwe would agree on a set of economic programmes that the Fund would monitor. Zimbabwe and the IMF plan to open talks for the programme this quarter, as part of a broader bid by the government to please creditors and win a deal to restructure its debt arrears. This is a good idea, the World Bank says in the Zimbabwe Economic Update, launched Friday.

Ghana is negotiating with 60 international banks to rework $2.7 billion in loans, Minister of Finance Cassiel Ato Forson said on Wednesday, Bloomberg News reported. The facilities constitute the last batch of debt that Ghana is restructuring under the terms of its $3 billion program with the International Monetary Fund, he told reporters in the capital, Accra. Ghana sought IMF help after debt ballooned and it could no longer service its obligations, forcing it into default in 2022.