Africa

South Africa’s Treasury plans to withhold funds from five municipalities next month over their unpaid water bills, part of an effort to compel local governments to pay for basic services, Bloomberg News reported. The Treasury will invoke a law allowing the authorities to block the payment of a so-called equitable share of money that’s allocated to municipalities to pay for services including water and electricity, according to a presentation by the department in parliament on Tuesday.

Ghana’s financial authorities are reviewing restrictions imposed on pensions funds that limit their investments in offshore assets, Bloomberg News reported. The National Pensions Regulatory Authority previously introduced a requirement that pension funds seek authorization before buying foreign assets as a way to preserve foreign-exchange. The measure was implemented after Ghana began a restructuring of its debt, Nana Akua Asare, a spokeswoman for the NPRA, said by phone on Tuesday.

Kenya’s economy is on the mend and the country is unlikely to need further assistance from the International Monetary Fund, according to the head of President William Ruto’s economic council, Bloomberg News reported. Kenya signed a four-year, $3.6 billion financing deal with the IMF amid the Covid-19 pandemic in 2021. That program expires in April and both Kenya’s Treasury and an IMF head of mission in the country have confirmed that talks about a new one have begun.

South Africa’s government is still considering whether to adopt a new fiscal anchor that will provide a sustainable long-term path for public finances, despite opposition from within the country’s biggest political party, Bloomberg News reported. The National Treasury said it is consulting with academics, international experts and other interested parties “to make inputs on fiscal-anchor policy options.” A discussion document will be released by the end of March, according to the budget update released in Cape Town on Wednesday.

Namibia’s central bank unveiled a policy to provide financial relief to the country’s drought-hit farming industry, Bloomberg News reported. The plan, which took effect Oct. 23, mandates lenders to offer loan restructuring, debt moratoriums, and emergency funding with preferential terms, the Bank of Namibia said in a emailed statement on Monday. The measures will help ease the financial burden on clients while helping to stabilize the agricultural industry, it said. Farmers and agricultural businesses that can demonstrate significant drought-related losses will be eligible for relief.

The International Monetary Fund’s executive board completed its first review under the Extended Credit Facility for Ethiopia, which will disburse about $340.7 million to the East African country, Bloomberg News reported. The funds are part of a broader $3.4 billion four-year financing package approved in July. Completion of the review brings total disbursements under the arrangement to about $1.363 billion, the IMF said late on Friday. “Ethiopian authorities have shown strong commitment to their home-grown economic reform program,” according to the IMF’s statement.

Zimbabwe sought to assure citizens that its gold-backed currency would not suffer another steep devaluation and steps were being taken to assure its defence, Bloomberg News reported. “It was a once-off,” Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe Governor John Mushayavanhu told the state-owned Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation in an interview posted on X. “We expect things to stabilize going forward and should start to see prices fall.” The ZiG — short for Zimbabwe Gold – was devalued by 43% on Sept. 27 to 24.4 per dollar after a wide gap emerged between the official and unofficial exchange rate.

Zimbabwe’s government has hired financial and legal advisers to help it navigate potential talks with international creditors over the $21 billion it owes, Bloomberg News reported. Paris-based boutique firm GSA & Co. SAS, founded by a former Rothschild & Co. banker, and law firm Kepler Karst, which specializes in debt restructuring and insolvency, signed engagement letters to provide Zimbabwe with advice on debt management. The southern African country has been locked out of international debt markets since 1999 after a default, and its interest payments have ballooned.

The government has tabled, before Parliament, a draft law on simplified insolvency for micro and small enterprises (MSEs), which is aimed at supporting investors faced with financial distress, The New Times reported. The new law, once enacted, could mean a difference for small businesses in Rwanda that often struggle with financial difficulties with limited options to recover from these difficulties.

Ghana is close to receiving another $360 million disbursement from the International Monetary Fund as it reached a staff-level agreement with the Washington-based lender on the third review of an extended credit facility program, Bloomberg News reported. The final decision will be taken by the IMF Executive Board, the fund said in a statement on Friday. This would bring to $1.92 billion in total disbursements the West African nation has received since agreeing to a $3 billion bailout package with the fund in May 2023.