South African construction firm Group Five will cut more jobs as it seeks to trim loss-making divisions, it said on Tuesday, highlighting an industry-wide slump in its home market that has left many companies fighting for survival, Reuters reported. South African construction companies have been hit hard in recent years as stagnant economic growth has hobbled public infrastructure spending, prompting some of them to file business rescues, similar to chapter 11 bankruptcy in the United States.

Zambian Finance Minister Margaret Mwanakatwe is no longer having sleepless nights over an International Monetary Fund loan the southern African nation has been trying unsuccessfully to secure for the past two years, Bloomberg News reported. “I’ve talked about four things that keep me awake. Four months ago I was saying IMF. I don’t say that anymore,” she told business leaders Tuesday in the capital, Lusaka, after delivering the 2019 budget last week.

When President Trump tweeted in August that South Africa was engaged in “the large scale killing” of white farmers to seize their land, the nation’s president, Cyril Ramaphosa, didn’t respond personally. A fabricated accusation from the leader of the free world was the least of his problems, Bloomberg News reported. Ramaphosa probably felt his time was better spent doing his job.

The African Development Bank said it’s working with Zimbabwe’s government to find a “sustainable solution” to settle its debt arrears and enable the state to start borrowing again, Bloomberg News reported. Zimbabwe owes multilateral lenders about $1.8 billion. President Emmerson Mnangagwa has said he plans to prioritize the repayment of the loans as he sets about rebuilding an economy destabilized by almost two decades of mismanagement under his predecessor Robert Mugabe. Central bank Governor John Mangudya said last week he expects the arrears to be cleared by September 2019.

Agro-industry firms Cargill, Wilmar and Touton have made offers for the liquidated assets of Ivory Coast’s top cocoa exporter SAF-Cacao, bankers and sources at the country’s cocoa board (CCC) said on Thursday. A court ordered the liquidation of SAF-Cacoa, which purchases between 150,000 and 200,000 tonnes of cocoa beans each season, in July over debts it owed to the CCC, Reuters reported. It owes about 80 billion CFA francs ($143.50 million) to the CCC and 160 billion CFA francs to Ivorian banks.

Banks in Ivory Coast are considering whether to offer a discount on the debt of failed giant cocoa exporter SAF-Cacao to entice buyers, three bankers involved in the negotiations told Reuters on Tuesday. A court ordered in July the liquidation of SAF-Cacao, the top exporter in the world’s leading cocoa grower, over defaults on cocoa contracts during the 2015-18 seasons, Reuters reported. Banks are ready to offer discounts to buyers if it allows them to recover part of their claims estimated to be around 160 billion CFA Francs ($289 million).

Britain will support Zimbabwe to get on to an interim IMF staff program to help the country quickly clear its foreign arrears, Britain's ambassador in Harare said on Tuesday. Clearing the $1.8 billion in arrears to the World Bank and African Development Bank is seen as a major step for Zimbabwe to start accessing foreign credit, especially for the private sector as well as foreign direct investment, the International New York Times reported on a Reuters story.

London-based emerging market fund Gemcorp Group said on Monday it had extended a $250 million loan to Zimbabwe to help the country import essential goods like electricity, fuel and medicine, the company's CEO said. The southern African nation is facing its worst shortages of cash dollars since it dumped its own currency in 2009 in favour of the U.S. currency. This has made it difficult for companies, including mines, to pay for imports, the International New York Times reported on a Reuters story.

Nigeria’s finance minister, Kemi Adeosun, has resigned following allegations that she used a forged certificate to avoid participating in the country’s mandatory year of youth service, the Financial Times reported. President Muhammadu Buhari accepted her resignation and appointed Zainab Ahmed, minister of state budget and national planning, to oversee the finance ministry in Africa’s largest economy.

African leaders attending this week's summit with China don't think that cooperation between the continent and Beijing has added to their debt burden, the Chinese government's top diplomat said on Thursday. Chinese President Xi Jinping pledged $60 billion (46 billion pounds) to African nations at Monday's opening of a China-Africa forum on cooperation, matching the size of funds offered at the last summit in Johannesburg in 2015, the International New York Times reported on a Reuters story.