South Africa's new president Cyril Ramaphosa will need to call on all his dealmaking skills to overhaul ailing state-owned firms and tackle land reform if he wants to capitalize on Moody's decision not to downgrade the country's debt to junk, the International New York Times reported on a Reuters story. Moody's said its decision to keep South Africa's rating at investment grade reflected its view the country's institutions would regain strength under more transparent and predictable policies - though the new government had to stay on track.

Ghana’s central bank has appointed accounting firm KPMG as administrator for Unibank to save it from imminent collapse, Governor Ernest Addison said on Tuesday, Reuters reported. The move, which follows central bank liquidations of two other local banks last year, will prevent losses to depositors and other creditors and ensure it does not create further risks to the wider financial system, Addison told reporters. Ghanaian-owned Unibank had suffered persistent cash shortfalls and regularly fell below cash reserve requirements, he said.

Mozambique is set to meet foreign creditors to discuss almost $2 billion of debt in London Tuesday in what will mark the start of formal restructuring negotiations, more than a year after the southern African nation defaulted, Bloomberg News reported. Investors including Credit Suisse Group AG and UBS Group AG have little idea what will be discussed. Mozambique first missed coupon payments on its $727 million Eurobond due 2023 in January last year and has had almost no contact with the holders since then.

Extensive changes are in the offing at South Africa’s troubled state-owned companies as new Public Enterprises Minister Pravin Gordhan moves to tackle their many management and financial failings, Bloomberg News reported. Power utility Eskom Holdings SOC Ltd. and several other state entities have been caught up in graft and management scandals over recent years and repeatedly called on the state to bail them out as their debt ballooned to unsustainable levels.

Mozambique will meet its commercial creditors on Tuesday in London to present proposals on how to restructure its huge debts, but Eurobond holders and analysts expressed little confidence on how much progress can be made, Nasdaq.com reported. Shortly after restructuring a Eurobond in 2016, Mozambique's government admitted to $1.4 billion of previously undisclosed loans, much of which was spent on building a state tuna-fishing company and enhancing maritime security.

The confluence of shocks that has hit African countries in recent years has led to a strong increase in the number of International Monetary Fund bailouts in the region, the Financial Times reported in a commentary. The total agreed amount of the IMF’s outstanding programmes with Sub-Saharan African (SSA) countries rose nearly fivefold between end-2014 and end-2017 from $1.8bn to $7.2bn.

Nigeria is reducing its domestic borrowing after government debt reached 22 trillion naira ($61 billion) in 2017, with most of it made up of high-interest, locally-acquired credit, the country’s debt office said. The government is working on a strategy to reduce domestic debt to 60 percent of the total, from 73 percent, Patience Oniha, director general of the Abuja-based Debt Management Office, told reporters on Wednesday, Bloomberg News reported.

National Bank of Kenya Ltd., which has the biggest bad-loan book in the Kenyan banking industry, is considering closing some of its 85 branches to cut costs, Chief Executive Officer Wilfred Musau said, Bloomberg News reported. Lenders in East Africa’s biggest economy are being forced to lower expenses after a government-imposed cap on commercial lending rates impaired their ability to provide loans and as consumers embrace digital banking, including Safaricom Ltd.’s M-Pesa platform.

Mozambique won’t make payments for at least five more years on about $2 billion of loans that led to a default last year, according to the International Monetary Fund, Bloomberg News reported. The government has amassed $710 million of arrears on the debt, most of which it previously hid from the Washington-based lender, according to an Article IV report and an associated Debt Sustainability Analysis to be submitted to the fund’s board March 2. The documents were shown to Bloomberg by two people who declined to be identified because they’ve not been published yet.

At least eight companies owned by the wealthy Gupta family accused of corrupt ties to former president Jacob Zuma, have filed for protection from creditors, documents showed on Friday, Reuters reported. The Indian-born billionaire business associates of Zuma, were accused of using their political connections to win state contracts and influence cabinet appointments, in a report by an anti-graft watchdog in 2016. Zuma and the Gupta brothers deny any wrongdoing.