Angola will turn to the International Monetary Fund for a bailout to help cope with the oil-price rout that has hit its economy hard, joining a growing list of commodity-dependent African economies seeking assistance from the institution to weather the adverse economic climate, The Wall Street Journal reported. The announcement represents an about-face for a government that had previously rejected the idea of seeking IMF assistance and ends months of speculation over how the West African country will cope with a looming financial crisis on the back of record-low oil prices.

Kenya's Uchumi Supermarkets Ltd is on the verge of insolvency as efforts to negotiate a cash injection hit a snag in the first quarter of 2016. Its debt to suppliers has skyrocketed to Ksh3.6 billion ($36 million), double the Ksh1.8 billion ($18 million) quoted last year, according to the management, AllAfrica.com reported. "Settling a significant part of this debt requires funds outside our normal operating activities. We are working on this through disposal of land and sourcing for an investor.

Kenya's central bank said on Thursday it would require another three months of investigation to determine the fate of Imperial Bank, which was put into receivership in October, delaying a resolution that had been scheduled for the end of this month, Reuters reported. The Imperial Bank receivership, which came two months after the liquidation of a smaller bank, rattled confidence in a financial sector where more than 40 foreign and local banks operate.

Nigeria’s central bank on Tuesday hiked its key lending rate four months after lowering it, as Africa’s largest economy navigates a perilous combination of record inflation and the worst growth in 17 years, The Wall Street Journal reported. Governor Godwin Emefiele said the bank would lift the rate to 12%, up 1 percentage point. That is meant to curb inflation, which rose to a three-year high of 11.4%, last month: “The balance of risk should be tilted toward price stability,” he said.

The African budget airline Fastjet is considering legal action against its second-biggest shareholder, easyJet founder Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou, after he said the company was at risk of going bust, The Independent reported. In an astonishing escalation of the row between Sir Stelios and Fastjet, the airline yesterday said it was “taking legal advice” after the businessman published a letter stating concerns about the risk of an “insolvency event” in the months ahead.

Stakeholders have expressed support for a new bill that repeals and re-enacts the 37-year-old Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act, Business Day Online reported. The new bill – Bankruptcy and Insolvency (repeal and re-enactment) bill, 2015 – also provides for corporate and individual insolvency to provide for the rehabilitation of the insolvent debtor as well as create the Office of the Supervisor of Insolvency.

Standard & Poor’s cut Mozambique’s credit rating by four steps and warned that a proposed restructuring of about $700 million of bonds issued by a state-owned tuna-fishing company could be “tantamount to default.” The rating was lowered to CC, 10 levels below investment grade, from B-, S&P said in an e-mailed statement on Tuesday, Bloomberg News reported. Mozambique said on March 9 it wanted to switch holders of $697 million of state-guaranteed notes issued by Empresa Mocambicana de Atum SA, or Ematum, into a new interest-only bond issued by the government maturing in 2023.

Angola, facing economic and political pressures, has cut spending under its 2016 budget by 20% and is reassuring international investors it can cope with persistently low oil prices, Finance Minister Armando Manuel said Monday, The Wall Street Journal reported. Mr. Manuel said the surprise announcement Friday by President José Eduardo dos Santos to step down in 2018 shouldn’t concern the country’s foreign investors, and is part of “a normal process.” Mr. dos Santos has governed the Atlantic coast nation since 1979 and didn’t lay out a succession plan for the next leader of his party.

Mozambique has proposed a restructuring of the contentious state-backed “tuna” bond that has become a byword for the risks associated with lending foreign currency to developing economies. The bond was sold as a plan to create a national fishing industry for the southern African country via Ematum — a tuna-fishing company backed by the state, the Financial Times reported. However, the majority of the money was spent on security operations associated with the loan.

Kenya’s economic growth has failed to keep pace with its peers and the country needs to “step up a gear” if it is to achieve its long-term goals, the World Bank has concluded in a major report on east Africa’s largest economy, the Financial Times reported. The five-yearly study, “From economic growth to jobs and shared prosperity”, provides a striking contrast to recent reports from analysts and investors, who have been championing Kenya as one of the brighter emerging economies, particularly in the wake of falling commodity prices.