The International Monetary Fund has cleared Uganda to increase its debt ceiling on non-concessional borrowing by up to 47%, to allow the East African nation to fund ambitious hydroelectric projects aimed at addressing chronic power shortages, The Wall Street Journal reported. The country's borrowing limit has been increased to $2.2 billion from $1.5 billion, a boost for the country's efforts to access funds to meet its widening budget deficit, Ana Lucia Coronel, the IMF's senior resident representative in Uganda, said Monday.

Nzoia Sugar Company has denied a report by the Auditor General last week that indicated that it is technically insolvent and operating on a negative working capital, allAfrica.com reported. The company is reported to have debts amounting to Sh16billion hence making it hard to even meet its basic financial obligations. The second largest sugar milling company however said the report presented to Parliament's Public Investments Committee, did not include all the required records especially the cash books while carrying out the forensic audit.

Pensioners in developed economies are no longer being spared the worst effects of the financial crisis as fiscal austerity programmes aimed at curtailing spending on the elderly start to kick in, the OECD has warned, the Financial Times reported. Spending on pensions, which accounts for nearly a fifth of government outlays on average across the 34-nation Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, is being limited through a variety of benefit changes including raising state retirement ages and freezing – or even cutting – payouts.

South African Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan will struggle to keep government debt under control even as he pledges to stick to spending targets, Bloomberg reported. Gross debt will climb to 48 percent of gross domestic product in the year through March 2017 from an estimated 43 percent last year, the National Treasury said in its mid-term budget report released in Cape Town today. That’s mainly due to rising debt costs and tax receipts falling short of targets.

Leaders of the world’s largest economies ratcheted up the pressure on tax avoidance by backing “an ambitious and comprehensive” plan to crack down on multinationals that shift profits into low-tax countries, the Irish Times reported. The G20 countries also stepped up the assault on evasion, with plans to exchange tax information automatically between themselves by the end of 2015 and calling “on all other jurisdictions to join us by the earliest possible date”.

Banks face being hit with a new set of international capital rules aimed at forcing bondholders rather than taxpayers to bail out failing institutions, the Financial Times reported. Global regulators are seeking support from world leaders to draw up proposals to force banks to hold a minimum amount of debt that can be “bailed in” if a bank collapses.

South Africa's Investec, Nedbank and Sanlam said on Thursday they had exposure to a failing building supply company First Strut, whose chairman was shot dead in June, Reuters reported. Trade in First Strut's 925 million rand ($95 million) worth of bonds was suspended last week following an application to place the firm in liquidation, according to a stock exchange filing. Its chairman, Jeff Wiggill, was found dead with a bullet wound to his head next to a luxury Bentley automobile in the early hours of June 20 in the Soweto township that borders Johannesburg.

The Asset Management Company of Nigeria, which holds non-performing assets of troubled banks, said it had named Citigroup and Africa-focused investment bank Vetiva Capital to manage the sale of its shares in one nationalized bank, Reuters reported yesterday. Nigeria fully nationalized Afribank, Spring Bank and Bank PHB in 2011 when they failed to find new investors before a recapitalization deadline. It then recapitalized them and changed their names to Mainstreet, Enterprise Bank and Keystone Bank, respectively.

Finance ministers from the Group of 20 leading nations plan to launch a new phase of the international crackdown on corporate tax avoidance this week even as UK business leaders are warning their government to resist “radical new solutions” to profit shifting by multinationals, the Financial Times reported. Britain has taken a lead in pressing for reform of the international tax rules after a wave of public anger over the low tax bills paid by some large multinationals.

Cement producer AfriSam on Tuesday successfully completed a years-long restructuring programme that reduced its overall debt by more than R15-billion, Engineering News reported. The group, which faced a significant debt burden and almost defaulted on billions of rand of debt over a year ago, now had a sustainable long-term debt solution to the overgearing that resulted from the acquisition transaction that created AfriSam. The total debt remaining on the balance sheet could not be confirmed, but previous reports had indicated that it could be about R6.5-billion.