Ghanaians kicked off a series of planned protests aimed at pressuring President Nana Akufo-Addo’s administration to do more to create jobs for the youth, improve health-care and education standards, and bring down living costs, Bloomberg News reported. The demonstrations are being organized under the social media banner #FixTheCountry and were joined by thousands of people wearing masks and carrying placards, who marched in the streets of Accra, the capital, on Wednesday, a public holiday in the West African nation.
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Africa
Resources Per Country
- Angola
- Benin
- Botswana
- Burkina Faso
- Cameroon
- Chad
- Congo
- Cote d'Ivoire
- Djibouti
- Equatorial Guinea
- Eritrea
- Ethiopia
- Gabon
- Ghana
- Guinea
- Kenya
- Liberia
- Madagascar
- Mauritania
- Mauritius
- Mozambique
- Namibia
- Nigeria
- Rwanda
- Senegal
- Seychelles
- Sierra Leone
- South Africa
- Sudan
- Tanzania
- Uganda
- Zambia
- Zimbabwe
- Congo (Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Eskom Holdings SOC Ltd., the state utility that supplies most of South Africa’s power, said it’s seeking to appoint advisers on how to restructure itself into three separate units, a reorganization that was proposed to let it to better deal with an untenable debt burden, Bloomberg News reported. The separation of the Johannesburg-based company into transmission, generation and distribution units was first raised by South African President Cyril Ramaphosa more than two years ago.
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A plan by 15 West African nations to link up their debt markets is on track to become a reality by the end of 2023, part of a wider push toward great integration for their economies and finances, a market regulator said, Bloomberg News reported. The aim is to open up the debt auctions of individual countries to investors from across the Economic Community of West African States, or Ecowas, as the bloc is called, Daniel Ogbarmey Tetteh, director general of Ghana’s Securities and Exchange Commission, said in an interview.
Kenya has resumed servicing loans owed to China after Beijing’s six-month debt-repayment suspension expired in June, piling pressure on the exchequer, Bloomberg News reported. The government began 2021-22 remittances, with the first batch to the Export–Import Bank of China amounting to 82.7 billion shillings ($761 million), according to Kenya’s Controller of Budget Margaret Nyakang’o. Repayments are for debt taken for projects, including a railroad between Kenya’s capital, Nairobi, and the port city of Mombasa, Nyakang’o said in emailed responses to questions.
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South African Finance Minister Tito Mboweni affirmed his commitment to reining in debt amid concerns that the coronavirus pandemic and a week of deadly riots will further erode the state’s already shaky finances. “We are not going to go to a sovereign debt crisis for now, at least not under my watch,” despite opposition to spending constraints, Mboweni said in an interview on Wednesday. “There is no such thing as a popular minister of finance -- it doesn’t exist, it’s a contradiction in terms.
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South Africa’s Treasury expects a relief package for businesses and individuals affected by this month’s deadly riots to cost 38.9 billion rand ($2.6 billion), Bloomberg News reported. The government will spend an additional 31.2 billion rand and grant 5 billion rand in tax breaks, while 2.65 billion rand will be reallocated from within the budget, Edgar Sishi, the acting head of the budget office, said in an online briefing on Wednesday. The program won’t require additional borrowing, Treasury Director-General Dondo Mogajane said at the briefing.
South African Airways (SAA) subsidiary Mango Airlines temporarily suspended all flights and services on Tuesday until further notice due to outstanding payments to Air Traffic Navigation Services, Mango acting CEO William Ndlovu said, Reuters reported. “Senior management and our shareholder are locked-in in emergency discussions to find an amicable solution to this impasse,” Ndlovu said in a statement. The budget carrier is in a dire financial position despite the South African parliament having approved a special allocation of 2.7 billion rand ($182.3 million) for SAA subsidiaries.
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South African Airways (SAA) subsidiary Mango Airlines will enter into a local form of bankruptcy protection known as business rescue, according to SAA’s interim chief executive Thomas Kgokolo told Reuters reported. SAA, which itself exited business rescue in April, is one of a handful of South African state companies that depended on government bailouts, placing the national budget under huge strain. “What we can say is that the board and shareholders have agreed that Mango will go into business rescue,” Kgokolo said in an interview with TV station eNCA.
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Mexico sold its own ESG bond in early July linked to the U.N. Sustainable Development Goals, which include gender equality, zero hunger and clean water initiatives, Bloomberg reported. Slovenia, meantime, wowed investors in late June with a sustainability note for either green or social spending, which was more than 10 times oversubscribed. “Sovereigns are looking to undertake more social bonds in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic,” Morgan Stanley strategists wrote last month.
Kenyatta International Convention Centre (KICC) has once again come under scrutiny after Auditor-General Nancy Gathungu reported that the top bosses at the center spent Ksh6.8 million that cannot be accurately accounted for, kenyans.co.ke reported. The auditor-general revealed serious breaches of protocol and fund misuse by KICC bosses who spent the money while attending a trip to Mauritius for an award ceremony where KICC had been named Africa’s leading meeting and conferences destination.