Category: Business

HARARE, Sept 12 (NNN-AGENCIES) — After 20 years of not paying its debts, Zimbabwe is taking steps to clean up its balance sheet and its image by making payments to major creditors.

Even if admittedly token amounts, the government hopes they will build goodwill towards Zimbabwe.

Finance Minister Mthuli Ncube announced during a video conference this month that Zimbabwe had made its first payments in two decades to a group of rich countries known as the Paris Club.

“We have started paying them because, as a country, we ought to be known as good debtors and not bad debtors,” Ncube said.

In addition to the first payments in two decades to the 17 nations that are part of the Paris Club, he said Zimbabwe was also settling its debts to multilateral lenders.

“We have taken the step of beginning to pay token payments to the World Bank, the African Development Bank and the European Investment Bank,” Ncube said.

Clearing Zimbabwe’s debts, or simply catching up on payments, is a mammoth task.

The $11 billion that Zimbabwe owes to foreign lenders amounts to about 71percent of the country’s GDP. Some $6.5 billion of the total is payments that are in arrears.

Ncube said the government would need a “sponsor” to bring its debt payments under control.

It was unclear what exactly he meant by that, but he said the goal was “really to tackle those arrears with the World Bank and the African Development Bank, the preferred creditors.”

“We are working hard on that,” he said.

Zimbabwe defaulted on its debts when the economy fell into a tailspin 20 years ago under then-president Robert Mugabe.

President Emmerson Mnangagwa, who took power after a coup in 2017, wants to renew ties with Europe and the United States, which had largely cut them over Mugabe’s undermining of elections and human rights abuses.

The West may take a lot of convincing.

Mnangagwa, once a top deputy to Mugabe, is among the senior government officials banned from travelling or banking in the United States and Europe.

Western countries froze his assets in protest of human rights violations, and so far have shown little inclination to ease them.

In July, Britain added new sanctions to a Zimbabwean official for fraudulently redeeming treasury bills at 10 times their official value.

Zimbabwe’s economy has swung dramatically since 2000, shrinking at a breathtaking rate during years of hyperinflation, before clawing its way back to growth in 2009.

Covid-19 and a drought pushed the economy back into recession, with inflation returning to triple digits.

Inflation has settled back down into double digits — sitting at 56 percent in July, down from 106 the previous month — and Ncube has ambitious plans to bring the country into the global middle class by 2030.

To do that, Zimbabwe will need capital and investors. Paying down its debts is one way to make the country more attractive.

Source: NAM NEWS NETWORK

Malawi’s high court has found a businessman guilty of attempting to bribe Constitutional Court judges who were ruling on the disputed 2019 presidential election.

Thomson Mpinganjira, who owns a commercial bank in Malawi, was arrested in January 2020 by the Anti-Corruption Bureau, or ACB, after the High Court’s chief justice, Andrew Nyirenda, reported he had attempted to bribe the judges.

Mpinganjira was accused of offering judges an unspecified amount of money so that a court case over the disputed 2019 presidential election would end in favor of then-president Peter Mutharika.

Mpinganjira had pleaded not guilty to six bribery-related charges. But High Court Judge Dorothy DeGabriele, in her judgment Friday, said the court proved beyond a reasonable doubt that Mpinganjira wanted to bribe the five judges.

“The court found the accused person under count 1 and 2 for offering an advantage to Justice [Healey] Potani and Justice [Michael] Tembo who were public officers and for the benefit of that advantage to be shared amongst the judges, to induce the judges to make a decision in favor of the respondent. The accused person is hereby convicted accordingly,” DeGabriele said.

Mpinganjira’s lawyer, Tamando Chokotho, asked the court to consider giving his client noncustodial punishment, saying his client is a first offender and a responsible man.

Reyneck Matemba, Malawi’s solicitor general, dismissed calls for the noncustodial sentence, saying the convict needs a maximum prison term to serve as a lesson to potential offenders.

“What the convict wanted to do, the offense which he has committed, is a very serious offense,” Matemba said. “He wanted to defeat the course of justice in one of the most high-profile cases in this country, ever.”

Following the conviction, DeGabriele revoked Mpinganjira’s bail and remanded him to Chichiri Prison in Blantyre, where he will await his sentencing.

Source: Voice of America

The leader of Guinea’s main opposition party, the Union of Democratic Forces of Guinea (UFDG), says the country’s September 5 coup was justified because President Alpha Conde was illegitimate after he changed the constitution to run for a third term.

Speaking to VOA’s James Butty in an exclusive interview through an interpreter, Cellou Dalein Diallo said all the ills of Guinean society cited by the military junta had been identified and denounced by his party.

Asked if he would personally participate in a unity government if the military were to ask him to do so, Diallo said he would personally not join a transitional government but would designate members of his party to take part.

Diallo claimed to have won the October 2020 presidential election, but the electoral commission declared Conde the winner, and the Guinean Supreme Court validated the results in favor of President Conde.

Diallo said he would run again for president in a new election.

The election followed a March 2020 constitutional referendum that paved the way for Conde, 83, to extend his stay in office. The opposition said at least 21 people were killed during protests against the referendum in Nzerekore, Guinea’s second largest city. The Guinean government refuted the allegations.

Conde won the 2010 and 2015 elections, but critics said he became increasingly authoritarian.

Diallo told VOA he would highly recommend that the fight against corruption and human rights abuses should be a top priority for the military government. He said the military junta should make it possible for victims of human rights abuses during the Conde administration to get justice.

Regional bloc ECOWAS (Economic Community of West African States) has condemned the September 5 coup. As the group meets this Thursday in an emergency summit to discuss the military takeover in Guinea, Diallo said he hopes ECOWAS will help Guinea put together a transition process that leads to a free and fair election.

Source: Voice of America

GENEVA – The World Food Program warns that emergency food needs in northern Ethiopia are increasing, as conflict spills beyond the embattled Tigray region into neighboring Afar and Amhara provinces.

The agency reports that up to 7 million people are acutely short of food and are facing a hunger crisis. They include more than 5.2 million people in Tigray who are dependent on U.N. food aid for survival. Additionally, the World Food Program reports the conflict, which has now engulfed the entire region, has thrust 1.7 million more people into hunger.

This month, WFP has begun delivering emergency food assistance to communities in Ethiopia’s northern region and says it plans to reach 530,000 people in Afar and 250,000 in Amhara with food aid.

Meanwhile in Tigray, WFP spokesman Tomson Phiri says the situation continues to deteriorate. He says aid agencies are struggling to meet the urgent food needs of more than 5 million people across the war-torn region.

“In fact, WFP food stocks had been almost entirely depleted until two days ago when the first convoy in over two weeks entered the region,” said Phiri. “The WFP-led convoy of over 100 trucks carried 3,500 metric tons of food and other life-saving cargo, including fuel, as well as health and shelter items.”

Phiri says WFP has only managed to get 355 trucks into the region since mid-July. While this sounds like much, he says it is not. He says 355 trucks represents less than 10 percent of the supplies needed. He says 100 trucks must enter Tigray every day to meet people’s food requirements.

He says trucks get stuck in Afar because of bureaucratic delays and difficulties in passing checkpoints. He says some trucks also have been attacked and looted by people in local communities.

“Apart from the escalating fighting that is in the north of the country, food security for millions across the whole of Ethiopia is also under threat due to an unprecedented funding gap for WFP activities in the country,” said Phiri.

WFP is calling for $426 million to expand its emergency food operation to meet the needs of up to 12 million people throughout Ethiopia this year. The agency warns it will be forced to cut rations for people in northern Ethiopia if it does not receive the extra funding,

It says it might have to stop distributing food to about 4 million people in Tigray, Afar and Amhara in the coming months if it runs out of money.

November 4 will mark a year since the Ethiopian government began its military offensive to wrest control of the Tigray region from the Tigray People’s Liberation Front.

Source: Voice of America

South Sudanese are reeling from fuel shortages and soaring food prices after Kenyan and Ugandan truck drivers went on strike nearly two weeks ago, stifling commerce along the Uganda/South Sudan border.

Hundreds of motorists camped at the Trinity gas station in Juba for hours on Monday, waiting in long queues to fill up their tanks with diesel or gasoline.

“You hear people are busy, they want to get the fuel, they are struggling to get it at any cost,” Juba motorist Steven Leju told VOA’s South Sudan in Focus program.

The strike began when truckers halted their routes in response to the killings of two Kenyan truck drivers by assailants along the Juba-Nimule highway in August.

The drivers say they want South Sudan’s government to improve security along the highway before they resume transporting goods into that country.

South Sudan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said it is committed to providing security along the highway. The government said escorts will be provided by the South Sudan People’s Defense Force and South Sudan Police Service and that “obstacles that cause [a] delay on the highway to Juba will be removed.”

A frustrated motorist, who asked to be identified only as Leju, said the government had better act quickly. “I believe that if government gives security, then fuel will come,” Leju said.

Rising fuel prices

Fuel prices rose to between 700 and 800 South Sudanese pounds (roughly $5.50) per liter Monday from 300 pounds (about $2.30) late last week.

Juba resident Justine Wota, one of hundreds of commuters who endured a long wait to get fuel, said prices are climbing by the hour.

After waiting since before dawn, “then you have to go to the fuel station and the price has changed,” Wota told South Sudan in Focus.

Lack of food

Meanwhile, goods sold at markets are becoming scarce and prices are rising.

Rita William, a trader at Juba’s Freedom Market, told South Sudan in Focus that the fresh vegetables she was expecting from Uganda are stuck at the Elegu border post.

She enlisted automobile transportation to bring carrots to Juba, which caused delays and additional costs.

“Most of our things are getting spoiled because things we loaded since Thursday, we have not received them,” she said.

William Muhereza, chairperson of Freedom Market, called on South Sudanese nationals to engage in small scale farming to cushion their livelihoods against emergencies like the strike.

The government should be better prepared to deal more quickly with disruptions, he said.

“We expect the road to be maximum secured as far as security is concerned,” he said. “That is the only road which feeds South Sudan. Without that road, South Sudan cannot exist. If that road is cut off, automatically there will be no food, or fuel, or anything.”

Source: Voice of America

ABIDJAN, Ivory Coast, a modest hydrocarbon producer, announced the “major discovery” of oil and natural gas off its coast during an exploratory drilling carried out by the Italian hydrocarbon giant Eni.

“A major discovery of oil in the sedimentary basin of Ivory Coaast has just been made by the Italian company Eni in the CI-101 block, in deep waters, operated in consortium with the national company Petroci Holding,” said Minister of Mines and Petroleum, Thomas Camara.

The reserves discovered concern crude oil and associated natural gas.

The potential “can be estimated in a preliminary way to about 1.5 to 2 billion barrels of crude oil on the one hand, and on the other hand to about 1,800 to 2,400 billion cubic feet of associated gas,” said Camara, reporting “a significant discovery that would greatly increase the proven reserves of Ivory Coast, as well as its oil and gas production in the years to come”.

The 3,445-metre-deep well was drilled about 60 kilometres off the coast in 30 days, Italy’s Eni said. The firm added that it would now carry out a further evaluation of the wider potential of the find.

Ivory Coast had signed contracts in 2019 with Italy’s Eni and France’s Total, for the exploration of four oil blocks corresponding to an investment of $ 185 million.

Oil production in the country, which in 2019 recorded an increase of 12% to more than 36,000 barrels per day, comes from drilling wells located mainly offshore, near the border with Ghana.

The west African nation, a modest producer, revised its oil code in 2015 to attract new investors through production sharing contracts. The country has 51 identified fields, of which four are producing, 26 are in exploration and 21 are still free or under negotiation.

In 2014, the French group Total had mentioned a “very promising result” about its research in very deep waters off the coast of Ivory Coast.

In addition to Total and Eni, several international companies, including Britain’s Tullow Oil, have announced significant discoveries in recent years.

Source: NAM News Network

Somalia’s National Intelligence and Security Agency said Thursday that the terrorist group al-Shabab had killed a female employee who was abducted in Mogadishu in June. But close family members questioned the claim.

Ikran Tahlil Farah, 24, worked with the agency’s cybersecurity department. She was abducted June 26 near her home in Mogadishu’s Abdulaziz district, which is close to NISA headquarters.

The agency posted a brief statement on its website Thursday saying its investigation had determined that the young woman’s kidnappers handed her over to al-Shabab militants, who later killed her.

The agency did not release details about when or where it believed Ikran was killed.

Al-Shabab has not publicly acknowledged any role in Ikran’s disappearance. The Islamist extremist group previously has publicly executed people it accused of spying for the Somali government and for Western countries, including the United States.

The security agency issued its statement several hours after VOA’s Somali Service aired a radio program that focused on Ikran’s disappearance. Colonel Abdullahi Ali Maow, a former Somali intelligence official who was a guest on the program, speculated that the Islamist terrorist group was involved in Ikran’s fate.

‘This is a smokescreen’

But the young woman’s mother, Abdullahi Ali Maow, said she thought her daughter might be alive and detained in a clandestine location.

“I do not believe that al-Shabab killed my daughter, because when she was kidnapped, she was with people she trusted in the agency,” said the mother, who was also a guest on the program. “I think she is being held somewhere, and this is a smokescreen.”

Former NISA Director-General Abdullahi Ali Sanbalolshe told VOA Somali in July that “some people” told him Ikran had records about a program that secretly sent Somali military recruits to Eritrea to train. Allegations surfaced in June that those recruits have been fighting and dying in Ethiopia’s Tigray conflict.

Ikran “also could possess other sensitive information for which she could have been targeted,” Sanbalolshe said, noting that he hired the young woman in 2017.

Opposition leaders have been pressuring Somalia’s spy agency and Prime Minister Mohamed Hussein Roble for information about the disappearance of the intelligence agency employee.

Source: Voice of America