Africa Business News

Ratings agency Fitch on Tuesday warned that Government debt burdens across sub-Saharan Africa are rising at a faster pace and to higher levels than elsewhere in emerging markets, heightening the risk of further rating downgrades and defaults.
Emerging markets have been battered by the fallout from the coronavirus pandemic, with a coinciding oil price rout adding to the pain for smaller and often riskier developing countries, many focussed on crude exports and having few fiscal or monetary buffers.
Fitch predicted that the median of government debt-to-GDP for the 19 sovereigns it rated in the region would rise to 71% by end-2020 from 26% in 2012, while the median debt ratio across other emerging markets is expected to climb to 57%.
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The Bank of Ghana in its last auction of forex in June, received 33% of the total amount of dollars dealers bid for.
The total bids were also about three times lower than the figure offered by the dealers.
For the last auction in June 2020, the Forex Auction Committee of the Bank of Ghana accepted $25,000,000 out of the $75,500,000 offered by forex dealers.
This means that the central bank rejected $50, 500,000 out of the amount bid for.
The $25,000,000 is also the amount the regulator sought to accept for purposes of controlling the supply of dollars.
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Kenya’s economy grew by 4.9% in the first three months of this year slowing down from its previous growth of 5.5% same period last year.
According to the East African nation’s statistics office, Kenya was lightly spared the brunt of the Covid-19 pandemic during the period, except for the hospitality sector which has been hit hard.
The Kenya National Bureau of Statistics says the hospitality industry shrunk by nearly 10% due to massive cancellations and suspension of international travel as well as an unprecedented closure of hotels and other tourist sites, as the country raced against time to contain the spread of coronavirus.
Kenya’s major trade partners such as China, the European Union and the United States suffered far reaching effects of the Covid-19 pandemic and this meant, export earnings were immediately reduced.
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The Central Bank of Nigeria has said it is probing some dealers for allegedly procuring foreign currencies for the purpose of importing items, which had been designated as invalid for the Nigerian foreign exchange market.
The Federal High Court in Lagos ordered that the bank accounts of the suspects should be frozen for 180 days to allow for investigation by the apex bank while following an ex parte application by the CBN Governor, Godwin Emefiele, on Monday.
Emefiele told the court that the illegal activities of the dealers had continually undermined the CBN’s efforts to maintain a stable foreign exchange regime, which causes significant economic and financial instability to the Nigerian economy.
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According to the Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, Mr Godwin Emefiele, the non-performing loan ratio of the Nigerian banking sector dropped to 6.6 per cent at the end of April 2020 from 11 per cent in April 2019.
In a report recently released by the CBN on the last Monetary Policy meeting, Emefiele said the observed growth in credit illustrates the continued potency of the bank’s Loan to Deposit Ratio policy and the need to sustain credit flows to the private sector, especially at this critical time when the economy needs to indefatigably support its productive machinery.
He said the reduction in the NPLs underlined the CBN’s continued drive to de-risk lending.
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The Federal Government on Tuesday said the Bank of China and Sinosure, a Chinese export and credit insurance corporation, are to fund the $2.6bn Ajaokuta-Kaduna-Kano gas pipeline.
Two Chinese firms will also work along with their counterparts in Nigeria to execute the project, which was officially inaugurated virtually by the President on Tuesday.
Brentex/China Petroleum Pipeline Bureau-CPP Consortia and Oilserve/China First Highway Engineering Company-CFHEC Consortia were announced as the Engineering Procurement and Construction contractors for the project.
Buhari said the pipeline would provide gas for the generation of power and for gas-based industries to facilitate the development of new industries.
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The National Assembly and electricity distribution companies have asked the Federal Government to subsidise electricity consumption.
The Discos on Monday told the National Assembly leadership that the only condition to halt tariff hike was for the Federal Government to bear the difference between the current tariff and the proposed one.
The President of the Senate, Ahmad Lawan and the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Femi Gbajabiamila, on Tuesday insisted that the planned hike in electricity tariff in the country was not timely.
They said while they agreed on cost-reflective tariff, some measures such as proper metering must be put in place before such hike could be implemented
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The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic is estimated to cost Nigeria and other oil exporters in Africa a total of about $34bn in revenue.
According to the International Monetary Fund, the projected decline in revenue is attributable to the dwindling global crude oil prices.
IMF’s Director, African Department, Abebe Selassie, disclosed this at the Africa Ministerial Roundtable on COVID-19 impact on the energy sector in Africa.
The fund noted that African governments would be under intense budget pressure and rise in debt burden, adding that such burden would be higher among oil exporting countries.
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The Federal Government has disclosed plans to force the Digital Satellite Television, owned by MultiChoice, a South Africa-based cable service provider, to provide pay-per-view options to Nigerian subscribers.
The government also said it has amended Nigeria’s broadcasting code to prevent DSTV from monopolising its channels and contents.
This is just as the House of Representatives ordered the Nigerian Broadcasting Commission to ask DSTV to reverse its subscription rates introduced on June 1, 2020.
The House has been probing DSTV for allegedly cheating its Nigerian subscribers by restricting them to prepaid plans.
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The Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority on Tuesday said the approval by the Federal Government for the resumption of domestic flights will only be given when it is safe to open the airports and airspace to commercial operations.
The NCAA also declared that private jets were not allowed to operate charter flight services because some private jet owners had been found to be violating this order.
The General Manager, Public Relations Department, NCAA, Sam Adurogboye, said that although the Federal Government through the Presidential Task Force on COVID-19 had given approval to resume domestic flights, the airspace would only be opened when it is safe.
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