Africa Business News

A senior official on Tuesday said Investors have made firm commitments to put tens of billions of rand into projects that South Africa’s government hopes will drive an economic recovery from the coronavirus crisis.
South Africa is facing a steep economic contraction this year after the government imposed a strict lockdown to contain the virus, and a global economic slowdown has hurt demand for its exports.
Officials held an infrastructure symposium on Tuesday to showcase 276 projects to investors from sectors including energy, transport, housing, water and sanitation, agriculture and digital technologies that they hope will raise the potential economic growth rate and create jobs.
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The World Bank on Tuesday said it has approved a $500 million loan to help Morocco improve access to online finance and government services for businesses, particularly startups led by young people.
The Moroccan central bank expects government debt to surge to 75.3% of gross domestic product in 2020 from 65% last year. It forecasts the economy will contract by 5.2% this year compared with 2.5% last year.
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The Public Interest Accountability Committee, PIAC, has reiterated its call on Parliament to put some restrictions on the Ghana National Petroleum Corporation’s budget allocated to Corporate Social Investments.
The Annual Budget Funding Amount (ABFA) made available for GNPC in 2019 was pegged at GHC2.7 billion, out of which only GHC1.2 billion was utilized, leaving a balance of GHC1.5 billion unutilized.
According to PIAC’s report, for the third consecutive year, not only has a substantial proportion of the ABFA not been fully utilized, but GNPC has been unable to account for it.
PIAC says GNPC is in violation of the Petroleum Revenue Management Act, and the Ghana Infrastructure Investment Fund Act among others.
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President Muhammadu Buhari on Tuesday raised concerns over the planned single currency for the Economic Community of West African States.
He said the plan for the single currency, Eco, could be in serious jeopardy, unless member states complied with agreed processes of reaching the collective goal.
The Eco is the proposed name for the common currency that the West African Monetary Zone plans to introduce in the framework of ECOWAS.
According to a statement by his Special Adviser on Media and Publicity, Femi Adesina, the President delivered Nigeria’s position at a virtual extraordinary meeting of the Authority of Heads of State and Government of the West African Monetary Zone.
Buhari expressed concern over the decision of francophone countries that form the West African Economic and Monetary Union to replace the CFA Franc with Eco ahead of the rest of member states.
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The Federal Government plans to review the prices of gas consumed across the country.
The Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Timipre Sylva, said the move would help deepen the use Liquefied Petroleum Gas, popularly called cooking gas, as well as Compressed Natural Gas.
The Federal Government targets to move motorists from the use of petrol to the use of CNG in their respective vehicles.
Sylva, according to a statement from his ministry on Tuesday, said the government would continue to push for the use of gas for cooking and in automobiles.
He disclosed the plan of government to review the country’s domestic gas pricing framework at the inauguration of a committee that would focus on gas sector review in Nigeria.
The minister said the committee would evaluate and review gas prices nationwide in order to align with the current economic realities.
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The International Monetary Fund said Nigeria’s major fiscal challenge has a very low revenue and not so much of its debt profile.
The low revenue, it explained, had led to low debt-servicing capacity and limited funding for critical sectors such as education, health and social welfare.
IMF’s Mission Chief and Senior Resident Representative for Nigeria, Jesmin Rahman, said these on Tuesday at a webinar hosted by the Nigerian Economic Summit Group, Fiscal Policy Roundtable and Tax Investment and Competitiveness Policy Commission.
The IMF said it considered Nigeria’s public debt stock average at 29 per cent of its Gross Domestic Product as of the end of 2019, when compared to emerging and developing market average, which is about 53 per cent of GDP.
It noted that the 29 per cent includes not just government’s debt, but takes into account overall public sector liabilities, such as Central Bank of Nigeria’s overdraft, Asset Management Corporation of Nigeria’s debt and other things.
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The House of Representatives has summoned the Minister of Industry, Trade and Investment, Otunba Adeniyi Adebayo, and the management of the Standards Organisation of Nigeria over failure by the SON to audit its accounts for six years.
The House Committee on Public Accounts particularly summoned the minister on Tuesday over the alleged failure by the SON to answer a series of invitations sent to its management.
The committee, therefore, asked Adebayo and the management of the Organisation to appear before it on Friday unfailingly.
According to the lawmakers, the summons was based on information from the Office of the Auditor-General of the Federation that the SON failed to render accounts from 2014 to 2019.
The Chairman of the committee, Mr Wole Oke, stated that the SON was being given an opportunity to answer audit queries and defend its non-rendition of accounts for the financial years under review.
Oke ruled that those summoned must appear before the committee on Friday or it would be forced to invoke the relevant sections of the law against them.
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Ford Motor Co.’s new Ranger truck topped a ranking of vehicles that contribute most to the U.S. economy, while three Tesla Inc. models placed in the top nine.
The two companies’ brands were absent from Cars.com’s top 10 last year but stood out in the 2020 version of automotive site’s “American-Made Index.” Ford’s pickup and Tesla’s Model S, X and 3 all made their debut in the annual study.
The senior editor of Cars.com, Kelsey Mays, said Tesla’s participation is one of the major developments this year.
She said the electric-car maker fared well because it uses a lot of U.S.-sourced drivetrain components, and its U.S. vehicle assembly employs many workers.
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China has successfully put into orbit the final satellite in its BeiDou-3 navigation system, further advancing the country as a major power in space.
Tuesday's launch will allow China to no longer rely on the US government-owned Global Positioning System (GPS).
The $10bn (£8bn) network is made up of 35 satellites and provides global navigation coverage.
It comes as tensions between Beijing and Washington are increasing over the coronavirus, trade and Hong Kong.
The third version of the Beidou Navigation Satellite System (BDS) offers an alternative to Russia's GLONASS and the European Galileo systems, as well as America's GPS.
Future plans promise to support a more accessible and integrated system scheduled to come online by 2035 with BDS at its core.
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The finance minister of Rwanda on Monday said the country’s economy is expected to grow 2% in 2020, 6.3% in 2021 and 8% in 2022, as he presented the budget to parliament.
Uzziel Ndagijimana said tourism revenues had decreased by 35% so far, while foreign direct investment would decrease by 62% because of the impact of COVID-19 on trade.
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