Africa Business News

South Africa’s pharmaceutical giant Aspen Pharmacare Holdings Ltd on Monday said the company had sufficient local capacity to produce injections to meet any demand surge for dexamethasone.
The 60-year-old drug dexamethasone has been found to be able to save the lives of COVID-19 patients, scientists at University of Oxford said last week, calling the discovery a major breakthrough.
Aspen, South Africa’s biggest supplier of drugs with a market share of 22% in sub-Saharan Africa, manufactures both the injectable and tablet forms of the drug, mainly used for treatment of tumours, asthma and other respiratory ailments.
Group Chief Executive of Aspen, Stephen Saad said Aspen fortunately has necessary capacity to ramp up considerably.
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A Reuters poll found that South Africa’s consolidated budget deficit is expected to widen markedly this year, with its National Treasury struggling to squeeze it back to levels it anticipated before the coronavirus pandemic disrupted economic activity.
The poll, taken over the past week, showed a median of 21 economists expect the government budget deficit for this year to widen to a record 14% of gross domestic product, from an official estimate of 6.3% of GDP in the last financial year.
Finance Minister Tito Mboweni is due to deliver an emergency budget on Wednesday in response to the COVID-19 crisis.
Standard Bank’s Elna Moolman said the focus in this budget will be partly on the magnitude of the deficits and, in turn, funding requirement, and perhaps even more importantly whether government can credibly project debt stabilisation in the medium-term.
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South African rand edged up on Tuesday amid a global recovery of risk-sensitive currencies after U.S. President Donald Trump said the U.S.-China trade pact was fully intact, clarifying earlier confusing statements from the White House about the deal.
At 0600 GMT, the rand was 0.27% firmer at 17.2975 per dollar closed at 17.3450 in New York. In the previous session, the local unit was weighed down by investor fears about a second wave of COVID-19 infections globally as cases in the United States and Brazil spiked.
Overnight statements from the Trump administration that the trade deal with China was still on track lifted risk appetite roiled by simmering tensions between the two superpowers that has soured in recent months.
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South Africa’s City Lodge Hotels Ltd on Monday said the hotel chain aimed to raise up to 1.2 billion rand ($69.3 million) via a rights issue to stave off a cash crunch.
The money raised will help pay debt, meet other obligations and generate working capital to plug a cash flow shortfall.
South Africa went into a two-month lockdown in March to curb the spread of coronavirus, shutting beaches and game reserves, the country’s main tourist attractions, and dealing a blow to the hotel industry.
City Lodge said the rights issue would create debt capacity and a flexible capital structure to position the company for future growth.
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South Africa’s Edcon on Monday said that more that 75% of its creditors have approved a proposed rescue plan that will see the retailer sold in parts or whole after it entered a form of bankruptcy protection in April.
The approval paves the way for the administrators to finalise the sale process by the end of June to allow time for supplier negotiations and for summer stock to be purchased.
About 15 parties have shown interest in the sale, with the selection of the offer expected in early July. Edcon entered business rescue after sales were hit by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Creditors voted during a virtual meeting that started on Monday afternoon.
The business rescue practitioners, Piers Marsden and Lance Schapiro of Matuson Associates, said they will proceed with implementing the adopted Business Rescue Plan, keeping all stakeholders updated as the plan progresses.
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The Chamber of Petroleum Consumers, COPEC, has warned that fuel prices at the pumps may go above five Ghana cedis in a few days if measures are not put in place to stabilize the cedi against the dollar.
COPEC says the continuous depreciation of the cedi increased the price of a liter of petrol by 65 pesewas.
A sharp drop in the price of fuel on the global market also saw the price of petrol hitting 4 cedis due to a trade war between Russia and Saudi Arabia, coupled with the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Executive Director of COPEC, Duncan Amoah, argues that even though the easing of restrictions globally may have contributed to the prices of fuel going up on the global stage due to increased demand, the cedi is a major factor in the recent spike in prices.
According COPEC, there is the need to put in place measures to arrest the fall of the cedi to stabilize prices of fuel at the pumps since Ghana is a net importer of oil.
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The Institute of Energy Security, IES, has advised government to benchmark expected revenue from petroleum receipts around 35 dollars per barrel.
The 2020 national budget pegged petroleum prices for export at 60 dollars per barrel. However, the outbreak of COVID-19 caused prices of crude oil on the world market to drop to as low as 20 dollars per barrel.
According to IES, the presentation of the Mid-Year Budget in July, should provide an opportunity for the Finance Minister, Ken Ofori-Atta, to adjust the figures downwards.
The Executive Director of IES, Nana Amoasi VII (the seventh), while speaking to Citi Business News said the Finance Minister must be realistic in making projections not to throw the budget out of gear.
The Finance Minister will be compelled to review the prices downward due to the outbreak of COVID-19.
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The Investment and Securities Tribunal has called for the development of the capacities of litigants and counsel to effectively address capital market technicalities.
It said this had become vital as the lack of knowledge had made capital market litigants lose many cases.
The Acting Chairman, IST, Jude Udunni, however, told journalists in Abuja that his agency had been trying to develop the capacity of its workforce in order to address this lapse in the industry.
He said capacity of litigants and counsel need to be developed because of the technicalities of the capital market. The lack of knowledge has led to litigants losing cases.
According to him, the agency had organised three sensitisation programmes since 2017, despite not being the duty of the tribunal to build capacity of litigants and counsel.
The IST boss further noted that the tribunal was in a fix on how to proceed with cases that were delayed as a result of the lockdown occasioned by outbreak of COVID-19.
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The National Economic Council has said there is an urgent need for technical and financial audits of the electricity distribution companies in the country before interventions by Siemens, World Bank and others.
The Federal Government and Siemens AG signed a Letter of Agreement on the Nigerian Electrification Roadmap in July 2019, with the aim of ramping up electricity generation in the country to 25,000 megawatts in six years.
NEC’s Ad-Hoc Committee on Ownership Review and Analysis of Discos and Electricity Sector Reform, in its report said the power sector had underperformed due to critical challenges.
It said the challenges included non-implementation of cost-reflective tariffs, misalignment between the investors and the Bureau of Public Enterprises on required investment in Discos, under-investment in infrastructure and poor implementation of rules/contracts.
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Virgin Atlantic has announced its intention to resume flights from Lagos to London Heathrow from August 24, 2020.
According to a statement by the airline, the international flight will be operated on its new A350-1000 aircraft and will provide connections to a range of US destinations.
In addition, the airline promised to resume flying to 16 additional destinations around the world.
The Chief Commercial Officer of Virgin Atlantic, Juha Jarvinen, said as countries around the world begin to relax travel restrictions, we look forward to welcoming our customers back onboard and flying them safely to many destinations across our network.
He said from 20th July flight will resume services to New York, Los Angeles and Hong Kong; then from 1st August onwards, passenger flying to 17 additional destinations around the world including Lagos, Tel Aviv, Atlanta, Mumbai and Las Vegas.
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