Newscast - Africa

A presidency statement says Algeria will review its relations with Morocco after accusing it of complicity in deadly forest fires.
President Abdelmadjid Tebboune says most of the fires were criminal in origin.
The decision to review relations with Rabat was made during an extraordinary meeting of the country’s Security Council, chaired by Tebboune and dedicated to evaluating the situation after the fires.
The statement says the incessant hostile acts carried out by Morocco against Algeria have necessitated the review of relations between the two countries.
It says there would also be an intensification of security controls on the western borders with Morocco.

The House of Representatives expressed displeasure over the way some Ministries, Departments and Agencies conceal their revenues, thereby denying the federal government the much-needed fund to fund its annual budget.
The Chairman, House Committee on Finance, Hon. James Faleke also condemned the federal government’s plan to borrow N5.62 trillion to finance the 2022 budget, while the MDAs starve the government of funds.
The lawmaker says the House of Representatives would be more interested in how much government agencies could save, saying the major problem facing the country was revenue generation.
He stressed that if the committee discovered that any of the agencies’ capital projects were unnecessary, they would be removed in a bid to get revenue for the country.

The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation inaugurated the board of Greenfield Refinery Limited, a subsidiary of NNPC, to oversee the establishment and operation of new refineries.
Group Managing Director of the corporation, Mallam Mele Kyari, charged them to explore all options to bring an end to the current challenge of petroleum products importation.
He urged the board and management team of the new company to set up a proper structure with the required skills, technology and finance to drive the company’s operations.

President Muhammadu Buhari has approved recommendations of a committee to review with dispatch 368 grazing sites, across 25 states in the country to determine the levels of encroachment.
A committee chaired by the Chief of Staff to the President, Prof. Ibrahim Gambari had recommended the collection of field data collection on 368 Grazing Reserves across 25 states to assess encroachment and encroachers, stakeholder engagements and sensitization.
The Committee also recommended the production of maps and geo-mapping/tagging of sites, analysis of findings and report preparations as well as design appropriate communication on Grazing Reserves and operations.
The number of the Grazing Reserves and States were deduced from considerations of existing security concerns and other pre-existing socio-economic conditions.

Senator Godswill Akpabio says oil firms operating in the Niger Delta have defaulted in their statutory remittances to the Niger Delta Development Commission to the tune of $4 billion.
Akpabio noted that oil firms operating in the area are expected to provide three per cent of their annual budgets to the commission, but none has complied with this.
Akpabio stressed that the Ministry of Niger Delta will take a keen interest in the implementation of the three per cent Petroleum Industry Act compensation to host communities.
He stated that the NDDC owes contractors three ₦3 trillion however, explained that not all awarded contracts with costs can be regarded as debt.

President Muhammadu Buhari has vowed not to exit the government as a failure at the end of his second term in office in 2023.
The National Security Adviser, Major General Babagana Monguno, conveyed the President’s pledge to State House correspondents at the meeting, which lasted more than five hours.
He says the President is quite happy that there’s been a tremendous success, especially with the advent of the new service chiefs and Inspector-General of Police.

US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan says the Taliban has told the US administration that it will allow a safe passage to the airport in Kabul, which remains under the control of American forces.
Sullivan confirmed that the Hamid Karzai International Airport is now operational, and flights evacuating Americans and Afghan civilians are underway after a pause on the operation on Monday following chaotic scenes of people looking to flee the country.
He says the Taliban have informed them that they are prepared to provide a safe passage of civilians to the airport, and they intend to hold them to that commitment.

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern says New Zealand’s first community case of COVID-19 in six months has been confirmed as the Delta variant and linked through genome sequencing to Australia, as the country began a snap lockdown to stamp out the virus.
Ardern says genome testing showed a link to New South Wales, the eastern Australian state that has been struggling for weeks to contain a COVID-19 outbreak.
New Zealand announced two new cases, bringing the total to seven.
Ardern says she was confident the strategy would succeed against the highly transmissible Delta strain.

The UN's migration agency has called for a rapid expansion of humanitarian aid and more funding for operations in the northern Mozambican province of Cabo Delgado.
The Director of the International Organisation for Migration, António Vitorino says the assistance was needed to support the hundreds of thousands displaced by insecurity in the area.
He says significant additional funding is needed to cover life-saving humanitarian needs and work towards lasting solutions, especially before the next rainy and cyclone season in December.
The IOM says it had provided assistance to more than 600,000 people in Cabo Delgado between January and July including through shelter construction or reconstruction support and providing household items.

The parliament in the Democratic Republic of Congo has voted to extend the state of emergency in Ituri and North Kivu.
The state of emergency imposed by President Félix Tshisekedi on 6 May has been extended six times now.
Military administrations have replaced the civilian authorities to curb insecurity in the provinces where several attacks carried out by rebels have left thousands dead.
Some of the attacks have been blamed on the Allied Democratic Forces.
The eastern provinces have also seen violence between ethnic groups.