Loon, a unit of Google’s owner Alphabet Inc, which uses high-altitude balloons to provide mobile internet to remote areas, has signed a deal with Vodacom to expand the South African mobile operator’s network in Mozambique.

Vodacom said using the Loon solution, it will expand mobile network access to Cabo Delgado and Niassa.

Vodacom Group Chief Executive, Shameel Joosub in a statement said it is more pertinent in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic, where more Mozambicans will now have access to healthcare information through the Loon partnership.

and aviation regulators to obtain the necessary approvals.

Loon CEO Alastair Westgarth said this was the first step to a larger partnership that would allow it to serve tens of millions of Vodacom subscribers throughout Africa.

The statistics office said Ghana’s annual consumer price inflation jumped to 10.6% in April from 7.8% the previous month, driven by higher food prices in areas affected by government-ordered coronavirus lockdowns.

The office’s monthly report said that both the annualised rate and the increase from one month to the next were the highest since Ghana rebased its CPI last August.

Regions affected by the lockdowns last month, including the capital Accra and second city Kumasi, had average rates of inflation 8.81% higher than other regions, it said.

Due to the crisis, the government expects the economy to grow by just 1.5% this year, the slowest rate in nearly four decades.

South Africa’s MTN Group stuck to its medium-term forecast on Thursday, unlike some other companies, as it posted higher core earnings for the first quarter of 2020.

The mobile operator however cut its capital expenditure guidance for 2020 to between 21 billion rand ($1.13 billion) and 22 billion rand, from 28.3 billion rand when it reported 2019 results in March.

MTN’s Chief Financial Officer, Ralph Mupita said that while this financial year will be challenging, the company is maintaining its 3-5 years medium-term guidance for now.

Mupita said MTN would update capital markets of any change in August when it is due to release its first half results.

South Africa’s rand weakened early on Thursday as demand for emerging currencies continued to ebb due to growing concerns over the impact of the coronavirus on the global economy.

At 0645 GMT the rand was 0.32% weaker at 18.5600 per dollar from an opening level of 18.4980, extending losses from the previous session triggered by a grim economic outlook given by the U.S. central bank.

Moves in risk currencies globally, including the rand, have been sentiment-driven in recent sessions, with investors mostly staying on the sidelines as they weigh the prospects of a quick economic recovery against signs of a second wave of COVID-19 infections.

U.S. Federal Reserve chairman Jerome Powell on Wednesday gave a sobering assessment of the U.S. economic outlook in a closely watched speech that quickened a move to safe-haven assets.

According to a memorandum signed by one of the administrators and the public enterprises ministry the administrators at state-owned South African Airways (SAA) will not sell assets for an interim period without involving the government.

The memorandum, which was seen by Reuters, also said the administrators and the ministry had agreed that the objective of SAA’s bankruptcy protection process was to have a restructured SAA or a new company with no reliance on public finances.

Senior officials at the public enterprise’s ministry have criticised the administrators for not coming up with a business rescue plan for SAA sooner and recently hired an aviation consultancy to advise them.

The Federal Government has warned oil and gas firms against the illegal use of manpower supply permits to employ foreigners in the Nigerian oil and gas industry.

The Ministry of Interior, the Nigerian Content Development and Monitoring Board and the Department of Petroleum Resources, in a joint statement, said manpower supply companies issued statutory permits to supply only Nigerian professionals were engaged by operators and contractors to supply expatriates.

They said the permits clearly indicate that they are not to be used to deploy expatriates under any circumstance or guise.

Further stating that It is also a disturbance that operators and major service providers promote this illegal practice by entering into contract agreements with these manpower supply companies to source expatriates for positions earmarked to be occupied by Nigerians.

The Federal Executive Council on Wednesday approved N47.2bn to boost power supply in the country.

The Minister of Power, Mr. Sale Mamman said It will supply additional 40 megawatts of power to the national grid,

He told State House correspondents after the FEC meeting, which was held via video conferencing, that the 40 MW would be moved from the Kashimbilla Dam in Taraba State.

The minister stated that the council approved the ministry’s memo for the revised estimated total cost for the augmentation of the subsisting contract in the sum of N4,235,303,821.90, to provide additional 40 megawatts, currently being generated from Kashimbilla, via Takum, Wukari and Yandev, to the national grid.”

He listed states in the North-East and Benue State as the beneficiaries of the 40MW when evacuated. The FEC also approved a separate N683m for the Nigerian Ports Authority.

The Federal Government on Wednesday adjusted the 2020 budget downward from the original N10.59tn to N10.52tn. The budget deficit is in excess of N5.3tn.

The approval was made in Abuja by the Federal Executive Council meeting presided over by President, General Muhammadu Buhari at the State House.

The new figures were captured in the revised 2020 Medium Term Expenditure Framework submitted to the council by the Minister of Finance, Budget, National Planning, Mrs. Zainab Ahmed.

Parameters adjusted in the budget include the crude oil benchmark now further cut to $25 from $30. The FEC however took another $5 out of the benchmark on Wednesday in the latest cut to settle at $25.

Ahmed, who spoke with State House correspondents after the meeting, said daily crude oil production was now 1.94 million barrels per day, while the naira-dollar exchange rate was put at N360/$1.

The Nigerian LNG Limited has awarded the engineering, procurement and construction contracts for its Train 7 project to the SCD JV Consortium, comprising Saipem of Italy, Japan’s Chiyoda and Daewoo of South Korea.

The NLNG announced the signing of the contracts at a webinar on Wednesday evening. The company had in September 2019 said that it had issued a Letter of Intent for the EPC contracts to SCD JV Consortium.

The Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Chief Timipre Sylva, said, with the award of the EPC contracts, the construction phase of Train 7 can now commence in earnest.

The Managing Director, NLNG, said, it marks yet another milestone in Nigeria LNG’s journey in being a global LNG company helping to build a better Nigeria.

The NLNG is jointly owned by the Federal Government, represented by the NNPC, Shell, Total and Eni.

The company behind the experimental Coronavirus treatment Remdesivir has signed non-exclusive licensing deals with five drugmakers based in India and Pakistan to make and sell the antiviral medicine in 127 countries.

Gilead Sciences said the agreements cover almost all of the world's low-income and lower-middle income countries, including Afghanistan, India, North Korea, Pakistan and South Africa.

The pacts also include several upper-middle and high-income nations.

This month both the US and Japan authorised Remdesivir as a treatment for Covid-19 patients.

Many other pharmaceutical companies are racing to develop a treatment or vaccine to combat the pandemic.