Category: Africa
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Kenya sinks Sh2 billion into New York consulate
Kenya has acquired a Sh2 billion office space in New York as part of a plan that will see taxpayers shoulder a Sh6.9 billion burden over the next three years to buy properties for the country’s diplomats and embassies in different world capitals. The Foreign Affairs ministry made the purchase public through documents tabled in…
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Nigeria stocks at 1-month high after Buhari return from UK medical leave
Nigerian equities hit a one-month high shortly after the stock market opened for trade on Friday following President Muhammadu Buhari’s return home from an extended medical leave in Britain. Stocks rose 1.29 percent at 0936 GMT to levels last seen in February, according to Thomson Reuters data. Stocks, which are down 6.3 percent on the…
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Kenya:Sh384 million for swearing in President not in Budget
The cash for swearing in the President after the August 8 General Election is missing in the national budget for the year starting July, State House has revealed. State House reckons that the Treasury has not factored in Sh384.25 million for the occasion and is lobbying Parliament for the millions to be included in its…
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Zimbabwe finmin revises 2017 economic growth forecast to 3.7 pct: state newspaper
Zimbabwe’s economy is now expected to grow 3.7 percent this year, from an initial projection of 1.7 percent, the finance minister was quoted as saying by the state-owned Herald newspaper on Friday. The southern African nation’s economy stagnated last year following a devastating drought while its budget deficit exploded as President Robert Mugabe’s administration struggled…
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Nigeria’s rice boom raises output but old problems persist
Nigerian Abdulhakim Mohammed has just graduated in architecture but, like many people ranging from unemployed locals to foreign investors and Africa’s richest man, he has decided the future lies in rice farming. The reason is that domestic rice prices have more than doubled in the last two years due to an import ban and a…
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Nairobi:City Hall hits traders with heavy licensing burden
Nairobi traders, already under pressure to secure trading permits by the March 31 deadline, have been hit by a sharp increase in annual licence fees, undermining efforts to improve ease of doing business in the city. The traders said the county government’s decision to bundle the licences has more than doubled the trading permit burden…
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Kenya:Bamburi Cement profit flat at Sh5.89bn on tight competition
Cement maker Bamburi Group has reported flat growth in its after-tax profit, citing falling demand in domestic and regional markets as well as rising competition. The Nairobi Securities Exchange-listed company recorded a profit after tax of Sh5.89 billion for the year ended December 2016, a 0.3 per cent rise over the profit recorded during a…
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Kenya:KCB takes new dividend path with Sh9bn payout
KCB Group yesterday shook Kenya’s besieged banking industry with the announcement of a Sh9.1 billion dividend payout for the year ended December 2016, the largest ever by a financial services firm. The bank, which is Kenya’s largest by assets, announced it was paying shareholders a dividend of Sh3 per share, a 50 percent increase from…
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Op-Ed: Will massive O.R Tambo heist affect tourism to South Africa?
The breaking news on the evening of the 07 March 2017, was that R24 million had been stolen from a plane at O.R Tambo International Airport. The armed robbery occurred around 7:45 pm. The robbers had disguised themselves as uniformed police and carried fake ACSA permits. The previous large heist at O.R Tambo happened in…
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South Africa’s taxis block roads to main airport in Uber protest
South African taxi drivers on Friday blocked roads to Johannesburg’s airport, holding up thousands of travelers in the latest protest against ride-hailing app Uber. Uber Technologies Inc’s service has triggered protests by taxi drivers from London to Hungary and New Delhi as it upends traditional business models that require professional drivers to pay steep licensing…