Category: Southern Africa

Angola’s central bank has cut the amount of hard currency travellers can take abroad under new rules to cope with a decline in foreign exchange reserves. Under the rules made public late on Thursday, the bank cut the sum that can be taken abroad to $10,000 from $15,000. Hit by a collapse in the price…

ECONOMIC planning minister Tom Alweendo yesterday admitted that the SME Bank is not doing what it is intended to do. He said this during a business breakfast meeting on the Harambee Prosperity Plan (HPP) in Windhoek which was organised by the Namibia Chamber of Commerce and Industry (NCCI). The HPP was launched by President Hage…

Leading financial services companies in the country have ended their business ties with the controversial Guptas’ Oakbay Investments and its listed entity Oakbay Resources. The controversial family has come under attacks over the last few months for allegations ranging from ‘corruption to state capture’. First National Bank joined ABSA, Sasfin and auditing firm, KPMG, in…

Political upheavals in South Africa pose a risk to its sovereign credit rating, ratings firm Standard & Poor’s said on Wednesday, a day after President Jacob Zuma survived an impeachment motion in parliament for ignoring the constitution. S&P said last week’s constitutional court ruling that Zuma had breached the constitution by ignoring an order to…

Malawi’s rich and powerful people, including former president Bingu wa Mutharika whom some sections of society had claimed he had offshore investments, are not among the world influential figures on the infamous Panama papers list. Some Malawians on social media were asking state prosecuting agencies to probe former president Mutharika after it transpired that he…

JAYNET Kabila, twin sister of the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s president and an MP, has an indirect stake in Vodacom Group’s operations in the country, documents show, shedding light on the wealth the opposition says the first family has accumulated. Ms Kabila owns half of Keratsu Holding, a company with a 9.6% indirect stake…

South Africa’s rand edged up against the dollar on Wednesday but was still off recent four-month highs, with local political uncertainty as well as overall low risk appetite seen capping any significant gains. Stocks opened slightly firmer, with the JSE securities exchange’s Top-40 index up 0.5 percent from Tuesday’s close. At 0714 GMT the rand…

Foreign banks operating in Zimbabwe have submitted credible plans on how they intend to transfer majority shares to locals, the country’s finance minister said on Saturday, reducing the chances the government could cancel their licences. Under an Indigenisation and Economic Empowerment Act all foreign companies operating in Zimbabwe were given a March 31 deadline to…

MAPUTO — Mozambique is becoming a case study on the perils of rushing into markets at the edge of the world’s financial system. Global investors who in 2013 thought they were lending a state-owned company $850m to buy a tuna fishing fleet learned within months that the funds had been diverted to buy ships for…