confidentially speaking
The Africa Confidential Blog
GHANA: New government's first budget wins praise as country marks 60 years of Independence
Patrick Smith
This week we start with a 60th birthday party – its Ghana's –
just a few days after a sobering state of the nation address and budget
in parliament in Accra. Then across the continent in Kenya, opposition
protests about the credibility of preparations for national elections
due in August are rising.
In Nigeria, there are
mixed messages about the prospects of
the economy bouncing back and in South
Africa, it looks like President
Jacob Zuma has been
taking a masterclass on the land question from his
comrade Robert Mugabe. In Congo-Kinshasa, the latest
revelation about
secret payments to President Joseph
Kabila's ally Dan Gertler could
prompt
more interest from investigators in the murky flow of resources out of
the country's mining industry. Finally, another militia — the Benghazi
Defence Brigade — has ousted rogue General Khalifa Haftar's troops from
a couple of big refineries in the eastern Libya. That will have big
political and financial consequences in the months ahead.
GHANA: New government's first budget wins praise as
country
marks 60 years of Independence
This week's celebrations of Ghana's 60 years of Independence
will eschew razzmattaz in favour of pushng the new government's message
of strong economic management and education and health investments, a
senior government advisor told Africa
Confidential in Accra. Cities
across Ghana are emblazoned in the national colours and there will be
celebrations in all the regional capitals today, 6 March, but the
government says it has clamped down hard on 'non-productive' spending.
The government is still basking in its post-election
popularity but the honeymoon is likely to be short-lived and some tough
policy choices are due in the next few months.
President Nana Addo
Akufo-Addo has given a solidarity speech
to visiting African leaders, diplomats and local celebrants at Black
Star Square in Accra, reiterating earlier calls for an
activist citizenry.
He was speaking just four days after Finance Minister Ken
Ofori-Atta read his first budget to parliament. Announcing plans
to
almost double the country's growth to 6.3% this year from about 3.7% in
2016, Ofori-Atta said he wanted to shift the focus of the economy to
production from taxation. The government is planning tough cuts on
non-productive state spending: aiming to bring down the budget deficit
to 6.5% of gross domestic product this year from its current level of
over 10%, and inflation to 11.2% from its current level of 13.3%.
Ofori-Atta, a founder of Accra-based Databank, was heckled
throughout his speech by the opposition who held up placards reading
'419 [or scam] budget'. A devout Christian who has never held political
office, Ofori-Atta told his fellow MPs that he took strength from the
opposition placards: 'It reminded me of Philippians 4:19 in the
Bible'. The verse reads: 'And my God will meet all your needs according
to the riches of his Glory in Christ Jesus.'
KENYA: Louder warnings on election credibility after
voter registration doubts
Opposition politicians are sounding alarms over the fairness
of national elections due in August after an unexpectedly low turnout
for a top-up voter registration. The Independent Electoral and
Boundaries Commission has announced that only 3.8 million of an
expected 6 million have registered in the latest round, a
result the organisation's officials described as 'puzzling' (See
AC Vol 58 No 5, Registering
Interest).
However, the registration of far fewer new voters in
opposition-supporting areas than those where the governing Jubilee
Alliance is strongest has prompted further criticism. A closely-argued
editorial by Murithi Mutiga, a
leading analyst with the International
Crisis Group, says the lack of transparency and influence over some of
the election rules is eroding trust in the system again. He added that
arguments among bidders had held up the purchase of voter verification
equipment and could result in the bypassing of a competitive bidding
process and more political rows ahead of the election.
NIGERIA: Green shoots of economic recovery spring up
as airport
closes in political capital
Conflicting signals about the health of the national economy
emanate from Nigeria where key questions about the multiple exchange
rates of the naira are yet to be resolved. For working Nigerians hit
by inflation, foreign currency shortages and power cuts, current
conditions look bleak despite higher oil prices and the government's
commitment to launch a multi-billion dollar investment programme this
year.
Yet visiting bankers and economists insist they are seeing the
first signs of recovery after last year's recession. A team from the
London-based Exotix debt trading outfit said it was 'optimistic' about
the policy direction, adding that the economy was now being managed
more effectively. Their view reflects some increase in output, which in
turn has been helped by the greater availability of foreign
exchange.
There is also some investment news about a planned US$20
billion gas processing plant and petrochemicals plant in the Niger
Delta which could generate over 250,000 jobs directly and indirectly
according to Vice-President Yemi
Osinbajo. At the same time the investigation into the sale of
Malabu oil block – one of the most prospective concessions in the
region known as OML245 – to Royal Dutch Shell and Italy's ENI simmers on.
Nigerian authorities are freezing assets belonging to the
major oil companies pending further progress in the case. The Italian
prosecutor is claiming that both companies were involved in money
laundering operations to disguise the payment of kickbacks to state
officials. Both Shell and ENI deny all wrongdoing in the matter.
SOUTH AFRICA: Besieged on all sides, President Zuma
plays the land
card at last
With a call to change the constitution to allow the faster
redistribution of land, President Jacob Zuma is trying to shore up his
support base and outbid his critics in the radical Economic Freedom
Fighters. Contradicting his senior colleagues in the governing African
National Congress, Zuma said on 3 March that constitutional strictures
were slowing down the pace of land reform and there should be a means
to redistribute land without compensating the existing owners.
There would have to be an audit, said Zuma, of pre-colonial
land ownership, use and occupation patterns. 'Once the audit has been
completed, a single law should be developed to address the issue of
land restitution without compensation,' Zuma told a gathering of
traditional leaders in Cape Town. That would mean a changing the
constitution, he said.
But Zuma's ANC colleagues disputed the need for such a change.
Several MPs said the country's liberal constitution was an enabler not
an obstacle to land reform. And the ANC's Chief Whip Jackson
Mthembu tweeted that blaming the constitution for slow land
reform was 'disingenuous and scapegoating', adding that South Africans
should take
advantage of all available legal provisions.
CONGO-KINSHASA: Glencore admits $100 million payment
to
Kabila ally as corruption probe deepens
The admission by Glencore that it secretly paid US$100 million to Dan
Gertler, the Israeli
billionaire mine owner and ally of President Joseph Kabila, has sparked
interest in Congo and the United
States. Glencore now says it made the payments to Gertler under
the instructions of Congo's state mining company, Gécamines. Yet it
didn't explain why it failed to mention the payments in its corporate
filings over a four year period. The admission had to be dragged out of
the company by Global Witness, a London-based anti-corruption lobby.
Prosecution lawyers in New York working on the case against the
Och-Ziff investment fund, which has already been fined $400 mn. in a
deferred prosecution agreement, say they are taking a close look at the
web of relationships around Gertler. As well as working closely with
Glencore in the Congo, Gertler was Och-Ziff's main partner in the Congo.
LIBYA: Benghazi militia attacks halt oil production
and
embarrasses Russia ally Khalifa Haftar
Attacks on the Es Sider and Ras Linuf terminals in Eastern
Libya on 3 March by a group claiming to be called the Benghazi Defence
Brigade has cut oil production by over 100,000 barrels a day to around
650,000. It also raises questions about the military strength of the
rogue General Khalifa Haftar
and the Libyan National Army which had
been controlling the facilities. Until now Haftar had been marching
eastwards with a view to toppling the United Nations-backed government
in Tripoli.
Haftar enjoys strong support from Egypt, United Arab Emirates
and Russia but much of his
income comes from a deal under which his
fighters the guard oil facilities while a branch of the Libyan central
bank markets and manages the revenues for the oil exports. Despite
Haftar's ambitions to become the military leader who could reunify the
country and a well-funded public relations campaign in Europe and the
United States, he has a serious credibility problem among Libyans.
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