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Published 4th February 2021

Vol 62 No 3

Zimbabwe

Tagwirei's hold on gold

Pic: luzitanija / stock.adobe.com
Pic: luzitanija / stock.adobe.com

After buying more mines and banks, the mogul could become the country's top gold buyer

Business kingpin Kudakwashe Tagwirei, under United States sanctions since August, aims to expand his commanding stake in Zimbabwe's gold industry – and could end up taking control of the country's sole gold refinery and marketer, Africa Confidential understands. President Emmerson Mnangagwa and Reserve Bank governor John Mangudya are working on a plan to break up Fidelity Printers and Refiners, the arm of the central bank that is officially the ultimate buyer of all Zimbabwe's gold.

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Governments face a multi-speed rebound

Copyright © Africa Confidential 2021
Copyright © Africa Confidential 2021

Hit by capital flight and an investment drought, the continent's more diversified economies will bounce back faster from the pandemic

Struggling with the first continent-wide recession for 25 years, Africa's economies will barely keep pace on average with the tempo of the global growth recovery this year as the i...

Shot in the dark

Cuban health specialists arrive in South Africa to curb the spread of COVID-19. (Pic: GCIS, CC BY-ND 2.0)
Cuban health specialists arrive in South Africa to curb the spread of COVID-19. (Pic: GCIS, CC BY-ND 2.0)

As officials argue over vaccine funding, the African country worst hit by the pandemic is fumbling its chance to limit the damage

A politically charged fight between the Treasury and the Health Department has derailed the government's bid to buy vaccines cheaply and quickly. Doctors and scientists criticise o...

BLUE LINES
THE INSIDE VIEW

Do sanctions ever stop grand corruption and human rights abuses? The question is worth asking as Britain slaps asset freezes and travel bans on Zimbabwe's top securocrats – a spy chief and a police chief, and commander of the presidential guard – all of whom it blames for the deadly crackdown on dissidents and continuing theft of state property.

Measures such as the Magnitsky Act in the United States and its counterpart in Europe seem to do little to rein in their targets....

Do sanctions ever stop grand corruption and human rights abuses? The question is worth asking as Britain slaps asset freezes and travel bans on Zimbabwe's top securocrats – a spy chief and a police chief, and commander of the presidential guard – all of whom it blames for the deadly crackdown on dissidents and continuing theft of state property.

Measures such as the Magnitsky Act in the United States and its counterpart in Europe seem to do little to rein in their targets. Over a decade ago, Britain froze an account in Balham with US$30 million in it linked to Zimbabwe's President Emmerson Mnangagwa, when he was still one of Robert Mugabe lieutenants. Nothing changed. The US has sanctioned Mnangagwa's ally, Kudakwashe Tagwirei, whose commercial ambitions, we report this week, are getting ever more grandiose.

US sanctions against Israeli magnate Dan Gertler for graft in Congo-Kinshasa were onerous enough for him to lobby outgoing President Donald Trump for a reprieve. Five days before Trump left office, Gertler got a special licence suspending the sanctions for year. That has triggered calls to new Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen to cancel the licence.

A recurrent problem with sanctions is the lack of deterrent against the facilitators of much of the grand corruption – the Western-based accountants, auditors and lawyers who help run enterprises whose beneficiaries they know to be criminals. 

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The guard changes, at last

An army on the backfoot could get more resources but will have to beef up its fight against insurgents and tackle communal clashes

Sacking the four service chiefs was one of the few things on which Nigeria's Senate, its leading civil society groups and Western ambassadors were unanimously agreed. Insiders at A...

Fireworks on the streets

Frustration with dismal economic prospects and political infighting broke out on the tenth anniversary of the revolution

There were plenty of fireworks on 14 January, the tenth anniversary of the 2011 revolution. Not, however, in celebration of the event. In suburbs of the capital and towns across th...

Félix tips the scales

The President is winning greater control of the country but at the expense of his promise to restore the rule of law

President Félix Tshisekedi is steadily gaining ground in his bid to assume complete political control in Congo-Kinshasa, but he is playing fast and loose with the constitution in t...

Steinmetz gets five years for bribery

Judge Alexandra Banna in Geneva says that 'Steinmetz was the main beneficiary' of a criminal operation to secure mining rights in Guinea. 'All important decisions were taken with his agreement'

A Geneva court sentenced mining magnate Beny Steinmetz to five years in prison on 22 January for bribery and money-laundering. The bribes were paid to obtain rights to mine the vas...

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Steinmetz's empire unravels

The mining magnate is appealing his bribery conviction while a law suit in Paris could put his entire fortune in peril

The five-year jail sentence handed down to Beny Steinmetz by Geneva's Tribunal Correctionnel on 22 January will embolden former partners pursuing his sprawling business empire for ...

Pointers

African concerns

Britain's Minister for Africa, James Duddridge MP, has come in for criticism from the Labour opposition in Parliament for not expressing more concern about the conduct of the Ugand...

Nyusi's loyalty test

President Filipe Nyusi has reshuffled the military command while troops retrain and re-equip with new supplies to help meet the rebel threat in Cabo Delgado, according to local sec...

Jagged path to elections

Libya now has a shortlist of 21 candidates for the post of prime minister and 24 for the three vacancies on the Presidency Council (one president and two vice-presidents), the UN a...

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