confidentially speaking
The Africa Confidential Blog
AFRICAN UNION: Key leadership vote amid debates over security and funding
Patrick Smith
All eyes are on Addis Ababa this week where the African Union
summit elects a new chair for the AU Commission while there is some
relief and mutual congratulation over the peaceful resolution of
the post-election crisis in the Gambia. Ahead of
national elections in August, Kenya's opposition
tries to unite around a single candidate. Ghana's new
government prepares for what could be a tough meeting with the
International Monetary Fund and South Africa's MTN
mobile telecommunications company faces another investigation in Nigeria. Turkey's President Erdogan has
arrived in Tanzania on the first leg of a
three-nation tour.
AFRICAN UNION: Key leadership vote amid debates over
security and funding
Choosing the next chair of the African Union Commission
will be the main event during the organisation's summit in Addis Ababa
from 22 to 31 January, but there is also a packed policy agenda facing
delegates (hyperlink to AU piece).The biggest organisational
question will be the AU reform to be presented by Rwanda's President Paul
Kagame. He has been consulting a commission of luminaries
including former African Development Bank President Donald
Kaberuka, former Executive Secretary of the UN's Economic
Commission for Africa Carlos Lopes, Zimbabwean telecoms
magnate Strive Masiyiwa and Cape
Verde Finance Minister Cristina Duarte.
Linked to their report, due to be tabled at the summit, will
be a new proposal to finance the AU and its peacekeeping operations
from a 0.2% levy on all imports in Africa. The assembled heads of state
will also have to decide on Morocco's application
for readmission to the AU. This could revive a division in the
organisation over the recognition of the Sahrawi Arab
Democratic Republic and the contested status of Western
Sahara. Algeria and South Africa are
strong supporters of the SADR and its Polisario Front. They would
strongly oppose any attempts by Morocco to expel the SADR from the AU.
There are a raft of security problems and political crises on
the agenda such as:
• delays in sending a special protection
force drawn from regional states to South Sudan;
• concern for the durability of the
political agreement over elections in Congo-Kinshasa;
• continuing instability in Burundi and
reports of worsening abuses there;
• reinforcements to the AU force in
Somalia (Amisom) despite doubts about future funding;
• post-conflict reconstruction in the
Central African Republic;
• AU's role in proposed national
dialogue in Libya;
• future of the AU-led force for the
elimination of the Lord's Resistance Army.
THE GAMBIA: Jammeh flies out as questions raised over
stolen assets
As Gambians celebrate on the streets of Banjul after
ex-President Yahya Jammeh's flight into
exile, there are claims that he withdrew over US$10 million from the
central bank before he left. Mai Ahmad Fatty, an
advisor to President Adama Barrow, said there
were serious concerns about the state of the treasury.
Barrow, who was sworn in as president in Dakar while West
African forces closed in on Jammeh, is expected to return to Banjul
early in the week. Although a statement from the Economic Community of
West African States says that Jammeh would be allowed to keep assets
and properties held in his name, many Gambian activists are calling for
a full investigation into claims of last-minute looting.
KENYA: Opposition alliance is yet to choose a leader
The grand launch of Kenya's National Super Alliance
(NASA) – a coalition of five opposition parties to contest
national elections in August – will have little political impact
unless the parties can quickly unite around a common candidate. Talks
on that issue are said to be under way now.
Leader of the Orange Democratic Movement, Raila
Odinga, 72, is the favoured choice to be the new alliance's
presidential candidate but he would need strong support from
politicians in the Western and Coast provinces to mount a convincing
challenge to President Uhuru Kenyatta and
his Jubilee party.
Apart from uniting around a candidate, the NASA group must
build a powerful national organisation in the next few months that is
capable of monitoring electoral registration, voting and counting for
each polling area. In the last national elections in 2013, Odinga's
party claimed there was vote-rigging and result-fixing but its dossier
failed to convince the Chief Justice.
GHANA: Calls to review $918 million deal with the IMF
Ahead of a visit to Accra by a delegation from the
International Monetary Fund this month, senior minister Yaw
Osafo-Maarfo told parliament in Accra that the
government's arrangements with the Fund would have to be revisited.
Already, Vice-President Mahamudu Bawumia,
who runs the new government's economy team, has described the fiscal
position as 'fairly dire'. Total debt is running at over 71% of the
country's gross domestic product.
His colleague, Finance Minister Ken Ofori Atta,
says that tackling the high debt levels would be a priority for the new
government as it tries to promote an economic upturn and create more
jobs. The new government says the budget deficit is running at over 8%
of GDP, as opposed to the target of 5.3% for 2016 set by the IMF
in its agreement with the former government.
NIGERIA/SOUTH AFRICA: New hurdles on MTN deal
A new investigation – this time into claims that it
illegally transferred $14 billion out of Nigeria between 2006 and 2016
– is worrying South Africa's top mobile telecommunications
company, MTN. The investigation, which was initiated by Nigeria's
Senate, follows the resolution of a dispute over the company's failure
to delete all unregistered SIM cards at the government's demand.
After investigation on the SIM card issue, Nigeria's
government announced it would fine MTN $5.2 bn. for jeopardising
national security: it suggested that terrorist groups and criminals had
repeatedly used unregistered SIM cards. That dispute was finally
settled when MTN agreed to pay a $1.1 bn. fine and list the company on
the Nigeria Stock Exchange.
Due to the poor performance of Nigeria's stock market
– the market index lost 40% in US dollar terms last year
– MTN officials say they may wait until 2018 to list in the
country. They may also be concerned about the outcome of the Senate
investigation – even if Nigeria's Communications Minister Adebayo
Shittu has warned the National Assembly about the dangers
of 'scaring' away MTN.
TURKEY/AFRICA: Erdogan due in energy producing states
As Turkey steps up investment and trade in Africa,
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is on a
three-nation tour of Africa from 22 to 25 January — his third
official visit to Africa in a year. This week the stopovers are in
Tanzania, Mozambique and Madagascar;
all are new energy producers. Over the past decade, Turkey has
more than tripled the number of its embassies in Africa and quickly
expanded the routes of Turkish Airlines.
