Towards converting the East Mediterranean region into an offshore natural gas centre, Egypt, Greece and Cyprus have decided to fast-track discussions concerning the delineation of sea boundaries in the region. The leaders of the three countries, met in Athens on Wednesday to discuss the possibly ways they could take advantage of gas reserves, especially after Egypt’s Zohr discovery in the...

Tunisia’s justice was once again brought to decide in the ongoing confrontation opposing government to the independent high authority for audiovisual communication (HAICA). Hichem Snoussi, one of HAICA’s members announced on December 8, 2015, a complaint against the presidency. The regulatory institution indeed continues opposing the unilateral dismissal of CEO of Tunisian Television...

Chinese telecom manufacturer Huawei announced it was in negotiations with Egypt’s ministry of investment to install smartphones assembly unit around the Suez Canal. Hala Aranda, Huawei’s director for public relations and governmental affairs, said the objective of this plant was to make Egypt a center of production and export of smartphones for Africa and the Middle East. Since 2014,...

Eskom is currently losing about 220 MW of imported energy from Mozambique. This is due to a technical failure on one of the inverters of the Apollo sub-station which is located in Midrand. The company assured that its technicians are involved in the repair of equipment which should be fully functional within five days. An investigation to determine the cause of the failure is also underway. The...

In Nigeria, the cocoa processing sector suffocates, caught between the depreciation of the naira and the rising prices of brown gold. Taiwo Ayoade, CEO of Plantation Industries Ltd, provides an overview of the situation to Reuters. “There are three factories at Akure, but the only one still operational today is ours, which works only at 50% of its capacities. If this goes on, in the next two or...

Reinsurance broker Chedid Re announced in a release published on December 8, it has established a branch in Casablanca to reinforce its presence in Northern and Western Africa. “Expanding to North and West Africa is a key step of our growth strategy and it brings us closer to our customers and partners to improve the added value of our reinsurance services and solutions,” affirmed the...

After refinancing its debt for a year with $1.8 billion it obtained last September 2015, Ghana Cocoa Board (Cocobod) now plans to mobilize another $300 million from 6 banks as part of an international syndicated loan. While it has been disclosed that the transaction should have a 3-years maturity period, associated interest rates are yet to be stated. The last time the institution...

Ghana’s Superior Judiciary Council announced in a release published on December 7, the dismissal of 20 judges guilty of corruption. The judges were secretly filmed by a Ghanaian journalist while accepting bribes to give false rulings. Ghanaians, astonished by the scandal rushed to movie theaters to watch the documentary produced by the journalist. However, the judges were officially...

Asante Gold Corporation, the Canadian gold company with assets in Ghana, announced on December 7 it has discovered a significant gold mineralized system on its Betanase project in Ghana. This discovery follows the delivery of results of analysis of 256 samples taken during the group’s phase 1-562 m drill program to test 750 m-long NNE-trending gold formation. Four drill holes were completed...

Over 2015’s first eight months, private equity firms injected nearly a billion dollars in Kenyan companies thus increasing 700% as compared to the same period in 2014, a recent report from corporate finance advisory firm Burbidge Capital reveals. These investments mostly went to the finance sector which, alone, attracted 18 of the private equity transactions out of the 25 counted in Kenya...