The IMF will provide the last $185.2 million tranche of the $925.9 million extended credit facility signed with Ghana in 2015. This was announced in a release published on the IMF’s website this week.   The said extended credit facility was aimed at restoring Ghana's debt sustainability and macroeconomic stability in order to favor higher growth and job creation. “The...

At end 2018, 33% of the financial managers in firms operating in Nigeria were pessimistic about the outlooks of the local economy against 14% at end 2017. This was revealed by a survey conducted by the local subsidiary of audit firm KPMG. "We found three things driving that. One was the uncertainty surrounding the 2019 election. Secondly, there was the consistency of government policy and three...

South Sudan has this month realised a record $27.62 million in commercial risk insurance cover through the efforts of the South Sudan government, the African Development Bank and the Africa Trade Insurance Agency (ATI). ATI has, to date, provided gross risk cover to facilitate investments in the electricity, gas, water supply and financial and insurance sectors. South Sudan is also expected...

The United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) has called for the improvement of tax policies and an enlargement of the tax base for effective financing of African countries’ development. The call was issued by Vera Songwe (photo), executive secretary of the UNECA during the 38th meeting of the expert panel of the ministers of finance and development planning which started in...

Ghana’s president, Nana Akufo-Addo (photo), launched the E-justice project on March 20, 2019. According to the president, E-justice is a platform developed to digitalize legal services like the payment of fines. The platform will also automatically attribute legal cases to judges and courts to reduce corruption and conflicts of interest. Nana Akufo-Addo explained that thanks to this system,...

Nigeria will sell some of its equities in oil joint-ventures to bridge its revenue gap, Udoma Udo Udoma (photo), the minister of budget, indicated according to a release relayed by Reuters. The country will only keep 40% of its equities in oil joint-ventures. Although the name of the joint-venture concerned is not revealed yet, the official indicated that the operation should be realised...

Nigerian IT and finance actors are asking the government to adopt appropriate measures to end the enormous expenses incurred in acquiring foreign software while local ones offer the same functions. During a round table meeting organized in Lagos, on March 18-19, 2019 on the use of Nigerian fintech software, Dan-Azumi Mohammed, managing director of the National Office for Technology Acquisition...

In an interview with Ecofin Agency at the end of Forum Afrique 2019, the forum dedicated to investors in Africa, hosted in Paris on February 8, 2019, Francesco De Musso (photo), managing director of BGFIBank Europe, expressed his views on the priorities of this forum and the ongoing changes in the African banking sector.  Ecofin Agency (E.A) : M. Francesco De Musso, what were...

Kenyan Commercial Bank of Africa (CBA) announces that its shareholders have approved the merger with National Industrial Credit Bank (NIC Bank). “As a result of the share exchange transaction, it is proposed that NIC Group will acquire sole control of CBA and its subsidiaries,” CBA indicated in a release relayed by Kenyan media. At the end of the merger process, current NIC Bank’s...

The Egyptian Exchange (EGX) has received a mission from the African Development Bank in the wake of its membership of the African Exchanges Linkage Project (AELP), an initiative to foster greater integration in securities trading across the continent. The AELP project, jointly initiated by the Bank and the African Securities Exchanges Association (ASEA), has the main objective of increasing...