The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) has just unveiled its 2020 Democracy Index, a ranking of nations around the world based on their level of democracy. The document features 50 African countries, excluding Seychelles, South Sudan, Somalia, and Sao Tomé-et-Principe. Figures show that like 2019, 2020 also saw setbacks in democracy worldwide, but mainly in Africa and SSA, especially. The...

Tunisia will benefit from a $300 million syndicated loan (€250 million) from several local banks to finance its 2021 State budget. The information was reported by Reuters, which relayed the comments of a senior government official. The Finance department had called on banks to subscribe to the loan on Tuesday, February 9th, 2021. With a projected deficit of more than 6%, the Tunisian...

Mobile operator, Expresso, a subsidiary of the Sudanese telecom group Sudatel, risks losing its license to operate a publicly available electronic communications network in Senegal. The Post and Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (Arpt) is accusing the company of several breaches of its commitments and demands CFA7 billion. According to the regulator, Expresso does not invest enough to...

The Nigerian division of Ecobank announced plan to raise $300 million on the international money market. In an official statement, the company revealed that, for this purpose, a special investment vehicle has been set up and incorporated in the Netherlands, which is the entity that will first issue the securities before they are listed on the London Stock Exchange. The resource that will be...

A new case of the Ebola virus was reported in the Democratic Republic of Congo yesterday 7th February ,2021. The new outbreak is happening two months after the end of the last one. In an official statement released by the authorities, the victim was the wife of an Ebola survivor. She tried to get treatment but ended up dying in Butembo, a city in the North-Kivu Province. This area was the...

Vivo Energy Côte d'Ivoire, the Ivorian dealer of Shell, started this month on the wrong foot on the regional money market BRVM. The company’s share accumulated a loss of 6.98% consecutively over the second week after the 0.77% contraction between January 25th – 29th, 2021. This counterperformance occurred while Vivo experienced its second-largest weekly transaction since November 16th,...

Tunisia’s power utility STEG will benefit from a €300 million loan ($359 million) from the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) to strengthen its energy supply, especially in this pandemic context. No details were given on the loan’s maturity period. “The financing consists of two facilities. A €100 million emergency facility under the EBRD's infrastructure...

On February 2nd , the Egyptian company Benya Capital and the Congolese Post and Telecommunications Company (SCPT) finalized the deal for the deployment of 16,000 km of optical fiber across the Democratic Republic of Congo. The document was inked during the visit of the Congolese President, Félix Tshisekedi to Egypt between 1st -2nd of February. As a reminder, negotiations for this contract...

Private equity firm Phatisa reached the final close at $143 million of its third Africa food fund –Phatisa Food Fund 2 (PFF2). The amount is far below the $300 million initially targeted by the company for this third fund. The operational fund saw the participation of a consortium of five development finance institutions which committed $82 million to the fund. Investors include...

15 suspects got arrested this week after Ethiopia successfully foiled a terrorist attack against the United Arab Emirates (UAE) embassy in Addis Ababa. The information was reported on 3rd of February by the National Intelligence and Security Service (NISS), which said it was "closely monitoring" the situation in collaboration with the federal police and other security forces. NISS said heavy...