South African insurer Santam is pursuing its plan to compensate its customers. The initiative mainly concerns clients who have chosen the option, in their insurance policies, to protect themselves against business interruption due to a difficulty imposed by one of their suppliers, or the absence of clients. A total of 1,315 customers, owners of tourist or catering businesses, had received 506...

Côte d’Ivoire announced on August 18 the closure of its land and air borders with Mali, until further notice, to comply with sanctions decided by the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS). According to the Ivorian authorities, this hasty decision follows the ousting of Malian President Ibrahim Boubacar Keïta (IBK) after a coup the same day. ECOWAS announced the suspension of...

Kribi Conteneurs Terminal (KCT) welcomed the CMA CGM Cendrillon ship on 17 August 2020. Measuring 334 metres long and with a capacity of 8,645 TEUs, the vessel inaugurated the direct Asia-Africa (ASAF) line at the Kribi deep-water port. The Asia-West Africa Service (ASAF), operated by the CMA CGM shipping company, is one of the major services offered by ship owners in Asia-to-Africa container...

Nigeria plans to spend more than 12,650 billion naira ($33 billion) through next year, Reuters reported quoting official sources. This amount is more than 17% higher than the 10,800 billion naira ($28.2 billion) announced for the 2020 budget. The government said it has revised the budget upwards to cope with the shocks induced by the combined effects of the new coronavirus pandemic and the fall...

Wireless towers operator IHS Holding Ltd has reconsidered its plan to be listed on one of the US stock exchanges, according to a press release published on August 18, 2020 by Wendel. “We are still waiting for details on the dates, the number of shares to be offered and the price of the offer,” explained the French private equity firm, which holds 21.3% of the company's capital. The...

Ethiopia’s PM, Abiy Ahmed (pictured), has appointed ten senior officials to various positions in government as part of a cabinet shuffle. This was announced by the PM’s office on twitter. The ministry of justice is now headed by Gedion Timothewos, with Tesfaye Daba and Fekadu Tsega as new deputy attorneys general. Samuel Urkato is the new minister of science and higher education while Takele...

Holders of Nigeria's Guaranty Trust Bank’s (GTB) global depository receipts will have to wait a little longer to collect their dividends for the 2019 financial year. The banking group, which is listed on the Lagos Stock Exchange and also on the London Stock Exchange, explained that the institution which serves as custodian for the shares corresponding to these certificates (Citibank Nigeria) is...

The Green Cluster of SMEs in Côte d'Ivoire has awarded the African Development Bank a prize for the best technical and financial partner committed to promoting the green economy and supporting small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) toward a low-carbon transition. The prize was awarded on 30 July at the Green Awards, an initiative launched in 2019 under the sponsorship of the Ivorian Minister...

Mohamed Maait (pictured), Egyptian Finance Minister, announced on August 15 that the government has allocated EGP12.7 billion ($797 million) for digital transformation in its 2020/2021 budget. According to the official, the government seeks to digitalize the management of about 90% of imports and exports by the end of December 2020, through logistics centers. This will help reduce both the time...

Equity Group Holdings, Kenya's leading banking group in terms of stock market valuation has set aside 8 billion shillings ($73.7m) to address the credit risks in the first half of 2020. This is almost 8 times the amount in H1 2019. Outstanding doubtful loans jumped by 56% to 45.6 billion shillings, while net interest income (the income that banks earn from lending) increased by 17%, and...