Features

BAMAKO (Capital Markets in Africa) – The Economic Community of West African States threatened over the weekend to impose new sanctions on Mali to compel the country’s military leaders to set a timetable for Feb. 27 elections that would restore democratic rule. Ecowas, as the regional economic bloc is known, is considering “economic and financial sanctions” from Jan. 1, according to a statement issued after a summit in Nigeria’s capital, Abuja, on Sunday. The bloc…

LAGOS (Capital Markets in Africa) – Nigeria’s daily Covid infections have jumped more than fivefold over the past week following the discovery of the omicron variant in the country of 200 million people. The average number of Nigerians who tested positive for the pathogen has risen to 451 a day for the week ending Dec. 12, compared with 76 in the preceding week, according to data from the National Center for Disease Control.The commercial hub…

LAGOS (Capital Markets in Africa) – The West’s excessive focus on African debt has blinded it to China’s widening engagement in a region of 1.4 billion consumers. Myths tend to linger longer than fact, and few have been more resilient in the face of evidence and data than the idea of a Chinese debt trap ensnaring African economies. Last week alone, Britain’s spy chief warned of Beijing trying to “get people on the hook,” while…

JOHANNESBURG (Capital Martkets in Africa) – South Africa is ramping up its vaccination drive as the omicron variant threatens to derail a stuttering recovery from the coronavirus crisis, while companies are taking a harder line against those who don’t get shots.  The daily number of Covid-19 infections in the country has jumped five-fold over of the past week following the onset of the new strain, with the rolling seven-day average of cases exceeding 10,000. Despite…

JOHANNESBURG (Capital Markets in Africa) – People infected by omicron in South Africa are showing very different symptoms to those suffering from the delta strain, said the doctor who alerted government scientists to the possibility of a new variant.  Patients who contracted it complain of fatigue, head and body aches and occasional sore throats and coughs, said Angelique Coetzee, who is also chairwoman of the South African Medical Association. Delta infections, by comparison, caused elevated pulse…

KINSHASA (Capital MArkets in Africa) – The Chinese businessman had walked out of a bank in Kinshasa with 13,624 hundred-dollar bills, 10,001 fifties and 43,000 smaller U.S. notes, despite explicit instructions to prevent it from happening. “The account has finally been emptied,” Yvon Douhore, head of an in-house audit team in the capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo, wrote in an email that day, July 5, 2018, after noticing the withdrawal. “I’m at a loss…