Features

JOHANNESBURG (Capital Markets in Africa) – McKinsey & Co. has apologized to South Africa again over how business was handled with state-owned Eskom Holdings SOC Ltd., saying it overcharged the utility and was slow to admit wrongdoing. The consulting firm admitted in October to failing to follow its own procedures while doing business with the power company when it worked alongside Trillian Capital Partners Pty Ltd., a business linked to the Gupta family. McKinsey reached a settlement last week…

LAGOS (Capital Markets in Africa) – French President Emmanuel Macron discussed ways to intensify the battle against Islamist militants in West Africa during talks with Nigerian leader Muhammadu Buhari. Nigeria’s fight against the nine-year-old Boko Haram insurgency in the far northeast has left more than 20,000 people dead and forced millions to flee their homes. In the semi-arid Sahel region south of the Sahara desert, France has deployed 4,000 troops in its Barkhane mission that’s hunting down Islamist…

JOHANNESBURG (Capital Markets in Africa) – The possibility that the Justice Department would add to the dizzying array of regulatory and legal headaches the Swiss company is facing around the globe — from Russia to Africa and South America — has been a major worry for both executives and shareholders for months, people familiar with the matter said. Those concerns crystallized Tuesday with the announcement that U.S. investigators have subpoenaed documents related to Glencore’s activities in the Democratic Republic…

KAMPALA (Capital Markets in Africa) – Ugandan authorities defended the introduction of a tax on users of social media such as Facebook and Twitter, saying the revenue is necessary to fund public services. The daily levy equivalent to about 5 U.S. cents is “a small contribution of citizens towards the development of their country,” Minister of State for Finance David Bahati was quoted by the state-run Uganda Media Centre as saying on Tuesday. East Africa’s…

HARARE (Capital Markets in Africa) – Zimbabweans head to the polls on July 30, in the first presidential election since the ouster of President Robert Mugabe last year. Until a week ago, Zimbabwe’s presidential campaigning had been relatively peaceful, with the exception of some violence reported during the party primary elections. That changed abruptly on June 23, when Emmerson Mnangagwa, Zimbabwe’s new president, survived a grenade blast at a political rally in Bulawayo, the country’s second-largest…