Features

LONDON (Capital Markets in Africa) – Former U.K. Health Secretary Matt Hancock’s appointment to a United Nations special envoy role has been scrapped.  “Mr. Hancock’s appointment by the UN Economic Commission for Africa is not being taken forward,” UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric told PassBlue, a news website that specializes in UN coverage, on Friday, adding “ECA has advised him of the matter.”  In an appointment letter to Hancock, Vera Songwe, executive secretary of the ECA, lauded the “success…

JOHANNESBURG (Capital Markets in Africa) – The world’s richest countries are courting South Africa as a model of how to transition to a more climate-friendly future from a dependency on coal. While $5 billion of cheap loans and grants are on offer as a first step, transforming Africa’s most industrialized economy demands more than cash. It needs to win over power brokers like Gwede Mantashe, a former coal unionist who is now energy minister and chairman…

ALGEIR (Capital Markets in Africa) – Algeria’s president said following International Monetary Fund advice to reverse its long-standing policy and take on foreign borrowing would lead to “political suicide,” describing the OPEC member as able to ride out economic troubles exacerbated by the pandemic. “We will never choose that option, it is unthinkable,” Abdelmadjid Tebboune told a select group of journalists in a televised briefing late Sunday. The North African nation will end the year with enough…

LAGOS (Capital Markets in Africa)~ Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, the leader of the World Trade Organization, began the year with a plan to score quick negotiating victories that she said would help reboot the dysfunctional Geneva-based trade body. Now, seven months into her 4 1/2-year term, Okonjo-Iweala has fully grasped the frustrating reality of the WTO’s historical inertia, even privately floating the idea of resigning if no headway can be found on critical issues, according to five…

Jamie Dimon says ‘you’re a fool’ if you borrow to buy bitcoin, and that he wouldn’t care if its price increased 10 times “I think if you borrow money to buy bitcoin, you’re a fool,” Jamie Dimon told Times of India. Dimon said “people waste too much time and breath” on the digital asset, which has seen a 50% gain year to date. He also said crypto will be regulated because “governments regulate just about…