Features

LAGOS (Capital Markets in Africa) – Puma Energy and at least one other company halted operations at their fuel terminals in the Mozambican port city of Beira because of damage caused by Cyclone Idai. Beira, home to more than half a million people, bore the brunt of the storm that made landfall on March 15 and caused flooding that’s left at least 202 dead in Mozambique, and 98 more in Zimbabwe. Mozambican President Filipe Nyusi has said the…

JOHANNESBURG (Capital Markets in Africa) – In 1987, an anti-apartheid firebrand named Cyril Ramaphosa led South Africa’s biggest-ever mining strike. Some 300,000 miners—from a union Ramaphosa himself had founded—walked off the job, protesting pay and working conditions. The mining company “used fascist methods to destroy workers’ lives,” Ramaphosa declared. Over the three-week strike, nine people were killed, 500 were injured and more than 50,000 were fired. Still, it demonstrated the power that organized black labor…

NAIROBI (Capital Markets in Africa) – A Kenyan inquiry into dam construction projects worth $650 million has placed Treasury Secretary Henry Rotich at the center of a power struggle, with critics demanding he resign. The investigation not only threatens to hamper President Uhuru Kenyatta’s $25 billion plan to expand infrastructure and boost the East African nation’s economy, but also unity in the ruling Jubilee party. The race to succeed Kenyatta when his term ends in 2022 has pitted…

MAPUTO (Capital Markets in Africa) – A tropical cyclone that tore across Mozambique at the weekend may have killed more than 1,000 people, President Filipe Nyusi said as heavy rains continued to pound neighboring Zimbabwe where flooding left dozens more dead. “It’s clear that the next few days could be worse,” Nyusi said in comments broadcast on state radio. “If more than 1,000 lives have been lost, we won’t be surprised.” Mozambique’s worst-recorded flooding occurred in 2000,…

JOHANNESBURG (Capital Markets in Africa) – Former Steinhoff International Holdings NV Chairman Christo Wiese says the retailer’s overview of a forensic probe into the company’s accounting irregularities supports his 59 billion rand ($4.1 billion) claim against the company. A report by PwC that was published last week found that a small group of former managers and non-Steinhoff executives structured deals that substantially inflated profits and asset values, according to a summary the company released late Friday. Wiese, a South African billionaire…

JOHANNESBURG (Capital Markets in Africa) – South Africa’s state-owned power utility will implement controlled blackouts for a sixth straight day to prevent a total collapse of the electricity grid amid a shortage of capacity. Eskom Holdings SOC Ltd. is racing to bring generating units back online after suffering outages last week that were compounded by a loss of power imports from neighboring Mozambique as a result of a cyclone. The staggered power cuts, aimed at reducing…

JOHANNESBURG (Capital Markets in Africa) – In the past 24 hours, South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosahad to apologize for the poor state of the country’s infrastructure before having first-hand experience of just how bad it is. On Sunday, he spoke to the national broadcaster on the sidelines of an election campaign appearance in the northern town of Mahikeng to say sorry for some of the most severe power cuts South Africans have yet experienced. The next…