West Africa | - Part 3

Cameroon Seeks to Improve Cocoa Bean Quality After Declines

YAOUNDE (Capital Markets in Africa) – Cameroon is taking steps to encourage farmers to grow better quality cocoa after a deterioration in last year’s crop resulted in lower prices for the country’s beans. About 90 percent of Cameroon’s cocoa exports in the season through July were classed as Grade 2, the second of three quality ratings for beans, according to Trade Minister Luc Magloire Atangana Mbarga. That compared with 97 percent previously and meant that Cameroonian…

Cash-Burning Activist Sets West Africa’s Social Media Alight

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LAGOS (Capital Markets in Africa) – A West African activist who burned a bank note to demonstrate his hatred of the regional CFA franc has reignited a decades-old debate and prompted thousands of supporters in former French colonies to turn to social media and demand that the currency be scrapped. The French-Beninese national, Kemi Seba, appeared in court in Senegal in connection with a video that showed him setting a bank note of 5,000 CFA francs…

Dangote Cement Profit Jumps as Higher Prices Lift Revenue

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LAGOS (Capital Markets in Africa) – Dangote Cement Plc, Africa’s largest producer of the building material and Nigeria’s biggest company, said first-half profit surged as an increase in revenue offset lower volumes and operations in the rest of the continent helped bolster sales. Net income rose 35 percent to 143.5 billion naira ($447.7 million) in the six months through June, compared with 106 billion naira a year earlier, the Lagos-based company said in a statement…

Etisalat Nigeria CEO Focused on Stabilizing Business Before Sale

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LAGOS (Capital Markets in Africa) – Etisalat Nigeria is concentrating on steadying the business rather than finding a new operator as the struggling mobile-phone company strives to stay afloat after its Abu Dhabi-based former owners defaulted on a $1.2 billion loan. “The biggest thing we have to do is stabilize the business, try and ensure a good top-line, put some level of control on costs,” Chief Executive Officer Boye Olusanya said in an interview at the wireless…

Nigeria’s Succession Jitters With Ill President Buhari

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LAGOS (Capital Markets in Africa) – Nigeria is awash in nervous speculation over the health of President Muhammadu Buhari, who hasn’t appeared in public since he returned to the U.K. for medical treatment for an undisclosed ailment on May 7. Buhari, 74 and a Muslim, has formally designated his deputy, Yemi Osinbajo, acting president as he did when he was away on medical leave for 49 days from Jan. 20. The prospect of Osinbajo, a 60-year-old Christian,…

Nigeria Taps Microsoft to Oracle to Recover From Recession

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LAGOS (Capital Markets in Africa) – Nigeria is hiring U.S. technology giants such as Oracle Corporation and Microsoft Corp. as the government invests more to save costs and fight corruption. An initiative led by Redwood, California-based Oracle has enabled Nigerian authorities to remove 50,000 so-called ghost workers, or fake entries, from the payroll, according to a presidency statement June 29. That followed Oracle’s decision to open an office in Abuja, the capital, in May. Other companies interested in taking…

Ghana’s Economy Expands Most Since 2014 in First Quarter

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ACCRA (Capital Markets in Africa) – The economy of Ghana, West Africa’s biggest after Nigeria’s, expanded the most in almost three years in the first quarter, boosted by gains in the oil industry. Gross domestic product rose 6.6 percent in the three months through March from a year earlier, Anthony Amuzu, deputy government statistician for operations at the Ghana Statistical Service, told reporters Wednesday in the capital, Accra. That’s the fastest expansion since the third quarter…

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