ABiQ presents a weekly recap of major activities that took place in Africa in the last 7 days. You can watch the video here

Central Africa

• The Angolan government announced the construction of the first municipal building as part of a new drive to decentralize services.  The government has allocated $7 million to construct the first administrative building in Luongo satellite city.

Eastern Africa

• Ethiopia’s president announced that the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam will start generating power within the next 12 months.  The first 2 of 16 powerhouses will start producing electricity in 2021.  The powerhouses will each have a design capacity of 375 MW.
• The Executive Board of the International Monetary fund approved an additional $101.96 million disbursement under the Rapid Credit Facility for Malawi in support of COVID-19 efforts.
• Trinity Energy Limited announced plans to build a $500 million modular crude oil refinery in Southern Sudan near Paloch. The refinery will have an initial capacity of 400,000 barrels per day which could later be expanded to 600,000 barrels per day.
• The president of Tanzania announced that the government plans to tender for a state-of-the-art stadium in the capital Dodoma. It will be the largest stadium in Tanzania. Currently, the Benjamin Mkapa Stadium is the biggest with a capacity of 60,000 seats.
• The Tanzanian government announced that 7 new flyovers will be built at various places in Dar Es Salaam in an effort to ease traffic congestion.
• The Uganda Bureau of Statistics indicated that there is currently a housing deficit of more than 2.1 million houses.  12 million people in Uganda are homeless with a further 24 million living in sub-standard accommodation.
• The Russian backed Great Dyke Investments have approached Impala Platinum with an offer for Impala Platinum to acquire a 20 percent stake in Zimbabwe’s largest platinum mine.
• Canada’s Caledonia Mining Corporation says it’s in talks to acquire state-owned mothballed gold mines to expand its gold-mining operations in Zimbabwe.

 Northern Africa

• Algeria’s Transport Minister Lazhar Hani has announced plans to establish a new domestic airline. This would help alleviate pressure on the Air Algerie who cannot service all the domestic airports.
• The government of Sudan has signed a peace accord with rebels.  This is part of a plan towards free elections scheduled for 2022.
• IHC Food Holding, a subsidiary of Abu Dhabi listed International Holding Company and Sudan’s Dal Group to invest up to $225 million to convert 40,000 hectares into farmland. The farm will deliver 400,000 metric tonnes of crops per annum.

Southern Africa

• Businesses in Namibia took up loans and advanced to the value of $47 million during August 2020 to support businesses affected by the COVID-19 lockdown.
• For the first time in 10 years, platinum has overtaken coal as the top mining revenue generator accounting for 28 percent of mining revenue.

Western Africa

• Cenpower Generation Company has agreed to switch from light oil to gas as feedstock for its power generation plants.  This will save the Ghana government $3 billion over the next 20 years.
• Ghana’s minister of energy, John Peter Amewu, has broken ground for a new mini-grid in Alorkpem.  The mini-grid will be built with a grant from the Spanish government to the order of $2 million. 21,000 people in the district will benefit from accessing reliable electricity.  The project will be completed by October 2021.
• Tullow Ghana Limited (TGL), operator of the Jubilee field, has achieved a record 300 million barrels of oil production.
• Nigeria’s new petroleum reform bill currently before the legislator will focus on tackling pollution in the Niger Delta.  Companies operating upstream in the delta will have to contribute to a new fund that will be managed by the Federal government.  Companies will no longer be allowed to flare gas without specific approvals.
• Nigerian lawmakers have approved a bill that will allow the federal government to borrow up to $11 billion from domestic and foreign markets during the 2021 budget year.

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