President Muhammadu Buhari will declare open the 39th Ordinary Meeting of the Association of African Central Banks (AACB), being hosted by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), on Thursday, August 17, 2016.

A statement from CBN said the meeting is expected to discuss avenues through which African Central Banks can unwind the impact of unconventional policies so that monetary policy can return to its core function of stabilising short term prices.

The meeting will also address the likely impacts that may follow the unwinding and how they can be mitigated; implications on financial stability and the role of fiscal policy in closing any gaps opened up in the process.

The AACB Assembly of Governors Meeting of Friday, August 19, is to be preceded by meetings of the AACB Technical Committee and the AACB Bureau billed for Monday, 15 and Wednesday 17 August respectively; as well as the AACB symposium expected to be graced by President Buhari.

Expected to be guests of Nigeria’s Central Bank Governor, Mr. Godwin Emefiele, who is also the vice chairman of the group, is the AACB chairman and Governor of the Central Bank of Central African States (Banque des Etats de l’Afrique Centrale – BEAC), Mr. Lucas Abaga Ncama and his colleagues from across the five sub-regions based on the African Union regional classification.

Dar es Salaam — Prime Minister’s office (PMO) workers have been asked to prepare themselves psychologically on the shift from Dar es Salaam to Dodoma.

Speaking to the workers today, Prime Minister, Mr Kassim Majaliwa, said everything is set for the shift and it is just a matter of days before actual movements from Dar es Salaam to Dodoma starts.

He made the remarks when he met in his office with workers from various departments under PMO.

He asked them to understand that the decision to shift the government headquarters to Dodoma was implementation of the ruling Chama Cha Mapinduzi (CCM) manifesto whose source was a directive given way back on October 1, 1973 during the 16th Tanu national congress.

Tanu was the ruling party before it was transformed into CCM in 1977 after merging with Zanzibar’s Afro Shiraz Party (ASP).

“Since then there has been various efforts made to prepare Dodoma to take over as the government seat. Even the fourth phase government did a lot to put up needed infrastructure to make Dodoma save the purpose,” he said.

He allayed fears among the workers in his office noting that preparations were going on smoothly and they were in the final stages. He noted that the shift will be in phases as it has been arranged.

The British government must reaffirm that there will be “no money, no bailout” for Harare until President Robert Mugabe “disappears from power and influence forever”, the chairperson of the UK’s All-Party Parliamentary Group on Zimbabwe, has said.

Kate Hoey, who is also MP for Vauxhall, said Mugabe should not be helped to further entrench his 36-year reign which has “set new standards in vanity, mismanagement, corruption, outright theft, oppression, and organised violence against opponents”.

“Over three million Zimbabweans have fled,” the MP wrote in an article this week (read the full article in our opinion section here).

“The rich country’s economic ruin was symbolised by the issue of banknotes with a paper value of 100 trillion Zimbabwe dollars (14 zeroes). They are worthless but make entertaining birthday presents for children.”

Mugabe, now 92, blames the UK for corralling western countries into imposing sanctions against Harare which he says have devastated Zimbabwe’s economy over the past decade.

The veteran leader has struggled to right the tanking economy since his re-election in 2013 and now faces increasing pressure as fed-up Zimbabweans stage protests while sections of his own Zanu PF party also appear to be pressing for his ouster.

However, and apparently ignoring the brutality the Harare government has used to crush citizen protests, British authorities are thought to be helping Mugabe secure a much-needed $1.8bln rescue package.

Finance minister Patrick Chinamasa recently travelled to London for meetings with UK officials as well as a bank said to be arranging the facility.

A British newspaper has also revealed that, before Chinamasa’s visit, former UK business minister Peter Mendelson travelled to Harare for meetings with Mugabe’s treasury chief. Lord Mandelson chairs a UK bank helping arrange the rescue package.

However, Hoey said the British foreign secretary, who is famous for his elaborate and colourful manner of expression, must deploy his best aphorisms against the meddlesome Mandelson.

“This episode calls for an urgent response from our new Foreign Secretary, Boris Johnson,” said Hoey.

“On Zimbabwe he must reaffirm Britain’s position in the most robust and colourful language he can command: no money, no bailout until Mugabe disappears from power and influence for ever.”

Hoey also condemned the UK’s Harare embassy for helping arrange Mandelson’s meetings with government officials and demanded to know who paid for the trip.

“I wonder also why the FCO thought there was any value to Britain in Peter Mandelson’s mission,” she wrote.

“He has no previous relationship with Zimbabwe that I can discover. Certainly he has never attended one meeting of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Zimbabwe which I chair and which has many members from the House of Lords.

“Representatives of (Zimbabwe’s) surviving business community and civic leaders do not need to be persuaded of the case for reform – they are desperate for it. There is no point in preaching to Chinamasa, who is a creature of Mugabe and has no future in a post-Mugabe settlement.

“Why does the FCO see Peter Mandelson as a persuasive advocate in any country? He has not won an election for himself since 2001 nor taken part in a winning political campaign for any party or cause since 1997.”

Hoey has since demanded that Lord Mandelson appear before the UK parliament to explain his dealings with the Harare regime.

The Government has leased its Rubirizi National Hatchery to Flow Equity, an American firm, at Rwf750 million for 25 years.

The decision, announced after last week’s Cabinet meeting, is aimed at revamping the facilities to increase productivity that, in return, would reduce import bill on chicken and eggs.

The decision comes five years after the Government upgraded the facility to modern level at a total budget of Rwf2.3 billion and had sought to increase the eggs production to 100,000 per month.

Explaining the decision, yesterday, Tony Nsanganira, the state minister for agriculture, described the move as timely and profitable for government, which not only would enhance the spirit of remaining a facilitator but also create jobs.

“There were many attempts to have the Rubirizi hatchery privatised, but the recent one was very successful and it falls in line with the government policy of surrendering businesses to members of the private sector,” he told The New Times.

“Part of the agreement we managed to settle is that they will revamp the existing facilities to enhance production capacity and work more closely with small-holder farmers. We have also agreed that the factory will employ nationals to create more jobs on the market,” he said.

Facilitation

Nsanganira said that, under the deal, the Government would also allocate 15 hectares of land in Bugesera District to the company to facilitate their expansion and provide wider avenues for suppliers.

According to the minister, the company, which will operate under the name of Uzima Chicken Ltd, will be paying Rwf30 million per year for a period of 25 years.

The minister said after the period, the Government will decide whether to renew the lease or retake over the assets.

In a brief interview with The New Times, one of the company’s partners, Joshua Rugema, said their business – which has branches in Ethiopia and Northern America – aims to not only boost the production rate of hatchery but also make prices of chicken products affordable.

“In a drive to reduce imports of chicks, on top of increasing production, we shall also seek to improve quality of the products,” he said.

Rwanda produced more than 16,000 tonnes of poultry meat and 6,973 tonnes of eggs per annum in 2014, according to statistics from Rwanda Agriculture Board.

By 2011, the Government had been importing two million eggs per year, to produce between 6,000 and 1,000 chicks per month compared to national demand of 40,000 per month.

Africa’s data and Internet communications infrastructure has improved so much in the last decade that it’s easy to become complacent. The dual challenges of price and quality of service have not been overcome.

African regulators have never been good at imagining the future and with all the improvements they seem to have taken their eye off the ball. Russell Southwood looks at why things are stuck and what might get them moving again.

Africa’s transition to data is crucial for the next round of investment in the continent. The existence of relatively cheap Internet access and the services and content it brings with it are needed to power a second wave of economic growth.

The challenge of all challenges is that the operators in Africa’s Internet market need to be able to deliver cheaper data access than elsewhere because most Africans do not earn US or European salaries. Getting Internet access prices to US or European levels is not enough, they have to go lower.

Sub-Saharan Africa has countries that are amongst the most expensive places to operate in. So whoever Africa’s operators are or will be, they have to become pioneers in lowering the costs of both building and operating data infrastructure. Government and regulators need to understand the scale of this challenge and help operators become cost-cutting pioneers.

African regulators are not currently in a good place to make this happen. In the main, mobile operators have taken over as the market incumbents and are no longer forcing the pace of change but largely simply reacting to what’s happening elsewhere. The need for an effective, large capacity data network seems to have caught many of them off-balance.

African regulators who have pursued the opening of African telecoms markets have been slow to react to changed market circumstances. In many cases, even what were once quite competitive markets are now stuck. A brief summary of some of the difficulties may be helpful:

* Dominant Players:

A number of Africa’s telecoms markets are now dominated by a single player. Sometimes efforts have been made to declare them dominant players in regulatory terms but these have largely been ineffective. These dominant players have operated skillfully as price progressives (lowering tariffs) and in so doing have cemented their market position.

In Kenya, Safaricom has such an unassailable and central position that whatever anybody does, it usually ends up benefitting. If you need a telecoms or network partner, why bother with those who have less than 30% of the market? The recent Kenya Power partnership deal on Fibre-To-The-Home will reinforce its position in yet another market niche.

In Senegal, Sonatel is testing Free-Wi in Rufisque. Free Wi-Fi is undoubtedly a good thing but who’s paying? And this in a country where there are no independent Internet service providers, no alternative fibre providers and its two mobile competitors struggle to make it anything like a fair, competitive fight.

And then there’s MTN in Nigeria who for all their recent troubles, occupy the commanding heights of the country’s telecoms and data markets… ..Others could be added to list.

* Old school stuck:

Some of Africa’s regulators have simply not got off the blocks in terms of creating a competitive market. In these countries the dominant player is usually a decaying state-owned telco with about as much appetite for innovation as a sleeping dog. The Governments in these countries have chosen to foster an inefficient job creation scheme over being able to offer cheaper Internet and a more efficient economy.

The country that heads this category must surely be Ethiopia where the absence of any competition means that the market is probably about a third smaller than it might otherwise be. The State lacks the capital to make these financially leaky dinosaurs effective. But in this long list of countries, we must include places like Djibouti, Togo and Cameroon.

Take Cameroon where the Government has ensured that it has ownership of all the landing stations and its telco Camtel has a de facto monopoly over wholesale bandwidth. And all of these dilapidated incumbents who are without strategy, innovation or ideas want to be mobile operators.

* Last man standing “consolidation”:

More conventional industry analysts are keen on seeing “consolidation” as one answer to current problems. To be fair to their argument, Africa has more operators than many other places globally.

But what does consolidation mean? There will be less operators (two per country?) and their market power will be even greater. The last man standing theory is that if you are one of the lucky surviving operators you will then be able to hike your prices back to the level they were when the markets first opened.

With Airtel selling off some of its smaller opcos to Orange, the full scale of this is not immediately apparent. But what if this was really just the start of Bharti Airtel’s long goodbye to Africa? Consolidation will inevitably happen but then how do regulators ensure that markets maintain a competitive dynamic?

Minister of Information and Communications has stated that the country’s mineral rich resources have woefully failed because they were yet to provide the necessary benefits expected by the people

Mohamed Bangura was speaking last Saturday (August 13) during a press conference hosted by his ministry and the World Bank in honour of the bank’s Executive Director of Sierra Leone, Dr. Louis Rene Peter Larose.

During the presser that was hosted at the Golden Tulip Hotel in Freetown, the bank’s Country Manager, Parminder Brar announced support of a 4500,000 project to have sustainable internet connectivity in universities and secondary schools across Sierra Leone.

According to Mr. Bangura, the brutal civil conflict which the country suffered for 11 years was as a result of the rich mineral resources, which he said have not yielded any dividend.

He assured that the information and communication technology sector, which the World Bank was ready to support, would not be the same as the country’s mineral resources, adding, “ICT will not let us down. We will benefit from it. It should be the bread basket of this country.”
The information minister described the project that would provide internet connectivity in universities and schools in the next six months, as historic not only for his ministry but for the country as a whole.

“This is a project that everybody can see and feel. This time around, school going pupils will now have the opportunity to browse the web quick and fast. We are not going to let you down,” he assured the World Bank.

He commended the bank’s Country Manager for his support in helping change the ICT landscape in Sierra Leone, and further that as a government, they would make sure that every project that comes from the bank, would be prudently managed.

Managing Director of the Sierra Leone cable limited (SALCAB),Mohamed Sheriff said: “The idea of this project was developed by SLCAB .We took it to the World Bank and the Country Manager was excited about it. We will work hard to see that internet access reaches everyone. We are going to reach out to four schools in the western area, as well as two each in the east, north and south.”

Following the recent decision made by Burundi to sever trade ties with Rwanda, Rwanda will trade with other regional countries. The remarks have been made by trade minister, Francois Kanimba.

“The Burundian government decided to ban exports to our country but this has little impact on our economy; the products that have been imported from there can be got from Uganda and Tanzania,” Kanimba said.

Kanimba affirmed that Burundi’s decision is a violation of the EAC treaty on common market protocol among member states.

The EAC Common Market protocol was effected on July 1, 2010 following ratification by all the six partner countries.

Rwanda has been exporting manufactured products, maize, cassava flour, milk, potatoes, unprocessed maize flour and wheat flour to Burundi. In turn, it was mainly importing fruits from Burundi such as mangoes and oranges, dried silver fish and palm oil.

Daniel Fred Kidega, the East African Legislative Assembly (EALA) Speaker, said the Communications Trade and Investment Committee shall ascertain facts of Burundi’s decision.

“It is important to add that the region is implementing the customs union and the common market. It would be counterproductive for partner states to deprive citizens of the associated benefits,” Kidega said.

Burundi’s economy

Burundi is one of the poorest, smallest, and most densely populated nations in Africa. Its poor transportation system and its distance from the sea have tended to limit its economic growth.

The economy is almost entirely agricultural, especially subsistence farming. Major crops include corn, sorghum, sweet potatoes, bananas and manioc.

Coffee, the country’s chief export, accounts for 80% of its foreign exchange income. Cotton, tea, sugar, and hides are also exported. Cattle, goats, and sheep are raised.
The country’s industries include food processing, manufacturing of basic consumer goods such as blankets and footwear, assembly of imported components and public works construction. Bigger industries are government-owned.

Burundi relies on international aid for economic development and has incurred a large foreign debt. Nickel, uranium, and other minerals are mined in small quantities; platinum reserves have yet to be exploited.

Burundi’s imports (capital goods, petroleum products, and foodstuffs) considerably exceed the value of its exports.

Germany, Belgium, Kenya, and Tanzania make up its chief trading partners. Most exports are sent by ship to Kigoma in Tanzania and then by rail to Dar-es-Salaam on the Indian Ocean.