Month: February 2020

After signing a deal with a Rwandan bank to build 2,000 affordable housing units, Shelter Afrique is heading to Senegal in West Africa for a similar deal.

The Pan African housing developer has signed a US$11.6 million line of credit with Senegal’s Teyliom Group for the construction of affordable housing units.

Shelter Afrique says the money will go toward the development of affordable housing with the world-class Diamniadio Lake City (DLC).

The deal with Teyliom Group is the first significant project Shelter Afrique has embarked on in Senegal since 2016 and is the second transaction the Company is making with the Teyliom Group.

When complete, the project is expected to deliver large-scale affordable housing of 3,439 units with selling prices starting at US$26,000 for more than 20,000 individuals and create more than 3,000 jobs, with a sizeable number of those being held by women.

The high-density estate has been designed …

The 2020 Off-Grid Solar Market Trends Report that has been released this month reveals how Africa could reap high benefits in the near future.

The report is basically an in-depth analysis of current market dynamics, projections for the coming five years, and also a blueprint to helps various actors compete in a robust evolving industry ecosystem.

The report, which is the fifth in a series, published by the World Bank Group and the Global Off-Grid Lighting Association (GOGLA), drew in about 1,000 industry leaders, financiers and government representatives by showcasing key industry trends, advances in technology, finance, policy and social impacts.

The 2020 edition spotlighted the industry remarkably, in fact—the edition estimates that the off-grid solar sector currently caters lighting and other auxiliary services to over 420 million people.

Noting that the industry has made enormous efforts in the past decade to assist the developing countries to attain their energy …

Vancouver based East African Mining has entered into an agreement with Hong Kong mineral company, Sino Union Energy Group Limited for the acquisition of the Ethiopian mineral project, the Harvest Project. Harvest project is 70%-owned by Tigray Resources, a subsidiary of EAM and is located in the Arabian Nubian Shield in northern Ethiopia.

In a statement made to the shareholders, EAM said that a binding letter of intent to acquire a majority ownership stake in the Harvest Project whereby Sino Union will acquire 55% interest of the Harvest Project by making a cash payment of five hundred thousand dollars. It will also develop and operate the Terakimti Oxide Mine and fund 100 percent of Tigray Ethiopia Holdings Inc’s obligations related to the development and operation of the Harvest Project.

As part of the Harvest transaction, Sino Union has agreed to subscribe to a private placement to acquire equity in East …

Songas –Tanzania’s leading gas-to-power company announced the appointment of Anael Samuel as the new Managing Director of the company with immediate effect.

The Tanzanian national takes over from Nigel Whittaker who was recently appointed as the company’s board Chairperson.

Under his new role, Anael will lead the company to continue its excellent operational performance and availability and continue to work on its plans to invest over USD65 million (approximately TZS126 billion) to expand its generation capacity at the Songas Ubungo Power Plant from the current 180 MW to 245MW.

Read Also: Tanzania: GE upgrades gas turbines at Songas Ubungo Power Plant

Anael joined Songas in April 2014 as Chief Financial Officer responsible for managing all financial planning, reporting and management of risk for the company. Prior to joining Songas, he held senior roles at Intra Energy Tanzania Limited, Tanga Cement and Unilever. Anael holds an MBA qualification from the University …

Returning from a global legal onslaught, Chinese owned Opera has moved on to solidify its hold of Africa with the installation of new servers in Mombasa which it says makes browsing four times faster.

The browser with more than 350 million monthly active users has faced legal tackles mainly from US and Europe on how it handles app-based loans. Google play also announced that it will take measures against the company based on how it runs Okash, an online money lending app.

Opera has announced the successful installation of its new local servers in Mombasa, Kenya, through iColo.io MBA1 data center facility which has helped increase the browsing speed significantly. The company said its new server was saving a total of 4400 hours of time waiting for webpages to load.

These servers significantly increase browsing speed up to four times faster than before, meaning that millions of Kenyans who …

…

AngloGold Ashanti, third-largest gold-miner in the world with operations in South Africa on Friday has reported a 72 per cent jump in annual earnings. AngloGold reported that it nearly doubled free cash flow in 2019 to $129 million.

The miner attributed the earnings surge to the higher gold prices and robust operational performance from its Kibali, Geita, Tropicana and Iduapriem mines.

According to the miner’s statement, AngloGold Ashanti headline earning per share measure in South Africa, went up to 91 cents on December 31, 2019, from the previous year, while free cash flow before capital expenditure on growth projects, rose 106 per cent to $448 million.

However, the gold-miner statement noted that: AngloGold Ashanti invested sustaining capital of $494million in 2019 and has forecast an increase to between $640 million and $670 million in 2020.

Also, the additional investment will help the company convert existing resources into additional ore reserves …

Tanzania mining industry just got interesting as the leading miner in East Africa will start exporting tin, its base metals of tantalum and wolframite, mined in the northern part of Tanzania.

According to information from The Citizen, the green light came out after Tanzania sufficed all export requirements to become the fourth eligible nation in the Great Lakes Region after Rwanda, Burundi and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

Prior to the export nod, Tanzania produced tin and its base metals, but it was not allowed to export them due to lack of certificates of origin, the necessary requirement for exports.

The Tanzanian Ministry of Minerals revealed via minerals deputy minister Stanslaus Nyongo yesterday that, the highly valued minerals were mostly exported illegally via neighbouring countries, which were issuing certificates.

Further, the deputy minister added that Great Lakes Region leaders placed restrictions on exports of tin and its base metals …

Stanchart released the outlook for the EAC three big economies – Uganda, Kenya and Tanzania.

According to the outlook report, the bank lowered Uganda growth forecasts to 6.0 per cent in 2020 and 6.2 per cent in 2021.

According to the report, although it is difficult to assess the full impact of the regional locust invasion, food prices have already been pressured due to flooding especially in eastern Uganda in December last year.

“We now expect the Bank of Uganda to keep its policy rate on hold at 9.0% throughout 2020 having previously seen scope for more easing,” said part of the report.

The report adds that they project the Bank Of Uganda (BoU) will adopt a tighter policy stand to control inflation given the 2021 elections and the rising caution over the extent of the government’s public financing requirement.
Stanchart’s chief economist for Africa and the Middle East, Razia …

Uganda’s Standard Chartered Bank organized a Manufacturers’ Business Forum for over 150 manufacturers’ and various stakeholders with the purpose of providing a platform for market players to share progressive insights, network and best practices.

The forum was under the theme“Practices for Sustainable Business Growth”.

It brought together experts and leading manufacturing businesses to talk about current trends affecting Uganda’s business growth and share the latest research on important and policy-relevant topics.

Standard Chartered Bank clients got an opportunity to engage, learn, network and are empowered to expand their operating environment.

The Standard Chartered Bank Africa Strategist, Eva Wanjiku Otieno, presented the Macroeconomic & Global Geopolitical Outlook.

She emphasized on Uganda’s mixed growth outlook which is supported by public investment in infrastructure. However, she said that the business prospects would be affected by the delay of the Final Investment Decision (FID) and upcoming elections.

Also Read: Uganda 7% projected growth too