Month: August 2020

Uganda’s Umeme saw its profit fall by 64 per cent in the first six months of 2020 due to low demand for electricity and payments during the coronavirus lockdown.

Umeme said in its half-year financials that the company’s profits had dropped to about $6 million in the six months to June 2020 from $16.7 million earned in the same period in 2019.

As business and economic activities in Uganda shutdown on government restrictions between March and June 2020, power demand also dropped. The power distributor said that in April when the government instituted a full lockdown, the demand fell to as low as 29 per cent, while energy losses increased to 17.4 per cent compared to 16.9 per cent for the same period in 2019.

“Our field loss reduction activities had to be drastically scaled back during the lockdown period where we recorded a spike in commercial losses,” said Umeme …

Equity Group Holdings Plc has completed the acquisition of a majority stake in the Congolese lender Banque Commerciale Du Congo (BCDC) at a discounted price of $95 million after getting a 10 per cent discount.

Last year September, Equity bank announced it had agreed with the George Arthur Forrest and family a major shareholder to acquire all its 625,354 shares which is 66.53 per cent owned by the Belgian entrepreneur at a cost of $105 million with the dividend price per share of $167.9.

In a bank’s statement, it said the takeover is now complete making it the second-largest commercial bank in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

George Arthur Forrest and family was the majority shareholder owning 66.53 per cent, the government of the Democratic Republic of Congo (25.53 per cent), while the remaining 7.94 per cent shares are owned by other minority shareholders.

Equity Bank has more than …

Ethio Telecom through its performance report showed that its revenue this year saw a 105.1 per cent boost over the company’s target for the year, which is an increase of 31.4  per cent compared to 2019.

The company, which is the only telecom company in Ethiopia last week announced that it had earned $ 1.3 billion in total revenue in the 2012 Ethiopian budget year which ran from July 1, 2019, to June 30.

According to the report, international services generated $147.7 million, a 107 per cent jump from the target and a five per cent rise from 2019.

During this fiscal year, the major payments the telecom made were $321 million in taxes and $113 million in dividends paid to the government. The telecom also paid $318.4 million towards projects carried out by Vender Financial Modeling,  payments which were never transferred to the next budget.

Also Read: Vodacom, Safaricom

Egypt’s unemployment rate rose slightly to 9.6 per cent during the second quarter (Q2) of 2020 according to the Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics (CAPMAS) report.

The latest figures from the report show a  slight increase of 1.9 per cent compared to the 7.7 per cent reported in Q1 of 2020 and an increase of 2.1 per cent from Q2 of 2019.

According to CAPMAS, the number of unemployed reached 2,574 million, which is 9.6 per cent of the total workforce, of which 1,934 million were male and 640,000 were female. his compared to the 2,236 million unemployed in Q1 of 2020, reflecting a 15.1 per cent increase to 338,000.

According to CAPMAS, the rise in Egypt’s unemployment rate is due to the repercussions of COVID-19 pandemic.

As a precautionary measure, the government of Egypt put in measures that saw the international air traffic suspended, closure of schools, …

The CEO Dialogue Forum which hosted more than 500 CEOs from Africa and beyond met virtually to discuss issues affecting Africa’s growth.

Strathmore University Business School partnered with Shared Value Initiative Africa to host the first session of the CEO Dialogue on 6 August 2020, themed ‘The Future of Work and the Impact of the Digital Economy on Africa’s Growth.’

Persistent gaps in education, health and skills have tampered the many opportunities in Africa leading to the continent to only reach forty percent of its estimated potential according to the World Bank. In addition, conflict, food insecurity, population growth and the disruptive forces of climate change threaten to curtail or even reverse the progress made over the past decades.

The discussion was spearheaded by a team of expert panelists drawn from different sectors such as  Vincent Ogutu, Vice-Chancellor Designate Strathmore University,  Cezanne Maherali, Head of Policy, Uber-sub-Saharan Africa,  Alan Stoga, …

The world bank Board of Directors approved $300 million in International Development Association (IDA) credits and grants to support reforms that will help promote electricity trade in West Africa.

Currently, only 50 per cent of the population in West Africa have access to electricity, and those who do, pay among the highest prices in the world which is more than double those of consumers in East Africa. The West Africa Regional Energy Trade Development Policy Financing Program (West Africa Energy PDF) seeks to do away with electricity trade barriers, which will support the competitiveness of firms, lower electricity costs for consumers and improve resilience and reliability of supply.

The West Africa Energy PDF supports a policy reform program being implemented by Burkina Faso, Liberia, Mali, Côte d’Ivoire, Guinea and Sierra Leone, to facilitate trade in cleaner low-cost electricity generated from gas, hydropower and renewable energy across borders. This is going …

Mozambican President Filipe Nyusi will later this month take over the Chairmanship of the Southern African Development Community (SADC).

The 40th Heads of State summit will be held virtually as Mozambique takes helm of the regional organization to speak on peace, security and regional co-operation.

Up to this year, the Chairman of the 16-member regional bloc was under the leadership of Tanzania’s fifth President, Dr. John Magufuli.

President Magufuli, the seating chairperson, assumed the leadership of the trade bloc last year in August. Arguably, President Magufuli had to deal with one of the worst crisis that the SADC trade bloc has ever had to face, Covid-19.

As it did for the European Union and other World trade areas, the Covid-19 global pandemic rendered business asunder across all 16 member states. Most all SADC member states were forced to close their borders effectively disrupting business flow across Africa’s largest trade bloc.…

After much back and forth that caused enormous delay, the East African Community (EAC) has passed a 97.6m US dollars budget for the next financial year.

Of the total amount, 55.6m US dollars will come from EAC partner states, while development partners will contribute 41.9m US dollars.

The budget reflects the region’s top priority areas which can be shortlisted to about seven areas. During the next financial year, the community will focus on Consolidation of the Single Customs Territory (SCT) to cover all imports and intra-EAC traded goods, including agricultural and other widely consumed products.

It will also cover infrastructure development including the enhancement of free movement of all factors of production as declared under the Common Market and Monetary Union Protocols.

Another focus area is the enhancement of regional industrial development through investment in key priority sectors like skills development, technological advancement and innovation to stimulate economic development.…

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) expects Egypt’s tourism revenues losses to exceed 2 per cent of gross domestic product (GDP) in 2020 due to COVID-19 crisis.

A report by the IMF titled “EXTERNAL SECTOR REPORT: Global Imbalances and the COVID-19 Crisis” noted that a recent study (UN World Tourism Organization 2020) included a scenario involving a gradual lifting of travel restrictions starting in September. The scenario implies tourism receipts 73 per cent below their 2019 levels, with a direct impact on tourism trade balances ranging from –6 per cent of GDP to 2 per cent of GDP.

“During the first four months of 2020 international tourism arrivals were about 50 per cent lower than over the same period in 2019, with deeper declines for related indicators, such as international flight arrivals and hotel reservations,” IMF stated.

It also noted that the projected direct impact on tourism trade balances in 2020 …

The monthly economic review produced by the Tanzania central bank (BoT), depicted rather positive prospects of the economy, such as inflation, fuel prices and food stocks, despite the grim grip of the coronavirus (COVID-19), which hurt several sectors of the economy.

The report published on Tuesday, marking the financial year ending June 30, 2020, also displayed good performance of the exports, foreign exchange reserves and interest rates.

Revenue collection

Government budgetary operations took a slight hit, as the domestic revenue collection performed below the target due to the virus grip, standing at almost $559,000.

“However, the collection was higher than in the corresponding %54.4 million and an increase of $ 867.1 million from the end of the preceding month and the corresponding month of 2019, respectively. Much of the external debt stock was central government at 78.2 per cent” the monthly review noted.

Domestic financial markets

According to the central …