Author: Padili Mikomangwa

a section of African countries unveiled the African Continental Free Trade Agreement (AfCFTA) in March last year.

The agreement, which came into force in May 2019, can revitalize the African economic landscape over time and space, especially with the existing in many African countries.

The AfCTA comprises of 55 countries (with a combination of $2.5 trillion GDP) in Africa to a unified-single market. Despite African countries’ economies variation, still the free trade agreement comes at a greater moment when various regions in the continent, including Southern African Development Community (SADC ) and East Africa Community (EAC) are working to harmonize their economic affairs to boost trade, security, and industrialization.

The current economic and trading landscape

According to the African Development Bank’s (AfDB) African Outlook report of 2019, it showed the continents overall economic performance is gaining decent improvement, as as the GDP reached at an estimate of 3.5 per cent …

The Global Gender Summit which kicked off on November 25 in Kigali-Rwanda, and first summit of-its-kind to be held in Africa, emerged with rather vital issues in the second-day, whereby top-notch financial leaders rallied their desire to see support to women business across the African business landscape.

The summit is running on a theme “Unpacking constraints to gender equality” has drawn in presidents, high government officials, multilateral development banks, private sector, civil society and top business and finance leaders from across the continent, who have mainstreamed their ideas on how gender issues influence African finance.

READ:Promoting women will boost African economic growth, World Bank says

According to the African Development Bank (AfDB) press release, Dr. Jennifer Blanke the bank’s Vice President for Agriculture, Human and Social Development, aligned her ideas along side other Leaders from multilateral development banks, financial institutions and the private sector called on peers to dispel …

Women mean business in Africa, and available data shows that they tend to execute business operations or manage, compared to their male counterparts, thus—supporting women business with credit, business skills, and conducive operating environment might be the break that Africa has been eyeing.

According to the World Bank Report (Profit from Parity, Unlocking the potential of women business in Africa-2019), there are three factors that are found to limit women potentials in the business sphere, which are social norms, legal discrimination and the risk of gender-based violence ( for instance, the report shows, 14 per cent of women entrepreneurs in Malawi have been subjected to physical or emotional violence from their male counterparts).

All three factors are also buried under various segments such as endowment, which carry: education/skills, confidence or risks, finance and assets, networks and information. Another segment, that is an underlying constraint is the household level environment, which …

Tax collection is pristine to Tanzania’s development landscape, that’s they the Tanzania Revenue Authority (TRA) is striving to forge a Tanzanian success story via revenue collection which rose by 66.7 per cent in four years.

TRA Deputy Commissioner General Mr. Msafiri Mbibo announced yesterday during a press conference in  commercial-pulse Dar es Salaam that: during the last four  financial years, Tanzania has collected over $25.3 billion, pinning the raise to taxpayers compliance, arguing that, it is a direct result of transparency in the authority’s  operations and enhancing the overall tax administration system.

Tanzania has its fair share of taxing hurdles, just like any other African nation, as TRA pinpoints the weight of significant tax-paying lies on the shoulders of over 3 million taxpayers (by October 2019) in Tanzania, which rose from 2.2 million.

On the same note,  on Sunday November 24, Tanzania’s President John Magufuli, highlighted on the importance of …

The government of South Sudan has managed to commission a $38 million upgraded power distribution system financed by the African Development Bank (AfDB)to restore reliable electricity supply to Juba’s central business district and boost suburban livelihoods.

South Sudan has been recorded as the nation that had worst electricity access in the world, as the Africa Oil and Power report shows that, the power supply stands at just 1 per cent of the population.

The funding that was commissioned on 21st November comes to the rescue of the country that had a devastating conflict, crippling most of its economic systems.

According to the African Development Bank, the Juba Power Distribution System Rehabilitation and Expansion Project is the first in a series of major energy sector interventions by the Bank to improve livelihoods and build resilience in South Sudan. As its counterpart contribution, the government provided land for the construction of five …

Tanzanian President John Magufuli, has received $455.8 million (Tsh1.05 Trillion) as the governments dividend and revenue share from 79 entities that the government holds stake in.

According to the president, Tanzania’s government has invested over $25 billion in 266 entities in Tanzania.

The divided and revenue share handing was executed in the capital city-Dodoma witnessed by various several-top government officials and private sector influential actors including, the Ministry of Finance and Planning and financial institutions chiefs.

The government’s dividend and revenue shares offered which rose from over $293 million in the 2016/2017 financial year, $365.5 million in  2017/2018 to over $455.8 million in the  2018/2019 financial year and sadly, the contribution has been dominated by a fraction of entities, as 187 out of 266 entities supposed to hand their contributions did not execute their fair contribution, due to operating under loss.

The top three contributors were Tanzania Ports Authority with …

Earlier this week, the African Development Bank signed an unfunded $250-million Risk Participation Agreement (RPA) facility with ABSA – a pan-Africa financial institution with a solid presence in 12 African countries.

According to AfDB’s statement, the 3 year RPA facility was signed on November 12, on the sidelines of the Africa Investment Form through its trade finance operations.

Under this 3-year RPA facility, the Bank and ABSA will share the default risk on a portfolio of eligible trade transactions originated by African Issuing Banks (IBs) and confirmed by ABSA.

ABSA Group Limited is listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange and is one of Africa’s largest diversified financial services groups with solid human capital on the ground reaching around 42 000 employees.

Also, ABSA has majority stakes in banks in Botswana, Ghana, Kenya, Mauritius, Mozambique, the Seychelles , South Africa (Absa Bank), Tanzania (Barclays Bank in Tanzania and National Bank of …

Lusaka as one of the fastest developing cities in southern Africa has acquired a rather vital sanitation fund to bring to life the $243 million Lusaka Sanitation Program (LSP), jointly funded by the African Development Bank (AfDB), the European Investment Bank, German Development Bank and the World Bank.

Read:Lusaka emerald auction generates US$18.6 million revenue

AfDB places Zambia’s economy growth (Real GDP) at an estimated at 4.0 per cent in 2018, compared to 4.1 per cent in 2017, whereas—the bank argues that, construction has also attributed to the growth, citing public infrastructure projects which increased at 10 per cent in 2018.

However, United Nations Children’s Emergency Fund (Unicef) poor sanitation results in a 1.3 per cent loss to Zambia’s national Gross Domestic Product (GDP) annually, which also contributed to Zambia’s high rate of child stunting (40 per cent), hence—research argues that, addressing the latter downplays the risk of stunting.…

The International Centre for Tax and Development (ICTD) has been granted $4.5 million by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to establish a 3-year research and capacity building program on tax in relation to digital financial services, and their use, as well as digital ID infrastructure, in enabling low-income countries to more efficiently and equitably raise tax revenue, ICTD press release reads.

ICTD is a research network that aims at improving the quality of tax policy and administration in sub-Saharan Africa. It works with African partners to collaboratively generate policy-relevant research and build African research capacity in the area of taxation.

The funding came amidst an important convergence of over 450 tax officials, experts, and policymakers who are in Uganda-Kampala, participating in the Fourth International Conference on ICT and Accessibility (ICTA), themed: Innovation—digitalization and harnessing Technology to Improve Tax Systems.

More importantly, Increasing domestic resource mobilization is a …

The Tanzanian informal sector is one of the leading employers’ spheres and a rather pool for mushrooming local or indigenous knowledge and creativity, which eventually remains dormant, and not analyzed keenly.

Available data of the past shows how the informal sector bears merit to the convectional economy if utilized effectively. The International Labor Organization data points out that, non-agriculture jobs in the informal economy represent 66 per cent of all employment in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA).

Further, about 74 per cent of women are within informal employment boundaries, compared to 61 of the males. Data published by Statista, show that agriculture sector—which has been attracting a multitude of the Tanzanian un-employed population, has been the leading employment sector since 2008, where it scored 73 per cent, today it stands at 66.35 per cent.

In August this year, Tanzanian’s National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) and Ministry of Finance and Planning, did a …