Sub-Saharan African nations are at growing risk of debt distress because of heavy borrowing and gaping deficits, despite an overall uptick in economic growth, the International Monetary Fund said on Tuesday.

The sober assessment came as African countries continue to tap international debt markets and issue record levels of debt in foreign currencies, spurred on by insatiable investor demand for yields.

“What really we’re concerned about is the pace of increase, rather than the average,” IMFAfrica Director Abebe Aemro Selassie told Reuters at the launch of its economic outlook for the region in Accra.

“What we’re calling for right now is that those countries are going to need to go through fiscal consolidation,” he said, adding that oil producers and other resource-dependent economies were seeking the sharpest growth in their debt loads.

The Fund projected the rate of economic expansion would rise to 3.4 percent this year, up from 2.8 percent in 2017, boosted by global growth and higher commodity prices.

Slower growth in South Africa and Nigeria – the continent’s two largest economies – weighed on the region-wide average, but the IMF expects growth to pick up in around two-thirds of African nations. However, under current policies, that rate is expected to plateau below 4 percent over the medium term.

GROWTH SEEN SLOWING

Meanwhile, around 40 percent of low-income countries in the region are now in debt distress or at high risk of it, the IMF report said. And refinancing that debt could soon become more costly.

“The current growth spurt in advanced economies is expected to taper off, and the borrowing terms for the region’s frontier markets will likely become less favourable … which could coincide with higher refinancing needs for many countries across the region,” it said.

African governments issued a record $7.5 billion in sovereign bonds last year, 10 times more than in 2016. And they have issued or plan to issue over $11 billion in additional debt in the first half of 2018 alone, the report said.

Foreign currency debt increased by 40 percent from 2010-13 to 2017 and now accounts for about 60 percent of the region’s total public debt on average, IMF data showed. Average interest payments, meanwhile, increased from 4 percent of expenditures in 2013 to 12 percent in 2017.

Six countries – Chad, Eritrea, Mozambique, Congo Republic, South Sudan and Zimbabwe – were judged to be in debt distress at the end of last year. And the IMF’s ratings for Zambia and Ethiopia were changed from moderate to “high risk of debt distress.”

The IMF conceded that Africa’s enormous needs will continue to demand heavy investments to build infrastructure and social development. But to do so while avoiding the risk of a debt trap, the continent, which currently has the lowest revenue-to-GDP ratio in the world, will need to become more self-reliant.

“Borrowing to finance spending is part of the macroeconomic policy tool kits which all countries use,” Selassie said. “But over the medium to long-term they have to rely more on domestic revenues, tax revenues to address their development spending needs.”

REUTERS

Nestlé has inaugurated a production unit for its range of Nido fortified powdered milk in Douala, Cameroon.

The new facility will create 12 additional jobs and has the potential to create 48 more in the coming years.

It will have an annual production capacity of more than 5,500 tons and will manufacture Nido Forti Choco as well as continue to package Nido powdered milk.

Nestlé said the production is intended for both the domestic market as well as for export to Gabon, Central African Republic, Chad, Congo and Equatorial Guinea.

Launched in 2016 in Cameroon, Nido Forti Choco is made from milk powder, cocoa and sugar. It is enriched with essential micronutrients such as iron, zinc and calcium.

Nestlé Cameroon country manager Thomas Caso said: “Nestlé has been improving the quality of life and contributing to a healthier future for the Cameroonian population for more than 50 years. As evidenced by this investment, we believe in the socio-economic development of the country and we want to continue to be a key partner in the growth of the local agro-industry.

“We will continue to explore with our partners and the relevant authorities ways to increase our local production and local sourcing of raw materials and packaging materials.”

Ernest Gwaboubou, Cameroon minister for mines, industry and technological development, said: “This event demonstrates a strong public-private partnership within the context of industrialisation of Cameroon, which will create employment and foster economic development.”

Nestlé has been present in Cameroon since 1965 and started local production in 1981. The company employs more than 450 people in the country.

Source: foodbev.com

• Upgrading the RN15 over 135 km between Lena and Tibati
• Construction of Provincial Road 18 over 106 km between Olama and Bigambo
• Total value: €214 million

VINCI subsidiary Sogea-Satom has been awarded two major road building projects in Cameroon for the Public Works Ministry.

The first contract, valued at €112 million, covers upgrading a 135 km section on the RN15 between Lena and Tibati in the centre of the country and 6.7 km of roads in the town of Tibati. The works consist, notably, of flood-proofing earthworks and construction of a 7m wide carriageway and shoulders, drainage structures and five bridges, together with safety, signage and environmental protection structures. The new corridor is 150 km shorter than the existing road arteries. It will boost trade and connections with Chad and Nigeria.

The second contract, valued at €102.4 million, concerns construction of a 106 km road section between Olama and Bigambo which will be part of the future Provincial Road 18 (total length 271 km south-west of Yaoundé). The works include construction of five 10 to 20 m-span bridges, 13 km of urban roads and upgrading of 20 km of rural tracks and concrete drainage channels. This artery is primarily intended to take heavy vehicle freight traffic from the new deep-water port of Kribi to Yaoundé. The project also has a social component representing 10% of the value of the contract. It provides for construction of classrooms, rural centres for young people and women, boreholes, wells and playing areas, together with construction of community and health centres along the road.

Delivery of the two projects is scheduled for May 2020 (Lena – Tibati road) and June 2022 ( Olama-Bigambo road).

These projects will mobilise substantial human resources on the local level. Sogea-Satom Cameroon organised its first job forum in Douala and Yaoundé in January 2018 to recruit more than 100 new employees. Some 90% of Sogea-Satom employees in Africa are local hires.

Thanks to its numerous activities, the Cameroon economy is the most diversified in Central Africa. VINCI has completed many projects in the country, notably a water treatment plant in Yaoundé (2014), a runway upgrade for the international airport in Douala (2017) and, more recently, the dual road-rail bridge over the Wouri river in Douala, the first major engineering structure built by VINCI on the African continent.

Source: globalnewswire.com

Cameroon has launched a mandatory headcount of all government employees in another effort to unmask ghost workers, official said.

Finance minister Louis Paul Motaze, in a statement, said the nationwide census would start from the salary pay-out period of April and end in June.

“The aim of the physical headcount of all civil servants is to identify and expunge irregular workers from the state payroll,” the statement said.

It said further that teams would be deployed to banks, micro-finance institutions and treasury offices, where salaries were paid out.

Fake pensioners

The salaries of workers who would not have been identified within the three months deadline would be suspended, it went on.

Mid last year, President Paul Biya instructed the government to unmask ghost workers and fake pensioners who were defrauding the state of millions of dollars.

However, experts were pessimistic that the latest headcount would succeed as it targets; banks, micro-finance institutions and treasury offices, were the wrong places to monitor real civil servants.

Collect salaries

Mr Ebai, who works with the consulting firm, Gerson Lehrman Group (GLG), advised the Yaoundé administration to instead go for software programs that would purge payrolls of ghost workers.

“You cannot undertake a headcount by focusing on how many people actually collect salaries. How do you, for example, control fraudulent or double identities?

“And who will monitor the monitors, given that in Cameroon, everybody has a price?” Mr Ebai posed.

Cameroon lost about $283,000 (FCFA 150 million) in salaries and other benefits to the ghost workers between 2007 and 2010, according to local newspaper the Kalara.

Source: Today.ng

In Cameroon’s port of Douala, corruption, bureaucratic red tape, overpriced services and a growing backlog have combined to put a major drag on cargo trade through central Africa’s largest harbour.

More than 95% of Cameroon’s maritime traffic transits through Douala, a sprawling hub that serves as the main gateway for landlocked Chad and Central African Republic.

But the procedures for clearing goods are a permanent headache, and very little gets done without greasing palms with extra cash, traders say.

“There is high-level corruption at Douala port,” says one businessman as he slips a 1.50 euros note to the ticket seller at the entrance – a quarter of the official entry price.

“To take a car out of customs, for example, you have to get between 20 and 22 different stamps,” says a port employee who asked to remain anonymous – for each stamp, a bribe has to change hands. On top of that, there are rapidly rising formal costs.

“A car that we cleared a year ago for 850 000 CFA in charges would now cost 1.3 million,” explains the businessman who bribed the man at the gate.

“In the offices, staff (handling the paperwork) are incredibly slow, so if you want your dossier to be dealt with, you have to pay up.”

The World Bank has noted the remarkably long time taken to move goods through the Douala – an average of 16 days according to an expert mission in March last year.

The team said this period was “an eternity compared, for instance, with the port of Lome in Togo, where the delay is two days”.

 Catastrophic delays 

For Chad and Central African Republic, Douala is the nearest gateway for a stream of hauliers supplying the capitals of N’Djamena and Bangui.

Due to the red tape endured by the freight transporters, some are now considering the idea of “going through other ports in the West African subregion”, Chad’s ministry of infrastructure warned in a recent statement.

In Douala, “our lorries are often blocked for many weeks at the port before being able to get on the road”, Ali Abdallah Youssouf, head of Chad’s national council of importers, exporters and freight forwarders, told AFP by phone from Libreville.

A survey conducted for the World Bank in 2011 noted that customs “sometimes rightly” took much of the blame for delays in clearing containers and other cargo, but pointed out that many other agents were involved, from shippers to sanitary services.

Such delays are “catastrophic” for most businesses, stated a businessman from Central African Republic who has to work through the Cameroonian port.

“By holding the goods” the terminal managers “earn more money than they do in handling them,” particularly when it comes to wood, a valuable commodity in central Africa, he said.

 ‘A marked degradation’ 

Since 2004, the container terminal has been managed by Douala International Terminal (DIT), a subsidiary of France’s Bollore Group. Another of its subsidiaries, SEPDC, manages the wood terminal.

And it is through these two terminals that around half of the port’s merchandise has to pass.

But it has not gone unnoticed by the authorities themselves, with the port’s Director General Cyrus Ngo’o warning last month that a singular lack of investment had caused a “marked degradation” in its infrastructure.

His remarks were made in a pointed letter addressed to the transport ministry, a copy of which was seen by AFP.

The port, he wrote, was initially built to cope with an average “seven million tonnes of merchandise” per year, while today it handles 12 million tonnes – which was putting major stress on its limited infrastructure.

“Since 1980, there has not been any major investment to expand its ability to accommodate vessels and process their merchandise,” he wrote.

 ‘Congestion is real’ 

In February, France’s Rougier Group, which trades in tropical timber, said its business was suffering from the “chronic backlog” at Douala port, which was affecting its Cameroonian, Congolese and Central African subsidiaries.

But Ngo’o hit back, saying Douala could not be held responsible for Rougier’s failings since the port’s “logistical operations for international trade were proceeding as normal”.

Despite his fighting talk, Ngo’o’s letter admitted the port was facing “an unforeseen situation in which its operations were experiencing a decline in fluidity”.

“This situation is having a negative impact, notably on the speed of handling the exports of Cameroon’s main cash crops such as coffee, cocoa and wood,” he wrote.

“More than 2 000 containers” of these three goods had been stuck at the terminal for many weeks, he warned, saying the risk “of congestion at Douala port is very real.”

Source: AFP

Forty-four African countries have signed an agreement establishing a free trade area seen as vital to the continent’s economic development, the head of the African Union said Wednesday.

The creation of a free trade area — billed as the world’s largest in terms of participating countries — comes after two years of negotiations, and is one of the AU’s flagship projects for greater African integration.

“The agreement establishing the CFTA (African Continental Free Trade Area) was signed by 44 countries,” said Moussa Faki Mahamat, chairman of the AU commission.

However, the agreement will still have to be ratified at a national level, and is only due to come into force in 180 days.

Nigeria is notably absent from the signatories after President Muhammadu Buhari pulled out of this week’s launch in Rwanda saying he needed more time for consultations at home.

One of Africa’s largest markets, Nigeria hesitated after objections from business leaders and unions — a sign that getting the deal through scores of national parliaments may face several hurdles.

“Some countries have reservations and have not finalized their national consultations. But we shall have another summit in Mauritania in July where we expect countries with reservations to also sign,” said Albert Muchanga, the AU Commissioner for Trade and Industry.

However other economic powerhouses South Africa, Kenya, Morocco, Egypt, Ethiopia and Algeria — known for strict protectionist policies restricting imports and exports — did sign the deal.

If all 55 African Union members eventually sign up, it will create a bloc with a cumulative GDP of $2.5 trillion (2 trillion euros) and cover a market of 1.2 billion people.

Currently, African countries only do about 16 percent of their business with each other, the smallest amount of intra-regional trade compared to Latin America, Asia, North America and Europe.

And with average tariffs of 6.1 per cent, businesses currently pay higher tariffs when they export within Africa than when they export outside it, according to the AU.

“If we remove customs and duties by 2022, the level of intra-African trade will increase by 60 percent, which is very, very significant,” Muchanga told AFP in an interview before the summit.

The CFTA is a key part of the AU’s long-term development plan Agenda 2063, which calls for easing trade and travel across the continent.

At its most recent summit in Ethiopia in January, AU member states agreed to a common air transport market that could drive down airfares, as well as plans for visa-free travel for Africans across the continent.

Also on Wednesday, 27 countries signed the protocol agreeing to the free movement of persons across the continent.

(Source: AFP)

The United Bank for Africa (UBA) has partnered with Viettel’s subsidiary in Cameroon, Nexttel, to launch mobile money services, Journaldeucameroun reported. The decision signed by the Governor of the Bank of Central African States (BEAC), Abbas Mahamat Tolli, reveals that UBA had requested authorisation from the bank as far back as March 2017, to carry out mobile money services in Cameroon.

BEAC approved the UBA request based on the potential benefits to Cameroon’s unbanked population. The central bank said it reserves the right to withdraw the authorisation if the request is not used effectively within twelve months. Mobile money services in the country are currently controlled by Orange and MTN, in partnership with BICEC and Afriland First Bank respectively.

Official statistics indicate that there are 34,114 electronic money service points across the Economic and Monetary Community of Central Africa (CEMAC), with Cameroon accounting for 70 percent.

Source: Telecompaper.com

Mozambican authorities say a fungal infection which eats at banana plants is to blame for at least 2,400 people losing their jobs.

They say Panama disease has hit planations in the northern provinces of Nampula and Cabo Delgado, across an estimated area of 1,300 hectares.

The country says it is looking for alternative banana varieties which are resistant to the disease.

A spokesman for plant health at Mozambique’s ministry of agriculture and food security says:

“So far, the varieties tested aren’t resistant enough. They’ve been imported from Taiwan and show some resistance but aren’t completely resistant. They can endure the disease, depending on the stress. But the more fungus the soil has, the more stressed they become. Under these conditions the plants can not bear the brunt. They also end up becoming infested.”

Source: BBC

David Nkoto Emane, the General Manager of Cameroon Telecommunications (Camtel) – a state-owned telephone operator has been barred from leaving the country.

The decision also concerns Richard Maga, the deputy general manager of the company including some of their staff.

The decision to prevent Camtel’s officials from leaving Cameroonian territory was taken on the instructions of President Biya after a correspondence from the State Audit Office, which audited the company’s accounts recently in Yaoundé.

By Rita Akana