newworldafro
DeeperThanRapBiggerThanHH
No different than of these other supranational government ideas like the European Union ......... it's neither totally good or totally bad....it's some many details...
Essential The Africa the Media Doesn't Tell You About
- Thread starter TommyHilltrigga
- Start date
No different than of these other supranational government ideas like the European Union ......... it's neither totally good or totally bad....it's some many details...
Captain Crunch
Veteran
I've been wanting to visit Africa for a minute, particularly English speaking cities like Accra; Nairobi, Mombasa, and Lagos. Which major English speaking city in Africa has the most blacks owning restaurants; resorts, clubs, and/or various businesses.
@NYC Rebel @Azul @mastermind @PewPew @bdizzle @Don Drogo @Robbie3000
@NYC Rebel @Azul @mastermind @PewPew @bdizzle @Don Drogo @Robbie3000
I would imagine all of them. Nairobi has a good night life. Particularly if you know someone there. Mombasa and Malindi has a lot of nice resorts. And of course there are a lot of places to go on Safaris throught Kenya.
Captain Crunch
Veteran
Oh those 3 cities you listed, which one has the most blacks owning clubs; restaurants, and, clubs?
mastermind
Rest In Power Kobe
Abuja
Most businesses are going to be owned by blacks since blacks make up 99.9% of the population. Although, Kenyan Indians do own a lot of businesses given their very small population (~100,000 in a country of 45+ million blacks)
You really need to visit different places to get a full experience. Nairobi doesn't really have a lot of attractions outside of the nightlife. Most tourism in Kenya is focused on Safaris and resorts on the coast. A night or two in Nairobi is cool. Then I would hit up some National Parks for a safari which will allow you to drive through the countryside and experience the country and finish it off with a relaxing stay on the coast in either Mombasa or Malindi or both.
Tanzania president's reforms raise hopes of better African leaders
2016-01-14 12:35
Dar es Salaam - John Pombe Magufuli may have been a compromise candidate, but less than three months after taking over as Tanzania's president, his radical reforms have the region in awe.
John Magufuli. (East Africa TV, Twitter)
Many east Africans are hoping for the "Magufulification" of their countries as they watch the 56-year-old cut perks to officials, channel funding to public services and tackle corruption.
Some measures are less popular as he has expelled slum dwellers and cracked down on migrants who are in the country illegally.
One of Magufuli's first acts was to cancel the Independence Day celebrations on December 9, saying it was "shameful that we're spending money on independence when our people are dying of cholera".
He diverted the budget of $1.9m to expanding a congested road and street cleaning, replacing the independence celebrations with a National Day of Cleanliness during which he collected rubbish himself.
Magufuli scaled down the inauguration of the new parliament, channelling 200 million shillings to the Muhimbili National Hospital in Dar es Salaam to buy beds for patients.
He uses a car instead of a jet to travel around the country, and has banned all but the most essential foreign travel for officials, instead ordering them to visit rural areas to find out about problems there.
In the October elections, Magufuli was a compromise candidate for the Chama Cha Mapinduzi party, which has dominated politics since the country's independence in 1961.
Few Tanzanians expected him to launch the radical reforms that are now sparking comparisons with the country's first president and founding father, Julius Nyerere.
But sceptics say that authoritarian presidents such as Rwanda's Paul Kagame and Uganda's Yoweri Museveni, who are reluctant to step down after decades in power, were also once hailed as belonging to a new breed of leaders.
Magufuli has sacked the head of the Dar es Salaam ports authority and suspended the chief of the revenue authority, after visits by Prime Minister Kassim Majaliwa to the port found that thousands of containers had been cleared without the taxes being paid.
Tanzania president's reforms raise hopes of better African leaders
2016-01-14 12:35
Dar es Salaam - John Pombe Magufuli may have been a compromise candidate, but less than three months after taking over as Tanzania's president, his radical reforms have the region in awe.
John Magufuli. (East Africa TV, Twitter)
Many east Africans are hoping for the "Magufulification" of their countries as they watch the 56-year-old cut perks to officials, channel funding to public services and tackle corruption.
Some measures are less popular as he has expelled slum dwellers and cracked down on migrants who are in the country illegally.
One of Magufuli's first acts was to cancel the Independence Day celebrations on December 9, saying it was "shameful that we're spending money on independence when our people are dying of cholera".
He diverted the budget of $1.9m to expanding a congested road and street cleaning, replacing the independence celebrations with a National Day of Cleanliness during which he collected rubbish himself.
Magufuli scaled down the inauguration of the new parliament, channelling 200 million shillings to the Muhimbili National Hospital in Dar es Salaam to buy beds for patients.
He uses a car instead of a jet to travel around the country, and has banned all but the most essential foreign travel for officials, instead ordering them to visit rural areas to find out about problems there.
In the October elections, Magufuli was a compromise candidate for the Chama Cha Mapinduzi party, which has dominated politics since the country's independence in 1961.
Few Tanzanians expected him to launch the radical reforms that are now sparking comparisons with the country's first president and founding father, Julius Nyerere.
But sceptics say that authoritarian presidents such as Rwanda's Paul Kagame and Uganda's Yoweri Museveni, who are reluctant to step down after decades in power, were also once hailed as belonging to a new breed of leaders.
Magufuli has sacked the head of the Dar es Salaam ports authority and suspended the chief of the revenue authority, after visits by Prime Minister Kassim Majaliwa to the port found that thousands of containers had been cleared without the taxes being paid.
Tanzania president's reforms raise hopes of better African leaders
Captain Crunch
Veteran
Just saw pics of the football stadium, I'm sure it's live as fukk to catch a game there.
What time of the year can I catch games there?
mastermind
Rest In Power Kobe
if you wanna watch national team, just check the FIFA calendar for Nigeria to see when they play World Cup Qualifiers.Just saw pics of the football stadium, I'm sure it's live as fukk to catch a game there.
What time of the year can I catch games there?
The Odum of Ala Igbo
Hail Biafra!
Fascinating article about the future of the African Continent
The next 35 years: Nigeria and South Africa may not be Africa's biggest economies. Who will?
The next 35 years: Nigeria and South Africa may not be Africa's biggest economies. Who will?
The next 35 years: Nigeria and South Africa may not be Africa's biggest economies. Who will?
16 Jan 2016 15:06Christine Mungai
1.2k2484
“South Africa will not get back on top. Nigeria will have strong competition and by 2050 may have an economy smaller than DR Congo and Ethiopia.”
Nigeria President Muhammadu Buhari and South Africa's Jacob Zuma. Are both nations living their last years at the top as Africa's economic powerhouses? (Photo/ Carl Fourie/Gallo Images)
SOUTH Africa had a very tough 2015, as global – and local – forces seemingly conspired to knock the wind out of the country’s lungs. First, the global commodity price collapse linked to a slowdown in the Chinese economy has made a big dent in South Africa’s export revenues.
China is a major consumer of South Africa’s mining exports, but has had to cut down its order book as it tries to rebalance its economy.
Making things worse is the worst drought in more than three decades. Some parts of the country have been declared disaster areas, thousands of livestock may have to be killed, and the government is spending about 350 million rand ($25 million) on emergency measures.
And internally, social unrest has gripped the country in 2015, from the student protests that begun at Rhodes University early in the year and culminated in the #FeesMustFall protests, to a spate of xenophobic attacks in April. As the year came to a close, there were more protests against perceptions of increasing government corruption, and President Jacob Zuma’s highly controversial sacking of Finance Minister Nhlanhla Nene.
As South Africans watch with dismay as the country’s sovereign credit risk hover close to junk level, could this all be a passing cloud? Is there a chance that the country will regain its top spot as Africa’s biggest economy? Nigeria knocked off South Africa as the continent’s largest economy last year, with the rebasing of its economy to $521 billion.
Carlos Lopes, executive secretary of the UN’s Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA), doesn’t think so.
“South Africa will not get back on top,” said Lopes categorically in an extensive interview with Mail & Guardian Africa.
READ INTERVIEW: Peering into the crystal ball; Africa in the next 85 years, according to a leading economist
The reason for this possibly is two-fold, according to Mail & Guardian Africa analysis. First, there is a quiet but hugely significant trend happening in Africa at the moment, for which South Africa is a relative outlier – demographic change.
Over the next 35 years, more than half of the world’s births will happen in Africa. It means that over the same time period, the region’s working age population is expected to triple to 1.25 billion people. With the right policies in place, this could be harnessed into increased savings and investments, and booming economic growth.
Nigeria, for example, will see its working age population grow from 51.5% of the total population in 2015 to 58.4% in 2050, according to latest projections (pdf) by the UN’s Department of Economic and Social Affairs.
But over the same time period, South Africa will see its working age population (age 15-59) grow by just 0.3 percentage points, from 63% to 63.3%. South Africa’s demographic transition into smaller, and relatively more prosperous families, began earlier than in the rest of sub-Saharan Africa. It means that there is less room for growth.
Financial markets
The other major challenge holding South Africa back is structural. The country has an enormous amount of capital concentrated in its financial markets – data from the World Bank shows that the market capitalisation of the financial markets is nearly three times larger than the country’s actual Gross Domestic Product.
That gives it a market capitalisation-to-GDP ratio that is the third largest in the world; only Hong Kong and Switzerland have relatively larger capital markets. Some of this is accounted for by large overseas companies cross-listing on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange, but even so, the financial sector’s size is remarkable for a country of South Africa’s size and population.
It means that there is less incentive to invest in the real economy, or create real jobs, because investors can live comfortably off the interest accrued by their financial assets.
Still, Nigeria, even with its rosy headline economic figures, huge population and massive potential, also mask deep structural flaws in the economy that might make it choke on growth soon.
“Nigeria will have strong competition and by 2050 may have an economy smaller than DR Congo and Ethiopia,” says Carlos Lopes. Nigeria’s Achilles Heel is in its lack of power.
Nigeria produces just 1.5% of the electricity it needs for its 173 million people. Exasperated Nigerians dubbed the Power Holding Company of Nigeria the “Please Hold Candle Nearby” company; over 70% of running costs go to running fuel generators alone, and industries retain slow, outdated manual processes because they don’t have the power to run machines.
Without radical reform – and if oil revenues have hit a permanent slump – Nigeria will not be able to function as a modern economy, and may just become a de facto village, though still hulking in size. The impact on the continent of having such a giant grinding to a halt could be far-reaching.
Meanwhile, DR Congo’s potential is immense. The DR Congo’s total mineral wealth is estimated to be worth a mind-boggling $24 trillion, more than the GDP of Europe and the US combined.
It holds more than 70% of the world’s coltan, used to make vital components of mobile phones, 30% of the world’s diamond reserves and vast deposits of cobalt, copper and bauxite. Additionally, the DR Congo contains huge quantities of gold, platinum, oil, tin and uranium — indeed, of nearly every other precious mineral on the planet.
Lighting up
And the planned $80 billion Grand Inga Dam, if finally constructed, will be massive: Producing 40,000 megawatts when complete, it will be capable of literally lighting up the continent, providing electricity to half of African countries.
Currently, the world’s largest hydropower plant is the Three Gorges Dam across the Yangtze River in China, delivering 22,500 Megawatts — Grand Inga will be nearly double the size.
But DR Congo is plagued by instability, so may not take its place at the top of Africa’s economic pile any time soon.
That leaves Ethiopia. At nearly 100 million, the country is Africa’s third most populous, and has posted blistering economic growth in the past decade or so. More importantly, it is fast closing the infrastructure gap, laying down a flurry of roads, railways and power projects, which would give it a competitive advantage in the region, particularly over DR Congo that is notoriously poorly connected.
DR Congo is the eleventh-largest country on Earth by area (2.3 million sq. kilometres) and the 19th largest by population (73 million people), but has less than 3,000 km of all-weather paved road, which would be barely enough to cross the 2,500 km-wide country in any direction, let alone service its population.
Making things worse is that only half of that paltry amount of all-weather road is in good condition. Cars are useless, trucks break down constantly and can be stuck for days, weeks, or months. This leaves bicycles as the main method of land transportation in the DRC - and no country ever became a regional superpower on bicycles.
Ethiopia also has the advantage of an efficient bureaucracy and stable, if authoritarian political regime, though this could prove to be a liability in the future as people demand more political space.
Analysts are also warning that Ethiopia’s mega-infrastructure binge will put enormous pressure on Ethiopia’s public finances, which are already strained following the first growth and infrastructure plan that expires this year.
The Odum of Ala Igbo
Hail Biafra!
The Congo's Potential
The future shape of East Africa: What happens when the sleeping giant of Congo awakes
The future shape of East Africa: What happens when the sleeping giant of Congo awakes
Eskom lifts Zambia’s capacity
BUSINESS/COMPANIES / 27 January 2016 at 07:30am
By: Tawanda Karombo
Harare - Eskom’s provision of power to Zimbabwe and Zambia and increasing water levels in the Kariba Dam have helped stabilise power supplies in South Africa’s neighbouring countries and allowed First Quantum Minerals and other mining houses across the region to intensify production.
Eskom’s supply to Zambia of 300 megawatts (MW) of electricity has buoyed copper producer First Quantum Minerals, which has resumed full capacity operations at its mine, smelter and other projects in the country.
The slowly recovering Kariba Dam is also set to ease power woes in the country as the rainfall season gains pace.
Kariba supplies Zimbabwe and Zambia with hydro-electricity, but significantly lower water levels had forced the two countries to cut back on electricity generation from the dam.
Eskom, has entered into deals with Zimbabwe, Zambia, Botswana and other regional countries to supply them with excess electricity.
First Quantum said yesterday that improved stability in the power supply situation had helped its operations to get back to normal operations.
Steady supply
“First Quantum’s Zambian operations, the Kansanshi mine, smelter and the Sentinel project, are being consistently provided a total of approximately 285MW,” First Quantum president Clive Newall said.
“This allows for normal operations at the Kansanshi mine and smelter complex, and for Sentinel to achieve above nameplate capacity throughput for periods,” he said.
He said Zambia was “in the midst of its annual rainy season which, generally starts in November and runs through April. With the onset of the rains, the catchment area that feeds the Kariba Dam, from which the majority of the country’s electricity is generated, is being recharged.”
Zambia is the second-largest producer of copper in Africa after the Democratic Republic of Congo.
New capacity
It has, however, been urged to diversify its economy as the persistently lower commodity prices and power outages take a toll on the economy.
Additionally, electricity availability in Zambia will be augmented by about 420MW of new in-country capacity, which is expected to come online this year. This will come from two projects that are nearing completion: a 300MW thermal power project and another hydro power project that will add up to 120MW.
“The state-run power company is importing power from neighbouring countries, and has announced additional power imports of up to 300MW from another utility in the region, and a further 200MW from an independent power producer,” First Quantum said.
The company said it was also “evaluating a number of options to independently secure power for its operations both in the near and long term”.
This would provide guaranteed power supplies for its operations in Zambia and allow it to ramp up production.
First Quantum said earlier this month that it planned to cut more than 700 jobs at its Sentinel mine in Zambia, citing insufficient power supplies.
Eskom lifts Zambia’s capacity | IOL
Dreamestorical
Pro
EKO ATLANTIC CITY, LAGOS NIGERIA UPDATES.
The City is coming up nicely. Lots of buildings springing up.
The City is coming up nicely. Lots of buildings springing up.
thernbroom
Superstar
Kiira Motors' chief executive Paul Isaac Musasizi told BBC News that he had been "humbled" by the large and positive reaction to the test drive.
Image captionSolar panels on the roof of the bus will top up the vehicle's battery
People have been excited by the idea that Uganda is able to produce the concept vehicle, or prototype, and Mr Musasizi said he wanted it to help the country "champion the automotive, engineering and manufacturing industries" in the region.
He also hopes that it will generate employment, predicting that by 2018, more than 7,000 people could be directly and indirectly employed in the making of the Kayoola.
But backing from international companies, which make vehicle parts, is essential for the project to take off.
The vision is that by 2039 the company will be able to manufacture all the parts and assemble the vehicle in Uganda.
The 35-seat bus is intended for urban areas rather than inter-city use because of the restrictions on how far it can travel.
If it is mass produced, each bus would cost up to $58,000 (£40,000), which Mr Musasizi says is a a competitive price.
Kiira Motors grew out of a project at Uganda's Makerere University, which is now a shareholder in the company, and it has also benefitted from government funding.
Ethiopia, African Development Bank sign $328 m loan agreements
Posted by: APA Posted date : February 4, 2016 at 10:46 am UTC 50 views In : Business, Politics
Ethiopia and the African Development Bank (AfDB) on Wednesday signed loan agreements amounting to 328 million US dollars.
The agreements were signed between Ethiopia’s Finance and Economic Cooperation Minister, Ahmed Shide and Josephine Ngure, Resident Representative of the African Development Bank Ethiopia Group.
According to Ahmed, the first loan agreement amounting to 252 million US dollars will be used for the implementation of the Basic Services Transformation Program.
The loan would help Ethiopia’s transformation effort through the provision of quality and accessible basic services to the population through the decentralized government architecture, he pointed out.
The second financing agreement amounting to 76.11 million US dollars will be utilized for the construction of four water supply and sanitation schemes in Adama, Bichena, Adwa, and Gode towns.
Ngure on her part said AfDB is committed to strengthening and deepening its longstanding support for Ethiopia. She stressed that the Bank will remain a privileged and trusted partner providing the necessary support, including engagement in policy dialogue on the reforms required to achieve Ethiopia’s Second Growth and Transformation Plan (GTP-II) and Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) targets.
Signature : APA
Copyright : © APA
Ethiopia, African Development Bank sign $328 m loan agreements - business, politics - News - StarAfrica.com
Posted by: APA Posted date : February 4, 2016 at 10:46 am UTC 50 views In : Business, Politics
Ethiopia and the African Development Bank (AfDB) on Wednesday signed loan agreements amounting to 328 million US dollars.
The agreements were signed between Ethiopia’s Finance and Economic Cooperation Minister, Ahmed Shide and Josephine Ngure, Resident Representative of the African Development Bank Ethiopia Group.
According to Ahmed, the first loan agreement amounting to 252 million US dollars will be used for the implementation of the Basic Services Transformation Program.
The loan would help Ethiopia’s transformation effort through the provision of quality and accessible basic services to the population through the decentralized government architecture, he pointed out.
The second financing agreement amounting to 76.11 million US dollars will be utilized for the construction of four water supply and sanitation schemes in Adama, Bichena, Adwa, and Gode towns.
Ngure on her part said AfDB is committed to strengthening and deepening its longstanding support for Ethiopia. She stressed that the Bank will remain a privileged and trusted partner providing the necessary support, including engagement in policy dialogue on the reforms required to achieve Ethiopia’s Second Growth and Transformation Plan (GTP-II) and Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) targets.
Signature : APA
Copyright : © APA
Ethiopia, African Development Bank sign $328 m loan agreements - business, politics - News - StarAfrica.com