Africa Business

Ghana’s main unions on Monday called for a nationwide strike from next week in protest against the inclusion of workers’ pensions in a local debt swap programme as part of the terms for an IMF credit.

A top cocoa and gold producer, Ghana has oil and gas reserves but its debt payments are high and its revenues weak. 

Like the rest of Africa, it has been hit by economic fallout from the global pandemic and the Ukraine war. 

Two weeks ago, the west African nation offered investors a domestic debt swap to ease a crunch in payments. 

But labour unions refuse to have pension funds included in the exchange.

The unions met in the capital Accra on Monday and told reporters they had called a strike to compel the government to heed their demand.

“We have decided firmly that because the government has refused to grant us our request that all pension funds must be exempted from the domestic debt exchange programme, all workers of Ghana are going to strike on 27 December 2022,” said Yaw Baah, secretary general of Trades Union Congress.

“We will be on strike until our demand has been granted,” he said.

Baah called on workers to stay at home.

“We will stay at home until the government acts. That is straight forward and very simple,” he said. 

“We won’t sit down for the vulnerable people to suffer because somebody has made mistakes.”

Labour unions present at the press conference included the Ghana National Association of Teachers (GNAT), the Ghana Medical Association, the University Teachers Association of Ghana (UTAG), the Ghana Registered Nurses and Midwives Association and the Teachers and Educational Workers Union (TEWU).

The government has so far not responded to the strike threat.

The West African state is facing an economic crisis, with inflation at more than 50 percent and its cedi currency down sharply, hit by the adverse effects of the global pandemic and Ukraine conflict. 

The crisis forced President Nana Akufo-Addo’s government to reverse its position earlier this year and seek International Monetary Fund help as economists warned of a default on debt payments.

Ghana and the IMF have agreed on a three-billion-dollar credit, but the fund’s board has yet to approve the deal.

Ghana on Monday announced it was suspending payments on part of its foreign debts.

Judges in London on Monday ruled that the UK government’s controversial plan to deport migrants to Rwanda was lawful, after a legal challenge by migrants and campaigners.

Former prime minister Boris Johnson brought in the proposal to try to tackle record numbers of migrants crossing the Channel from northern France by small boats.

But it triggered a wave of protests from rights groups and charities, and last-gasp legal challenges successfully blocked the first deportation flights in June.

Several individuals who arrived in small boats and organisations supporting migrants brought a case at the High Court in London for a judicial review of the policy, claiming it is unlawful.

Lawyers for the parties argued that the policy was unlawful on multiple grounds, including the assessment of Rwanda as a safe third country.

The judges acknowledged that the issue had stirred public debate but said its only remit was “to ensure that the law is properly understood and observed, and that the rights guaranteed by parliament are respected”. 

“The court has concluded that it is lawful for the government to make arrangements for relocating asylum-seekers to Rwanda and for their asylum claims to be determined in Rwanda rather than in the United Kingdom,” they said in a summary.

“The relocation of asylum-seekers to Rwanda is consistent with the (UN) Refugee Convention and with the statutory and other legal obligations on the government including the obligations imposed by the Human Rights Act 1998.”

The judges, however, said interior minister Suella Braverman had not properly considered the circumstances of the eight claimants in the case and referred their cases back to her.

– ‘Morally reprehensible’ – 

Tackling asylum claims has become a political headache for the ruling Conservative government in London, despite its promise to “take back control” of the country’s borders after Britain’s departure from the European Union.

More than 43,000 migrants have crossed the Channel this year.

Johnson’s short-lived successor Liz Truss and the incumbent Rishi Sunak have backed the Rwanda deal, which aims to send anyone deemed to have entered the UK illegally since January 1 to the African nation.

Sunak and Braverman have both said urgent action is needed to prevent further tragedies in the Channel. Four people died last week when their boat capsized in freezing waters.

Both welcomed the ruling. “We have always maintained that this policy is lawful and today the court has upheld this,” Braverman said, insisting it will help those relocated to “build new lives”.

Sunak told reporters on a visit to Riga the Rwanda plan combined with measures announced last week — including a deal with Albania to combat growing numbers from that country — would enable the government to “get to grips with illegal migration”.

The main opposition Labour party, however, said the government’s plan would “do nothing” to stop the dangerous sea crossings.

Its home affairs spokeswoman, Yvette Cooper, branded the plan “unworkable” and “unethical” and a “damaging distraction from the urgent action the government should be taking to go after the criminal (people trafficking) gangs and sort out the asylum system”.

The Rwandan government called the ruling a “positive step” towards solving the global migration crisis.

Monday’s ruling involved asylum-seekers from Syria, Iran and Iraq, migrant support groups Care4Calais and Detention Action, plus the PCS union whose members would have to implement the removals.

James Wilson from Detention Action said the body was “very disappointed by the outcome today” but would “regroup and consider next steps”.

Paul O’Connor of the PCS said the policy remained “morally reprehensible” despite the ruling and an appeal may be “seriously” considered to block deportations.

Amnesty International called for the plan to be “abandoned in its entirety”.

Tunisia’s electoral board revised the turnout in parliamentary elections slightly upwards to 11.2 percent on Monday, a poll that opposition groups said undermined President Kais Saied.

The ISIE electoral authority had initially announced participation of 8.8 percent after the close of voting for a parliament largely stripped of any power, the final pillar in Saied’s overhaul of the political system in the birthplace of the Arab Spring uprisings.

ISIE chief Farouk Bouasker told journalists in Tunis that just over one million of the North African nation’s nine million registered voters had cast ballots.

The figure is the lowest since the 2011 revolution that overthrew dictator Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, down from 70 percent in 2014 legislative polls and just a third of the 30.5 percent in this summer’s vote on a new constitution cementing Saied’s authority.

Saied sacked the government, surrounded parliament with tanks and seized full executive powers in July 2021, and has since moved to reinstall a system concentrating almost unlimited power in the hands of the president.

The main opposition coalition, which had called for a boycott, said Sunday the low turnout should be a cue for Saied to step down.

But Saied hit back on Monday, saying that “certain known parties found nothing to focus on except turnout in the first round of the election”, saying this was “like announcing the final result of a sporting event at the end of the first half.”

A second round of voting is set to take place early next year.

In the statement from his office, Saied also noted that some of his critics are facing criminal charges in the courts — a reference to lawsuits targeting Ennahdha officials.

Few Tunisians showed any interest in the election, with no serious public debate among the 1,055 candidates.

The new assembly has few powers, being unable to sack the government or topple the president, whose bills will take priority over any put forward by members of parliament.

A second person has died after being injured in a crush outside a concert by Nigerian Afrobeats singer Asake in London, police in the British capital said Monday.

The latest victim, who died in hospital, was named as 23-year-old Gaby Hutchinson, who had been working as one of the contracted security providers for the gig at the 02 Academy in Brixton, south London, on Thursday evening.

Police had on Saturday announced that 33-year-old Rebecca Ikumelo died of injuries she suffered in the concert crush.

Another woman, aged 21, remained in hospital in a critical condition, the Metropolitan Police said in a statement Monday.

In all, eight people were taken to hospital after Thursday’s incident.

Chief Superintendent Colin Wingrove, in charge of the investigation, called the second death “devastating news” and sent his condolences to the victim’s family.

Scotland Yard detectives have been scouring security camera and mobile phone footage to establish what caused the crush and to see if any crime was committed.

But they said it had been established that the two who died plus the woman in critical condition had been in the foyer of the building when the incident occurred.

Cordons outside the venue have now been lifted but remain in place inside.

Police were called to the O2 Academy just after 9:00 pm (2100 GMT) on Thursday after reports of a large crowd outside. 

A further call was made about 30 minutes later reporting that people were attempting to get inside.

The force said it had referred the incident to the police watchdog, in line with standard procedure when officers have attended and lives have been lost or people seriously injured.

After the first death was announced, Asake said he was “devastated” and “overwhelmed with grief”.

Thursday’s gig was the third of three sold-out performances at the venue. The concert was cancelled midway through his performance.

Countries reached a historic deal on Monday to reverse decades of environmental destruction threatening the world’s species and ecosystems, in what the UN chief hailed as “a peace pact with nature.”

After the marathon COP 15 biodiversity summit in Montreal ran into the small hours, chair Chinese Environment Minister Huang Runqiu, declared the deal adopted and banged his gavel, sparking loud applause.

“We are finally starting to forge a peace pact with nature,” UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said, hailing the accord.

EU chief Ursula von der Leyen said the deal was a “foundation for global action on biodiversity, complementing the Paris Agreement for Climate.”

And the United States hailed the outcome as a “turning point,” voicing appreciation for the role of frequent adversary China. State Department spokesman Ned Price called the deal “sweeping and ambitious.”

American President Joe Biden supports the deal and has launched his own “30 by 30” plan domestically, but the United States is not formally a party to the biodiversity convention because of opposition by Republicans in Congress.

After four years of fraught negotiations, more than 190 other states rallied behind the Chinese-brokered accord aimed at saving Earth’s lands, oceans and species from pollution, degradation and the climate crisis.

“We have in our hands a package which I think can guide us all to work together to hold and reverse biodiversity loss, to put biodiversity on the path of recovery for the benefit of all people in the world,” Huang told the assembly.

He overruled an objection from the Democratic Republic of Congo, which had refused to back the text, demanding greater funding for developing countries.

– Biggest conservation deal ever –

The deal pledges to secure 30 percent of the planet as a protected zone by 2030, stump up $30 billion in yearly conservation aid for the developing world and halt human-caused extinctions of threatened species.

Environmentalists have compared it to the landmark plan to limit global warming to 1.5C under the Paris agreement, though some warned that it did not go far enough.

Brian O’Donnell of the Campaign for Nature called it “the largest land and ocean conservation commitment in history.”

“The international community has come together for a landmark global biodiversity agreement that provides some hope that the crisis facing nature is starting to get the attention it deserves,” he said.

“Moose, sea turtles, parrots, rhinos, rare ferns and ancient trees, butterflies, rays, and dolphins are among the million species that will see a significantly improved outlook for their survival and abundance if this agreement is implemented effectively.”

The CEO of campaign group Avaaz, Bert Wander, cautioned: “It’s a significant step forward in the fight to protect life on Earth, but on its own it won’t be enough. Governments should listen to what science is saying and rapidly scale up ambition to protect half the Earth by 2030.”

– Indigenous rights –

The text pledges to safeguard the rights of Indigenous people as stewards of their lands, a key demand of campaigners.

But observers noted it pulled punches in other areas — for example, only encouraging businesses to report their biodiversity impacts rather than mandating them to do so.

The 23 targets in the accord also include saving hundreds of billions of dollars by cutting environmentally destructive farming subsidies, reducing the risk from pesticides and tackling invasive species.

– Funding fight –

At times, the talks looked at risk of collapsing as countries squabbled over money.

How much the rich countries will send to the developing world, home to most of the planet’s biodiversity, was the biggest sticking point.

Developing countries had been seeking the creation of a new, bigger fund for aid from the Global North. But the draft text instead suggested a compromise: creating a fund under the existing Global Environment Facility (GEF).

That concern was echoed by the Democratic Republic of Congo, home to the Congo Basin, a rich haven of biodiversity.

Current financial flows for nature to the developing world are estimated at around $10 billion per year.

A DRC delegate spoke up in the plenary to demand annual funding rise to $100 billion — but Huang declared the framework passed, angering DRC’s allies.

The Commercial Bank of Ethiopia said Monday that it has resumed financial services in some towns in the war-torn region of Tigray, enabling residents to access their funds after a shutdown lasting more than a year.

The announcement follows the signing of a peace deal between the federal government and Tigrayan rebels last month, aimed at ending the brutal two-year conflict and humanitarian crisis in northern Ethiopia.

“Following the peace agreement reached recently, the (CBE) branches we have in Shire, Alamata and Korem cities have started receiving money sent from abroad and locally as well as depositing money,” the country’s largest bank said in a statement.

“Our bank was forced to suspend its banking services because of the instability in the northern part of the country,” the statement said.

“Conditions permitting we will continue with our efforts to expand our services and step by step restart services in all branches.”

Access to northern Ethiopia is severely restricted and Tigray has been under a communications blackout for more than a year, making it impossible for journalists to independently verify the situation on the ground.

– Humanitarian disaster –

Since the November 2 peace agreement inked in South Africa, fighting between federal troops and the Tigray People’s Liberation Front has ceased, with the TPLF saying that 65 percent of its forces have “disengaged” from battle lines.

Earlier this month, the country’s electricity operator announced that the capital of Tigray had been reconnected to the national power grid after more than a year of cuts caused by the conflict.

The war left Tigray devastated and lacking access to basic services including banking, electricity, fuel and communications for more than a year.

Humanitarian aid has trickled into the north since the agreement but remains well short of meeting the population’s acute needs.

The death toll resulting from the war is unclear, but the International Crisis Group think-tank and Amnesty International have described it as one of the bloodiest in the world. 

All sides have been accused of abuses, while the United Nations says the conflict has displaced more than two million people and driven hundreds of thousands to the brink of famine.

The peace deal is aimed at ending the hostilities, disarming Tigrayan fighters, restoring federal government authority and reopening access to the region.

But the agreement makes no mention about the withdrawal of Eritrean forces, who have backed Ethiopia’s government during the conflict and been accused of horrific abuses.

Since the truce was agreed, the TPLF has regularly denounced Eritrean troops for allegedly committing human rights violations in Tigray.

According to the UN World Food Programme, more than 13 million people in northern Ethiopia now depend on humanitarian aid, including more than 90 percent of Tigray’s population of six million.

Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed sent troops to Ethiopia’s northernmost region in November 2020, accusing the TPLF, then the regional ruling party, of attacking federal army camps.

The TPLF dominated politics in the Horn of Africa nation for nearly three decades before Nobel Peace Prize laureate Abiy took office in 2018.

A Libyan court on Monday sentenced 17 people to death after finding them guilty of joining the Islamic State group and carrying out atrocities in its name, the prosecution said.

The Tripoli court also sentenced two people to life in prison and 14 others to lesser jail sentences, it said.

They had been found guilty of other IS-linked acts and of having “attacked the state and social peace” as well as “armed violence” in the western city of Sabratha and surroundings, it said in a statement.

Those on trial had killed a total of 53 people, “destroyed public buildings” and “disappeared dozens of people”, it said. Their nationalities of those sentenced to death were not given.

Libya’s collapse into violence after the revolt that toppled and killed dictator Moamer Kadhafi in 2011 left a power vacuum that was filled by a multitude of armed groups, including IS.

The extremist group used Kadhafi’s home town of Sirte as its base from mid-2015 until it was ousted the following year.

Some jihadists were killed, others captured and some took refuge in the country’s vast desert or in the cities of western Libya.

IS fighters also briefly seized Sabratha in February 2016, but were quickly ousted by government troops.

Libya in 2010 voted against a UN General Assembly resolution calling for a global moratorium on the death penalty, but does not publish reliable figures on how many such penalties it carries out.

Tunisia’s electoral board revised the turnout in parliamentary elections slightly upwards to 11.2 percent on Monday, a poll that opposition groups said undermined President Kais Saied.

The ISIE electoral authority had initially announced participation of 8.8 percent after the close of voting for a parliament largely stripped of any power, the final pillar in Saied’s overhaul of the political system in the birthplace of the Arab Spring uprisings.

ISIE chief Farouk Bouasker told journalists in Tunis that just over one million of the North African nation’s nine million registered voters had cast ballots.

The figure is the lowest since the 2011 revolution that overthrew dictator Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, down from 70 percent in 2014 legislative polls and just a third of the 30.5 percent in this summer’s vote on a new constitution cementing Saied’s authority.

Saied sacked the government, surrounded parliament with tanks and seized full executive powers in July 2021, and has since moved to reinstall a system concentrating almost unlimited power in the hands of the president.

The main opposition coalition, which had called for a boycott, said Sunday the low turnout should be a cue for Saied to step down.

Few Tunisians showed any interest in the election, with no serious public debate among the 1,055 candidates.

The new assembly has few powers, being unable to sack the government or topple the president, whose bills will take priority over any put forward by members of parliament.

A Tunisian man appeared in court Monday in the latest hearing in a long-running case that could see him returned to prison for more than two years for homosexuality.

Rights activists protested outside the appeals court in the central city of Kairouan, as the man known only as “Daniel” appeared before judges on the first day of the hearing.

Daniel, along with five other men, was originally charged in 2015 with “homosexual acts”, which is punishable by up to three years in prison in the North African nation.

Later that year, they were each sentenced to the full three years in prison, and banned from living in Kairouan province for a further three years.

They appealed the verdict, and in 2016 had their sentences reduced to 40 days in prison.

But in 2018 Tunisia’s Court of Cassation, the country’s top court, sent the case back for another appeal on technical grounds.

By that time, five of the men had fled abroad and found asylum, but Daniel remained in Tunisia and must now face court again.

Daniel, speaking Monday after the hearing, said it had been “okay” and that he “was able to speak to the judge comfortably”.

Around 30 protestors gathered outside the court, including representatives from local rights groups Damj and the Tunisian Human Rights League. 

Damj member Seif Ayadi said that the protest had been primarily to defend Daniel, but also to “demand justice for all the victims, even if it’s symbolic”.

Some of the slogans included “Queer revolution against the patriarchy”, and “My personal freedom is not the property of the Tunisian state”.

Protestors also held placards reading “Down with the Article of shame”, referring to Article 230 of Tunisia’s penal code which punishes consensual homosexual acts with up to three years in prison.

Article 230 allows the state to conduct anal tests on suspects, a practice harshly criticised by rights groups including the United Nations Committee Against Torture.

The article also outlaws setting up associations to defend LGBTQ rights.

In 2018, Tunisia increased the sentencing of homosexuals, with 127 jail terms imposed.

In December 2021, Damj estimated some 150 people were being held in Tunisia’s prisons for homosexuality.

The spotlight in South Africa’s turbulent political scene has been relentlessly fixed on President Cyril Ramaphosa as he battles a damning cash-in-sofa affair.

But, little noticed, is the rise of the man who could succeed Ramaphosa if the scandal destroys his career.

He is Paul Mashatile, who after years of quietly ascending through the ruling African National Congress (ANC) was installed on Monday as deputy to Ramaphosa, newly re-elected as party chief.

Under the ANC’s constitution, the party’s vice president succeeds the president if he or she is ousted or incapacitated. 

And that, in turn, opens the way to the position of head of state, which is determined by parliament, where the ANC has an absolute majority. 

Mashatile, 61, is a calm and enigmatic fixture of the ANC who started his political career during the struggle to dismantle apartheid. 

He then went on to occupy regional and national ministerial positions.

Over the past year, he has simultaneously held three key posts in the party’s uppermost echelons, replacing incumbents who died or were removed because of graft charges.

Those powerful positions — treasurer, interim secretary general and deputy secretary general — earned Mashatile the moniker “Holy Trinity”.

Mashatile’s attempts to clean up the books of the financially struggling ANC have been a dismal failure.

But within the party, his steady rise and new visibility have earned him unexpected popularity.

His soft-spoken influence has enabled him to reach deputy president — traditionally a launch pad to the head of state job.

Ramaphosa was deputy to President Jacob Zuma, just as Zuma was deputy to Thabo Mbeki before. And Mbeki was deputy to the first black president, Nelson Mandela.

– Apartheid struggle –

Born in 1961 on the outskirts of the capital Pretoria, Mashatile took up activism fighting white minority rule during his school years in Alexandra, the country’s oldest township. 

He was arrested and detained without trial from 1985 to 1989.

After democracy came in 1994, he held several top provincial positions before serving as a minister under Zuma from 2010 to 2014.

He led the campaign to remove his corruption-stained boss, paving way for Ramaphosa to become president.

Mashatile put his hand up for the ANC deputy president’s job but remained vague on his support for Ramaphosa in the run-up to the vote.

In recent months, Mashatile has made “strategic” political moves, said Hlengiwe Ndlovu, a lecturer at the Wits School of Governance in Johannesburg.

“Until 2017 his political maturity was not at a point where he could stand alone like we’ve seen in the past few months, where he developed his own political ambitions,” said Ndlovu.

But he “potentially” could be South Africa’s next president, Ndlovu said.

“Mashatile is a political realist,” said analyst Richard Calland.

– Corruption allegations –

But like many ANC top leaders, corruption accusations trail him.

Dubbed by some as the ringleader of the “Alex mafia” — activists who began their political careers in Alexandra township during the 1970s and 1980s — Mashatile was embroiled in corruption scandals in which the group was accused of defrauding public funds.

It was alleged the tall slim-built leader awarded top jobs to his friends when he was head of finance for the province, which includes the country’s financial hub of Johannesburg, between 2004 and 2008. 

Mashatile has distanced himself from the group and denied any corruption allegations.

In June 2006, Mashatile, then as provincial finance chief sparked a minor scandal when he spent 96,000 rand (around $13,000 at the time) on his government credit card, on a dinner for government workers at an upmarket French restaurant in Johannesburg.

Undeterred, he went on to occupy the province’s top job as premier from 2008.

Few details are known about Mashatile’s personal life. He has two children with his wife, Ellen, who died in 2020 after a long illness.