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Rwanda, South Africa sign mega dollar deals with China

China will invest $14.7 billion in South Africa, President Cyril Ramaphosa said on Tuesday after talks between the two countries

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China will invest $14.7 billion in South Africa, President Cyril Ramaphosa said on Tuesday after talks between the two countries.

The news sent the rand one percent firmer.

Speaking at the same event, Chinese President Xi Jinping said the world’s second-biggest economy would take active measures to expand imports from South Africa to support development in Africa’s most industrialised economy.

Ramaphosa, who has promised to revive the economy since becoming president in February and after winning the leadership of the ruling African National Congress last year, said “Xi has indicated that China is ready to invest and work with South Africa in various sectors.”

The rand firmed after Ramaphosa’s announcement, spurred by offshore demand for the currency, traders said.

South Africa’s struggling state-run power firm Eskom, which swung to a full year loss on Monday, received a $2.5 billion loan from the China Development Bank.

Ramaphosa has focused on revitalising Eskom, Africa’s largest public utility, which was embroiled in corruption scandals under former president Jacob Zuma and narrowly avoided a liquidity crunch early this year after banks halted lending. Zuma has denied wrongdoing.

South Africa’s logistics utility Transnet also received a cash injection, as well as other sectors of the economy, officials said.

Xi said China and South Africa were important emerging economies with similar perspectives on many global issues.

“Hence the need to strengthen cooperation,” Xi said.

Read Also: World’s largest refinery to cost $10bn; Dangote secures $650m loan

Meanwhile, Rwanda has signed loan agreements worth more than $300 million with China and India to fund roads and irrigation, officials said, as leaders from the two Asian powers made their first visits to the East African nation.
Jinping visited Rwanda from Sunday to Monday and granted a loan to build two roads while India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi arrived on Monday.
Modi, who was on the way to a summit in South Africa, agreed $200 million in loans.

“With India we signed a loan of $100 million for irrigation in three separate areas in the country and $100 million for developing special economic zones,” Rwanda’s minister of finance Uzziel Ndagijimana told Reuters.

“With China we signed a loan agreement of $76 million for the road from Huye to Kibeho and for the new Bugesera airport access road it is $50 million,” Ndagijimana said.

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Binance vs Nigeria: Court adjourns hearing on right abuses 

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The office of Nigeria’s National Security Adviser and an anti-graft agency— the Economic and Financial Crime Commission (EFCC)— have been sued by two executives of Binance, the biggest cryptocurrency exchange in the world, for allegedly violating their fundamental rights following their recent arrest.

Following Nigeria’s decision to outlaw several cryptocurrency trading websites, United States citizen Tigran Gambaryan, who oversees financial crime compliance for Binance, and British-Kenyan Nadeem Anjarwalla, regional manager for Binance in Africa, took a plane to Nigeria on February 26 and were arrested upon arrival.

Anjarwalla may now be subject to an international arrest warrant after reportedly escaping Nigerian custody last week.

Last month, Nigeria’s central bank governor revealed that Binance is under investigation in Nigeria due to “suspicious flows” of cash through Binance Nigeria in 2023. Government organizations such as the Securities and Trade Commission of the nation are already wary of the cryptocurrency trade.

In a court appearance on Thursday, Gambaryan asked Judge Iyang Ekwo of the Federal High Court in the country’s capital, Abuja to rule that the National Security Adviser and the Economic and EFCC detention and seizure of his passport “amounts to a violation of his fundamental right to personal liberty” as stipulated by the Nigerian constitution.

The Binance chiefs also demanded a public apology, a restraining order to prevent them from being detained any longer, and an order to be released and return their passports. They said they had not been told of any offences.

Due to the absence of attorneys from the EFCC and the Office of the National Security Adviser (ONSA), the judge adjourned the hearing till April 8 without rendering a decision. Nigeria is currently struggling with ongoing dollar shortages, a situation that has made several cryptocurrency websites become the go-to venues for trading Nigerian currency.

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Kenya, Uganda settle oil import dispute

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In an effort to patch things up between the two neighbours, Kenya will permit Uganda’s landlocked state oil company to import petroleum products through its port of Mombasa, the country’s energy ministry said on Thursday.

After decades of receiving their cargo through affiliated firms in Kenya, Uganda has been looking for alternative ways to import petroleum products, including through a port in Tanzania. According to Solomon Muyita, a spokesman for Uganda’s ministry of minerals and energy, the first shipment under the new arrangement is scheduled for May.

“Kenya has agreed to give us a licence, UNOC (Uganda National Oil Company) is now free to import through Mombasa,” he said.

According to reports, UNOC would use the Kenya Pipeline Company to transport the goods, so Kenya would still profit from the agreement, according to Kenyan Energy Minister Davis Chirchir.

In 2022, Uganda imported petroleum products valued at $1.6 billion, the majority of which came from the Gulf. Kenya serves as the import gateway for about 90% of the goods.

It declared in November that it would transfer all exclusive petroleum product supply rights to a division of the international energy trader Vitol, which would subsequently supply UNOC.

According to what the government said at the time, using Kenyan companies to import oil had “exposed Uganda to occasional supply vulnerabilities” whereby Ugandan retail companies were viewed as secondary whenever there were supply disruptions changing retail prices.

The two African nations that make up the Great Lakes are partners in a variety of fields, including trade, infrastructure, energy, education, agriculture, and military security.

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