Algeria plans interest-free local bond to offset dive in energy income

Algeria plans to raise money from an interest-free local bond, using a model the government hopes will draw more participation from the public and help it offset a huge fall in its energy earnings.
The North African OPEC member has already cut public spending, introduced new taxes and reduced government subsidies on fuel to help it cope with the halving of its income from oil and gas due to a long slide in international energy prices.

Finance Minister Hadji Baba Ammi told state news agency APS on Monday the new bond would not bear interest, which may help attract a greater number of Algerian buyers after a previous interest-bearing bond issue drew fire from religious conservatives.
Islam bans the use of interest, and many countries are opening up to Islamic finance, based on religious principles such as prohibiting interest on credit and creating sharia-compliant banking.
"We are about to launch a bond sale, but free of interest this time, if the government allows this approach," Algeria's finance minister has been quoted as saying to official APS.
"I would not use the word 'Islamic' but rather more 'participative'", he said when asked about the type of operations that would conform with sharia law.
The minister said bondholders would receive a share in projects that the issue would finance as an incentive. But he did not give further details about the structure of the bond or how it would differ from sukuk or Islamic, interest-free bonds.
The government launched its first local bond last April, but it was harshly criticised by the religious community made up of imams, academics and even the religious affairs minister, who said he had not been consulted over the bond issue.
While many Algerians are religiously conservative, the country is emerging from a 1990s decade-long war with armed Islamists that left 200,000 dead, and issues involving conservatism and political Islam are sensitive.
When the first local debt operation was announced, Sheikh Chemssedine Bouroubi, a well-known imam who preaches daily on local TV, openly attacked the finance minister.
"You don't have the right to transform an illicit action into a licit one.... You will suffer inside your tomb," he said.
While neighbours Morocco and Tunisia are developing laws for Islamic finance, Islamic banks and sukuk bonds, Algeria still has no legal framework for such operations.
"You have to be very cautious when it comes to handling religious issues," Islam analyst and editor of religious books Mohamed Mouloudi told Reuters.
The new bond will be launched by the end of April, APS said, quoting the finance minister. The government must first approve the bond issue.
Algeria raised $5.86 billion from its bond sale last year.
Long reliant on its oil and gas revenues, the economy is still emerging from a centralised model following its independence from France, and the state controls most strategic sectors.
Heavy bureaucracy and regulation requiring that Algerians own 51 percent of companies in the country has made investors wary of putting money into Algeria. Government attempts to open up the non-oil economy in sectors such as health, agriculture and industry are moving slowly.
Still, the dramatic fall in oil prices has hit Algeria hard, prompting the government to look at more flexible ways to improve revenues. Algeria's energy revenues were at $27.5 billion in 2016, less than half the $60 billion it earned in 2014.
© Reuters News

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Nigeria's dollar reserves rise to more than 19-month high - cenbank

Nigeria's foreign exchange reserves rose to a more than 19-month high of $29.45 billion as of Feb. 24, central bank data showed on Tuesday, as Africa's biggest economy tries to rebuild its dollar buffers hammered by low oil prices.
Nigeria's dollar reserves have been rising steadily since October 19, when they stood at $23.89 billion. The central bank did not provide any reason for the rise in its reserves, which coincides with a recent rise in crude prices.
Nigeria's foreign exchange reserves have increased by 12.9 percent since the start of the year but are still far off their peak of $64 billion hit in August 2008.
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Nigeria's NNPC says oil output up to 2.1 mln bpd

Nigeria's oil production has risen to 2.1 million barrels a day, the managing director of state oil firm NNPC said on Tuesday, without giving an explanation for the increase.
"We are hoping that by the end of 2017 we should ramp up production to above 2.2 million barrels (per day)," Maikanti Baru told an oil conference in Abuja.

OPEC member Nigeria has given differing figures for its oil output in recent weeks.
Finance Minister Kemi Adeosun said on Thursday production was 2.2 million bpd, without giving an explanation. Vice President Yemi Osinbajo had put output at between 1.7 million bpd and 1.8 million bpd last month.
Markets have been surprised by the reported rise because a major export pipeline carrying nearly 250,000 bpd, Forcados in the restive Niger Delta, has only been open for three weeks of the past year due to militant attacks.
There has been no sign of the pipeline resuming operation.
According to a Reuters survey Nigeria's output was around 1.57 million bpd in January.
There have been no recent militant attacks on pipelines in the Delta since Osinbajo has visited the southern region to calm tensions and broker a peace agreement.
The government has been holding talks with militants to end attacks on crude pipelines, which reduced Nigeria's output by 700,000 barrels a day for several months last year.
President Muhammadu Buhari met Niger Delta leaders and representatives for the militants in November to discuss their demands. They say they want a greater share of Nigeria's oil wealth to go to the impoverished region.
Baru also said Nigeria wanted to boost oil output by 2020 to 3 million bpd and crude reserves to 40 million barrels in the same time frame, up from 37 million barrels.
© Reuters News

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African leadership prize fails to find a winner - again

Sudanese telecoms magnate Mo Ibrahim failed to award a $5 million African political leadership prize on Tuesday, the second year running the gong designed to foster regional democracy has gone begging due to a lack of suitable candidates.
Since its launch in 2006, the Ibrahim Prize has only been awarded four times - to Mozambique's Joaquim Chissano, Botswana's Festus Mogae, Cape Verde's Pedro De Verona Rodrigues Pires and Namibia's Hifikepunye Pohamba in 2014.
Candidates have to be democratically elected African heads of state or government who have left office in the previous three years at the end of their constitutional terms.
Although such figures are becoming less rare on a continent infamous for its coups and gerontocrats, a peaceful departure after years of plunder does not guarantee the prize as the hopeful's record while in office is also considered.
"The Prize is intended to highlight and celebrate truly exceptional leadership, which is uncommon by its very definition," prize committee chairman Salim Ahmed Salim said in a statement accompanying the 2016 non-award.
The prize is meant to set the winner up for life, with $5 million paid out over 10 years followed by a $200,000-a-year pension. However, it does not appear to be gaining much traction with Africa's ruling elite.
Congo Republic's Denis Sassou Nguesso and Rwanda's Paul Kagame have recently pushed through changes to their respective constitutions to extend their stays in power, while Democratic Republic of Congo's Joseph Kabila has gone nowhere since his mandate expired in December.
One surprise late entry could have been eccentric Gambian autocrat Yahyah Jammeh, who stunned his 1.8 million countrymen - and most of the rest of Africa - when he accepted defeat in a December election after 22 years in charge.
However, he then changed his mind and only left power a month later after an invasion by thousands of Senegalese, Ghanaian and Nigerian troops.
© Reuters News

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Nigeria's Zenith Bank to seek approval to raise 100 bln naira

Nigeria's Zenith Bank said on Tuesday it would seek shareholder approval next month to raise 100 billion naira ($318 million) via a combination of share or bond sale and global depository receipts.
The lender also said it would seek approval to increase its share capital to 40 billion naira from 20 billion naira at the shareholders' meeting on March 22.
Zenith Bank on Monday reported a 2016 pretax profit of 156.75 billion naira, up from 125.62 billion a year earlier.
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All participating countries committed to oil output deal, says OPEC Sec-Gen

 OPEC-led oil production cuts have been well supported by all participating countries despite some teething troubles for non-OPEC members, the cartel's secretary-general, Mohammed Barkindo, said on Monday.
Barkindo also said OPEC remained optimistic that the "worst was over" for the oil market, almost two months into the group's supply cut deal with Russia and other producers.
"For non-OPEC countries this is the first time so we can expect teething challenges," Barkindo told a conference in Abuja, Nigeria. "But the commitment from all ministers, all participating countries, is very strong."
"We remain optimistic that the worst is over for this cycle," he said, referring to market conditions. "Now the challenge is how to solidify the platform of 24 (countries)," he said, referring to 13 OPEC and 11 non-OPEC members.
"Signals are highly positive."
He also said the oil market needed every barrel which cut-exempted Iran, Libya and Nigeria could produce.
"These countries continue to be exempted for these six months and we continue to pray, hope they recover their production facilities and return to the market fully," he said.
Under the deal, the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries agreed to curb output by about 1.2 million barrels per day (bpd) from Jan. 1, the first cut in eight years. Russia and 10 other non-OPEC producers agreed to cut around half as much.
Barkindo said production data for January in OPEC's most recent monthly report showed conformity from participating OPEC nations with agreed output curbs of between 90 and 94 percent.
Russia and the other outside producers have so far delivered a smaller percentage.
"The non-OPEC group is lagging behind OPEC," he said.
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Uganda coffee exports up 21 pct in January on year ago

Uganda's coffee exports rose 21 percent in January to 404,673 60-kg bags compared with the same month in 2016, helped by new trees starting to fruit, the Uganda Coffee Development Authority (UCDA) said in a report on Tuesday.
Uganda is Africa's largest coffee exporter and the commodity is a major source of foreign exchange for the East African country which predominantly cultivates Robusta variety.
UCDA said the rise in bean shipments was on "account of earlier planted coffee which has started fruiting ... this led to increased production and hence procurement from Robusta growing regions."
Harvesting is underway in central and eastern Uganda, two of the country's biggest coffee growing areas.
February exports were estimated to total about 300,000 bags, up from the 271,941 bags shipped in the same month last year.
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Nigeria's economy contracted by 1.5 pct in 2016 on lower oil prices

Nigeria's gross domestic product fell by 1.5 percent in 2016 due to lower oil revenues, the National Bureau of Statistics said on Tuesday, for its first annual contraction in 25 years.
Africa's largest economy slid into recession in the second quarter of 2016 as a slump in crude prices hammered the OPEC member's public finances. Crude sales make up two-thirds of government revenue.
Fourth-quarter GDP shrank by 1.3 percent, the statistics office said. The oil sector declined by 12.38 percent year-on-year in the quarter.
"This contraction reflects a difficult year for Nigeria, which included weaker inflation-induced consumption demand, an increase in pipeline vandalism, significantly reduced foreign reserves and a concomitantly weaker currency," the office said in a report.
Oil production - Nigeria's economic mainstay - fell to 1.833 million barrels a day last year after 2.13 million bpd in 2015, it added, blaming militant attacks in the Niger Delta oil hub.
The non-oil sector fell only by 0.33 percent in the fourth quarter, the office said.
"The very shallow contraction in non-oil GDP growth in Q4 2016, raises hope of a more meaningful recovery in non-oil GDP in Q1 2017, buoyed both by improved budget spending and some improvement in FX availability," said Razia Khan, Chief Economist Africa at Standard Chartered Bank.
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South Africa's Nedbank slashes Ecobank value by $293 million

 South Africa's Nedbank booked a $293 million writedown on the value of its west African associate Ecobank on Tuesday, and reported its slowest growth in annual profit since 2009.

Ecobank's operations in central and west Africa have been exposed to economies pressured by the sharp slide in commodity prices and unfavourable currency swings. The writedown reduces Ecobank's carrying value to 4 billion rand ($308 million) from 7.8 billion rand, Nedbank said.
Nedbank, however, said Ecobank Transnational Inc (ETI) remained vital to its expansion elsewhere on the continent, as it operates in nearly 40 countries outside its home market.
"Conditions in the key markets in which ETI operates are currently expected to remain difficult in 2017, before improving in 2018 and beyond," Nedbank said.
Nedbank, a unit of Anglo-South African financial conglomerate Old Mutual, is South Africa's fourth-biggest lender and vies with Standard Bank, FirstRand Barclays Africa and Capitec. It owns about 20 percent of Ecobank.
Nedbank said its diluted headline earnings per share (EPS) totalled 2,350 cents in the year ended December 2016, versus 2,242 cents a year earlier.
Headline EPS is the main measure of profit in South Africa as it strips out certain one-off items.
Nedbank also said results were affected by slack demand for loans as slowing economic growth and higher interest rates hit consumption and investment spending.
Old Mutual is in the middle of a strategic overhaul that will include carving itself into four parts and cutting its 54 percent stake in Nedbank to a minority holding to slim down its complicated structure.
© Reuters News

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The word 'immigrant' is used to make people fear the unknown

Inua Ellams could be described as a poet, a performer, a graphic designer, a visual artist, even a walking-tour operator. But the role he's come all the way to Western Australia to play is much more topical.
"The show could have been called An Evening with a Terrible Basketball Player or An Evening with a Reluctant Vegetarian," he says of his one-man performance piece, An Evening with an Immigrant. "There's so many ways of looking at [my life]. This just happened to be how I saw it in 2015."
But, as the undercurrent of tensions around immigration in Europe "calcified and crystallised" around Brexit, Ellams suddenly found his show was extremely relevant – and in demand.
Related: Perth festival opens with an exquisite million-dollar spectacle –and an urgent warning
"The word 'migrant' or 'immigrant' has become dirtied and politicised and it's used to make people fear the unknown," he says. "It's used to make invisible monsters of people and those are the most difficult monsters to kill, because you don't see them; they just bump in the dark, they grow in the dark, they dominate the headlines but people are divorced from the actuality of the humans behind it."
Ellams, who now lives in London, was born in Nigeria to a Christian mother and a Muslim father, and moved to Ireland where he was the only black boy in his school in Dublin. He's currently at the Perth International Arts festival, performing, speaking on panels and taking workshops; when we meet he has just come off stage at the State Theatre Centre, where he was performing for school kids.
The show opens with Ellams in a traditional Nigerian costume, but he quickly removes it. "It's part of Nigerian heritage but I left when I was 12 and I don't want to feel like I'm performing my culture." He subsequently perches on stage with little more than a notebook and a suitcase, telling stories and reciting poetry based around his peripatetic autobiography.
"What I try to put on stage is just the common denominator," he says.
It's more than that, though: the show is funny, moving and occasionally a little terrifying. Through the warm anecdotes and stirring recitations is an illustration of the profound and devastating impact that a combination of administrative burdens and reactionary policies can have on people who cross borders – even on those who are educated, well-connected and able to fight for their case.
Ellams's family was beset by additional problems – their passports and birth certificates were ostensibly "lost" by Royal Mail so they had no formal identification. The legal firm representing them, they later learned, had been raided in connection with the black market in fake identities.
Poetry is the axis on which all of Ellams's work seems to turn. He threw himself into writing it while stuck in immigration limbo after moving back to London from Dublin: poetry was cheap to create and he was an adult in London with no money and no legal right to work. The success of his poetry led him to theatre and he produced his first play, The 14th Tale, with Fuel theatre company (who he says chose to support him regardless of his legal status) and which premiered at Edinburgh festival and eventually landed at the National Theatre.
In 2011, as a result of his success in the arts, Ellams was invited to Buckingham Palace to meet the Queen – even as the matter of his UK residency and his right to work was still in question, as it had been for well over a decade and all the way through the formative years of his life. Now 32, Ellams and his family only managed to secure long-term residency for themselves a few years ago. Despite living in both London and Dublin since he was 12, he says he still only has "discretionary leave to remain", which he must renew every two to three years.
One of Ellams' final gigs in Perth will be a Midnight Run, an extension of a project he developed with a friend in London, which involves gathering together a group of strangers – poets, artists, generally creative or curious folk – and exploring the city at night while running poetry, theatre and performance workshops.
Related: Worth the hype: The Encounter is more than just an aural masterpiece
Ellams argues that he has no specific political objective for these events but it's hard not to feel that there's a kind of resistance inherent in the Midnight Run, in its embrace of public space and uncommon hours, and in the creation of a structure through which strangers can come together to form an overnight creative community. He sees these "momentary communities" as "a safe space for people to come and be themselves, even if the selves they're being are fabricated just for that night".
Once describing the objective at the heart of his writing to be "the attempt to make things beautiful regardless of how ugly or difficult a topic is", Ellams agrees that the current volatile political moment makes it harder for artists to draw out the beauty in things. But when art is successful in that context, he believes that makes it all the more powerful.
"I think all of this happening will create for truer art and more steadfast and weathered art and, in that, more beautiful art," he says. "It reminds me of the quote from Tupac [Shakur] where he talks about the rose that grows from concrete and why it's better because it's survived, it's struggled. I think the art that comes from all this will be important and visceral, and last longer with more impact."• The Midnight Run with Inua Ellams will take place on Friday 3 March and Saturday 4 March in Perth
(c) theguardian.com

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Nigerian naira gains to 460 per dollar, highest in more than three months - traders

Nigerian naira rose on the black market to its highest in more than three months on Friday, after several interventions by the central bank on the official market, traders said.
The local currency was quoted at 460 to the dollar on the black market at 1327 GMT, compared with 495 the previous day. The naira had weakened to around 520 to the dollar on Monday, before the central bank effectively devalued it for retail customers, in an effort to end dollar shortages.

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David Oyelowo on his film career and political déjà vu

As David Oyelowo and I spoke by phone recently, a protest against Donald Trump's immigration ban was raging outside his New York hotel. It seemed fitting, because his new film, A United Kingdom , centres on a family who's kept apart by governmental prejudice.
It also seemed like déjà vu. Two years ago, when Oyelowo was in a similar New York hotel promoting Selma , about Martin Luther King Jr.'s battle for civil rights (he played King), a similar civil action was occurring under his window, to support Black Lives Matter.

"It's an extraordinary thing," Oyelowo says, in a British-accented voice as rich as butter on lobster. "My films are speaking to the exact situation that's happening on the street, even though Selma took place 50 years ago, and A United Kingdom 70 years ago. There is some evidence that society has moved forward. But when it comes to prejudice, it comes back around in different packaging. I don't know what it's going to take for us to move forward from that."
He does know how he wants to contribute: Born in Oxford, England, raised in Lagos, Nigeria, and then schooled back in England, Oyelowo is determined to make films "that speak to my experience," he says. "There are so many things that I know to be true, and I very rarely get to see in movies." So in 2010, when a producer friend gave him Susan Williams's book Colour Bar , he found himself pulled into producing as well as acting.
The book, and ultimately A United Kingdom , tells the true story of Seretse Khama (Oyelowo), a prince of Bechuanaland (now Botswana) who fell in love with a white office worker, Ruth Williams (Rosamund Pike), in 1948, while a student in England. Despite their families' objections, they married and moved to Africa. The British government, which gave financial aid to Bechuanaland, also opposed the marriage: Britain was in bed with South Africa, South Africa was instituting apartheid and the British didn't want an embarrassment just across the border. The Brits lured Khama to England to negotiate, then forbade him from returning. Ruth knew if she left, she also would never return. Director Amma Asante ( Belle ) focuses on the love story and lets history swirl around it.
Oyelowo – who happens to come from a royal family himself – was "desperate to see it made," he says, "because we almost never get to see a man like Seretse at the centre of his own narrative. A man who's madly in love. A leader who really cares about his people – as opposed to being corrupt – in a story that demonstrates the beauty of an African people, and their complexity."
Africa is rife with incredible stories, incredible people, Oyelowo continues, but too often in film, those stories are told from an outsider perspective, in terms of who directs it and who the protagonist is. "If you're only seeing African or black characters from an outsider perspective, then inevitably it's going to be a less dimensional representation of who we are than it otherwise should be," he says. "Even if it's a positive story, it diminishes the import of people within their own cultures and communities. If we only get one demographic's view on every situation, it's going to be a distorted representation of who we are in terms of humanity."
His becoming a producer was "born out of necessity." Despite his considerable elegance, evident talent and steadily rising star – from Britain's National Youth Theatre to a season with the Royal Shakespeare Company, from a starring role on the British series MI-5 to working with American directors Ava DuVernay and Lee Daniels – it took several years of "pummelling away" before he could get A United Kingdom financed. He vividly recalls meeting with a director who refused to make the film if Oyelowo was in it. "It would not be politic for me to mention who it is," Oyelowo says, smiling, "but it's a prominent person, who will read this article, and I hope be thoroughly ashamed."
Eventually, he prevailed and, in a fulfilling moment, found himself standing on a London street wearing 1940s clothes, surrounded by period automobiles. "Having grown up in the U.K., I love a period drama," he says. "Merchant Ivory films, Austin and Dickens movies. But I never got to see someone who looked like me in any of them, even though black people have very much been a part of British history, and not just recent history.
"So to be shooting those scenes in foggy Whitehall, with its beautiful buildings and our huge production values – all those things I'd grown up seeing in films that didn't have any black people in them – and to be the protagonist, there were several moments I felt the need to pinch myself. I was living out a dream I had harboured for a long time."
Oyelowo lives in California's San Fernando Valley with his wife, actress Jessica Oyelowo, their four children and three dogs. "It takes a lot to get me out of the house," he says. "I'm quite happy to stay home, spending time with my family, unplugging drains and picking up dog mess."
That sounds a tad disingenuous, considering his slate of upcoming projects, which includes Americanah , based on Chimamanda Adichie's novel about Nigerian immigrants in the United States, co-starring Lupita Nyong'o; American Express , an action film opposite Joel Edgerton and Charlize Theron; God Particle , the third instalment in the Cloverfield franchise, from producer J. J. Abrams; and several ideas in development with DuVernay and Oprah Winfrey. Oyelowo calls the latter two "some of the most amazing, informative relationships I've forged as an actor and as a human being."
He'll also be a presenter at Sunday's Academy Awards and has some thoughts about #OscarsSoWhite. "What we celebrate culturally matters – awards signal to the world what we deem to be of import," Oyelowo says. "The actors who get nominated and the nature of the characters they get to play are a demonstration of what we value as a society. So for me, it is important that the Oscars represent the society we actually live in. I remain very disturbed by the lack of women in the Hollywood industry, both in terms of awards, and more importantly, in the director's chair."
Those protests outside? Oyelowo's internalized them. Yet, as an avowed Christian, he believes right will prevail. "While we were making A United Kingdom , there's no way we could have predicted how relevant those scenes and images of a man being banned from returning to his country would be for an audience in 2017," he says. "But it shows us the power of love. Courageous love, sacrificial love. Regardless of whether the opposition is governmental, societal, political or familial, love can win."
(c) The Globe and Mail Inc

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Risk of Nigeria devaluing naira rising, but it won't float freely

Nigeria's authorities may soon devalue the naira but won't fully relinquish control over it, instead taking steps to narrow the gap between the official and black market rates to boost confidence in the economy, a Reuters poll showed on Friday.
A shortage of dollars in Nigeria - for big and small needs including capital imports to the manufacturing process, travel and school fees - has led the black market to charge a higher premium in compensation for that scarcity in the official market.

A Reuters survey of 18 analysts taken in the past two days showed they are sceptical of the extent officials can fully liberalise the naira after it made dollars available on Monday to a few private individuals.
The poll suggests there is a 45 percent chance that the central bank will devalue the naira in coming weeks amid speculation that the government is stepping closer to liberalising it.
The central bank this week effectively devalued the naira for private individuals by offering them dollars at a rate of 366 naira, instead of the official 305 rate which it has held since last summer at the behest of President Muhammadu Buhari.
Still, the survey further suggested that if the naira were to be devalued, any float would still be managed as the central bank intervenes to keep it within desired levels.
"We don't expect the authorities to ever fully relinquish control over the naira. A gap to the black market is a permanent feature," said Philip Walker of the Economist Intelligence Unit.
"However, the size of this gap will come down over time as the market realities force the hand of the authorities and the naira is repeatedly devalued over time," Walker added.
Nigeria's central bank auctioned $230 million in forward contracts on the official market on Thursday after selling $370 million earlier in the week to boost dollar liquidity and help narrow the gap between the official and black market rates.
The poll showed that the timing for how long it would take to narrow that gap is uncertain. Analysts say it depends on how far the central bank is willing to go, although a free float would take months instead of years to squeeze the spread between the two rates.
Devaluations are painful, mostly to the poor, as the cost of living increases. But analysts say they are necessary to fix the broader economy.
Egypt floated its currency in November, and it subsequently halved in value against the dollar. But it is now more than 20 percent above its low at 15.7 per greenback.
Financial Derivatives Company, a research think-tank in Nigeria, wrote that the only reasonable way to reduce the disparity between the interbank and black market is by restoring market confidence through the consistent implementation of transparent and market-driven policies.
"A float of the naira is not necessarily a magic wand which will resolve the current economic malaise. Instead, it will simply provide a premise for the introduction of policies, which will encourage inward investment and support economic growth."
© Reuters News

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South Africa's Liberty to buy 75 pct stake in Nigerian insurer

South Africa's Liberty Holdingswill acquire a 75 percent stake in a Nigerian long-term insurer for 160 million rand ($12 million), the company said on Friday, after reporting a 38 percent decline in earnings.
Liberty has been expanding beyond its home base to parts of Africa, where a growing middle class is driving demand.

Part of Liberty's strategy is to grow its presence in West Africa through the long-term insurance business and by entering the asset management business.
"We see Nigeria as a market of the future," Liberty Chief Executive Thabo Dloti told Reuters. He declined to give further details about the Nigerian insurer.
"It may be having difficulties now, but everything indicates to us that in the long term, Nigeria is going to be a big contributor of growth if you are doing business in Sub-Saharan Africa."
Further details of the deal were not disclosed.
Liberty, South Africa's fourth biggest insurance firm by market value, already has a presence in Nigeria through Total Health Trust, after buying the remaining shares it didn't already own for 142 million rand in August 2015.
In 2016 it concluded three short-term insurance acquisitions in Uganda, Malawi and Botswana and received its licence in Lesotho to operate a life and health business.
Liberty, majority owned by South African lender Standard Bank, reported a 38 percent fall to 904.5 cents in normalised headline earnings per share, for the year ended December 31 due to increased pressure on consumers and lower returns from investment markets.
Shares were down 1.80 percent to 111.46 rand at 0806 GMT.
Net customer cash inflow, or the difference between money received from customers and money given back, fell 49 percent to 7.7 billion rand.
Earnings in its Africa insurance business were 41 million rand, while earnings from the group's South African retail operations were down 40.1 percent, the firm said.
Liberty declared a gross final dividend of 415 cents per share.
"Operating conditions are expected to remain tough and the pressure on consumer disposable income is likely to continue in the short term," Liberty said in a statement.
© Reuters News

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Nigerian student protesters demand South Africans leave the country

Nigerian protesters on Thursday demanded that South African citizens and businesses leave the country and vandalised the head office of mobile phone giant MTN in Abuja in retaliation for anti-Nigerian violence in South Africa.
The National Association of Nigeria Students (NANS) said it had given South Africans 48 hours to get out otherwise the attacks would continue and the vandalisation of MTN's offices would be just the beginning.

Nigeria and South Africa, the continent's two largest economies and pre-eminent diplomatic and military powers, have a volatile relationship.
The students' threats follow the looting this week of at least 20 small businesses believed to belong to immigrants in South Africa's capital, Pretoria.
"We are not going to kill like them and that is why we have asked their citizens to leave, but we will sure destroy their businesses," NANS president Aruna Kadiri told Reuters.
Nobody was killed in the violence in Pretoria, according to South African police.
South African foreign ministry spokesman Clayson Monyela called for both sides to keep their cool.
"'An eye for an eye makes the world blind' .... 'Violence begets violence'. We are better than this. Africans are one people!" Monyela said on Twitter.
A spokesman for MTN, the biggest South African company active in Nigeria, said protesters stormed the regional head office, vandalising equipment, attacking customers and stealing some of their phones.
A Reuters reporter could see no obvious damage from the outside of the building which had been cordoned off.
"They forcefully entered the MTN office. Security men were around but unable to curtail the protesters, who forced the gates open and entered the office," said one witness, adding that students and petty criminals appeared to be among the mob.
The incident coincided with a visit by MTN chairman Phuthuma Nhleko to the Nigerian capital to see Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, who has been in charge for the last month with President Muhammadu Buhari absent on sick leave.
Earlier this week, Nigeria's foreign ministry said it would summon South Africa's envoy to raise its concerns over "xenophobic attacks" on Nigerians, other Africans and Pakistanis.
South African police have refused to say if the Pretoria attackers were specifically targeting foreigners. But South Africa's Home Affairs Minister Malusi Gigaba on Thursday acknowledged there had been renewed violence against foreigners this year.
"Unfortunately, xenophobic violence is not new in South Africa," Gigaba said.
The violence against immigrants has flared against a background of near-record unemployment, with foreigners being accused of taking jobs from locals and getting involved in crime.
The minister said some residents in Pretoria planned a march on Friday against immigrants.

(C) Reuters News

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Nigeria to tap private capital, boost spending on infrastructure

Nigeria aims to rise the proportion of government spending devoted to infrastructure to 30 percent from 10 percent and to mobilise private capital for additional funding, Finance Minister Kemi Adeosun said on Thursday.
The government has laid out plans to spend a record 7.29 trillion naira in 2017, up from 6.06 trillion naira budgeted for last year, but must also find funds to cover a big shortfall in the budget resulting from lower prices for oil, its main export.
Adeosun said she was committed to boosting capital spending across key areas such as power, transport and water, which would help underpin growth in agriculture, mining and manufacturing.
"We will now target 30 percent of government expenditure on infrastructure, up from 10 percent," she told an investor conference in the capital Abuja.
Adeosun said the government would tap private capital to complement its own expenditure, adding that fundraising was in progress for housing and road trust funds in partnership with the private sector.
She said Nigeria wanted to move towards longer term funding at lower cost. The government has said it plans to borrow up to $10 billion this financial year, with about half coming from foreign sources.
To help cover the deficit, the country sold $1 billion worth of 15-year Eurobonds this month that were almost eight times oversubscribed and the government is now seeking approval from parliament to issue an additional $500 million Eurobond.
Africa's biggest crude producer has seen revenues plunge along with the price of oil and is mired in its first recession for 25 years.
Nigeria's overall debt was 84 percent domestic and 16 percent foreign, but the government wants to move to 40 percent foreign debt by the end of 2019 to speed up infrastructure projects and cut borrowing costs.
On Thursday, the government said it will launch a 20 billion naira "green bond" in April to fund projects to reduce carbon emissions and develop renewable energy.
It also plans to raise a debut $300 million diaspora bond abroad and sell a maiden sovereign sukuk in the local market.

(C) Reuters News

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IMF urges Nigeria to implement 'coherent and credible' economic policies

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) on Thursday urged Nigeria to step up its economic reform efforts before the opportunity for reforms becomes more limited.
"Urgency is needed in implementing a coherent and credible package of monetary, fiscal and structural policies as the window for bold reforms is closing as the 2019 elections are approaching fast," IMF spokesman Gerry Rice said at a regular news briefing with reporters.
Rice also confirmed that the Nigerian authorities have not approached the global lender about a program but said the IMF "stands ready to help should the country make a request for financial assistance."

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Nigeria seeks new $500 mln Eurobond sale to fund budget deficit

Nigeria's acting president has written to parliament to seek approval for a new $500 million Eurobond sale, a statement said on Wednesday, to help make up for a shortfall in the government's budget.
Africa's biggest economy is experiencing its first recession in 25 years, and government revenue has plunged due to a slump in global oil prices and militant attacks in its crude-producing heartland, the Niger Delta.

The new issue would follow the government's sale of $1 billion worth of 15-year bonds earlier this month.
"Following the high over subscription of the recent $1 billion Eurobond issuance, we wish to take advantage of favourable market conditions to issue a Eurobond Debt Instrument of $500 million to fund the implementation of the 2016 budget," Acting President Yemi Osinbajo said in a letter to parliament, according to Wednesday's statement.
The government has laid out plans to spend a record 6.86 trillion naira ($22.5 billion) to boost the economy in a draft 2017 budget sent to parliament for approval. It planned to spend 6.06 trillion naira last year, but struggled to fund it.
Low oil prices have triggered chronic dollar shortages in the economy and battered the naira, which lost a third of its official value last year and trades at a discount of around 40 percent on the black market.
Vice president Osinbajo, who is acting president while President Muhammadu Buhari undergoes medical treatment in Britain, told parliament that external borrowings for the budget currently consist of $600 million from the African Development Bank and $1 billion from existing Eurobonds.
The country is seeking at least a $1 billion loan from the World Bank and a $1.3 billion loan from China to fund railway projects. Nigeria will also present a reform proposal to the African Development Bank to win the release of a second loan tranche worth $400 million, officials have said.
The government has been in talks with the World Bank for a year and wants to finalise this month a reform proposal necessary for a loan application, according to officials.

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Ghana producer inflation falls to 3.1 pct in January

Ghana's producer price inflation fell to 3.1 percent year-on-year in January from a revised 4.8 percent the month before as the impact of fuel prices rises a year ago was reduced, the statistics office said on Wednesday.

It is a far cry from the more than 48 percent seen less than three years ago, but the fall was mainly in manufacturing rather than mining, where gold is one of Ghana's top three foreign exchange earners.
Mining and quarrying inflation stood at 18.6 percent in January compared with 15.6 percent in December.
Manufacturing was 2.4 percent in January versus 5.4 a month before while utilities were 6.8 percent as against 7.0 percent in December.
Ghanaian President Nana Akufo-Addo said on Tuesday the economy was in poor shape and promised to press on with his agenda, which includes restoring fiscal stability, creating jobs, promoting business, cutting taxes and fighting corruption.
The government, which took power on Jan. 7, inherited a $918 million International Monetary Fund deal that aims to reduce public debt, the budget deficit and inflation.
Akufo-Addo said the three-year programme that began in April 2015 has failed to reach its objectives.
Inflation remained above target in 2016 and stood at 13.3 percent in January.
It is expected to fall quickly in the early months of this year as the effect of a reduction of fuel and utility subsidies, which raised prices roughly a year ago, passes through the system.
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Nigeria sovereign wealth fund assets almost doubled by end-Q3 2016

2017  Assets held by Nigeria's sovereign wealth fund almost doubled to 413.63 billion naira ($1.36 billion) by the end of the third quarter of 2016 from the beginning of the year, it said on Wednesday.
The Nigeria Sovereign Investment Authority's (NSIA's) assets rose 93.6 percent from 213.67 billion naira at the end of 2015, according to a presentation shown at a press briefing in Abuja.
The boost in a "fairly solid year" came after the NSIA deployed more capital, while "equity markets were very strong," said Managing Director Uche Orji.
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Nigeria wants to borrow $2.3 billion from World Bank and China-finance minister

Nigeria wants to borrow at least $1 billion from the World Bank and to sign within months for a $1.3 billion loan from China to fund railway projects, Finance Minister Kemi Adeosun said on Tuesday.
Africa's biggest economy needs to plug a gap in its record 7.3 trillion naira ($23.17 billion) 2017 budget, which boosts capital expenditures by a quarter to end its first recession in 25 years due to low oil prices.

The government has been in talks with the World Bank for a year and wants to finalise this month a reform proposal necessary for a loan application, according to officials.
"We expected to borrow at least $1 bln dollars," Adeosun told CNBC when asked about the talks with the Washington-based bank.
"There is also some possibility of doing sector specific intervention in the power sector, they are working very closely with us on power," she added, without being more specific.
Nigeria had initially promised to submit an economic plan to the World Bank by the end of December but did not do so, sources told Reuters last month.
Adeosun also said Nigeria had been offered by China's state Export-Import Bank (Exim) a $1.3 billion loan to fund railway projects.
Nigeria will also present a reform proposal to the African Development Bank to release a second loan tranche worth $400 million, officials have said.
The bank had paid out a first tranche of $600 million but has held back the rest pending reforms. Its president has criticized hard currency curbs hitting investment.
On Monday, the central bank made a step towards reforms by devaluing the naira for retail customers. President Muhammadu Buhari had objected a devaluation, but he is on sick leave in Britain.
Adeosun also said the government wanted to harmonise policies with the central bank and that non-oil revenues were improving, with giving details.
She also said there was no need for a loan from the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
"The IMF is really a lender of last resort when you have balance of payments problem. Nigeria doesn't have balance of payments problems per se, it has a fiscal problem."
Adeosun also said one or two banks have yet to remit state revenues via a Treasury Single Account (TSA) at the central bank created in 2015 to combat corruption.
"Interestingly our whistle-blowing programme (to track down graft) actually picks up tips that bankers were being instructed to rename accounts when they knew that the money belongs to the federal government." She did not name the banks.
© Reuters News

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