Africa Business Radio

Vice President Yemi Osinbajo says that the public sector is critical for national development, very vital for governance, and quality public service delivery. Prof. Osinbajo noted at the secretariat that the commissioning was historic because the seat of the civil service of any arm of government anywhere in the world is usually one of the major monuments enshrining not just the power, but also the splendour of the authority of government. He says the imposing complex clearly meets this requirement and in due course, such buildings become historical monuments.

Britain’s government defended the pace and scale of its response to the new Omicron strain of Covid-19 against criticism that it is again falling behind the curve. Health Secretary Sajid Javid says mandatory mask-wearing would return to shops and public transport in England on Tuesday, but told families to plan for Christmas as normal, despite new rules to combat the Omicron variant. The government’s website is instructing all passengers entering the UK to take a PCR test for Covid-19 two days after their arrival, and to self-isolate, until they receive a negative result. Travel from 10 countries in southern Africa is now banned because of Omicron, but Javid conceded that hundreds of passengers had arrived on flights from South Africa on Friday without being tested.

The United Kingdom’s government has announced plans for its own talks on the Channel crisis with European ministers this week as it was frozen out of a crisis meeting in France. Government ministers from Belgium, France, Germany, and the Netherlands will meet in Calais on Sunday with officials from the European Union and EU border agency Frontex and police agency Europol following the drownings of 27 people in the Channel last Wednesday. UK Home Secretary Priti Patel was barred from the meeting after Prime Minister Boris Johnson published the text of a letter he sent to French President Emmanuel Macron setting out London’s demands for concerted action on refugees.

Israel says it will ban the entry of all foreigners into the country, making it the first nation to shut its borders completely in response to a new and potentially more contagious coronavirus variant. Prime Minister Naftali Bennett says the ban, pending government approval, would last 14 days. Interior Minister Ayelet Shaked says working hypotheses are that the variant is already in nearly every country. Dr Ran Balicer, head of the government’s advisory panel on COVID-19, told Israel’s Kan public radio the new measures were necessary for the fog of war surrounding the new variant, saying it was better to act early and strictly to prevent its spread.

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa called on countries to immediately and urgently reverse scientifically unjustified travel bans linked to the discovery of the new coronavirus variant Omicron. Dozens of nations have blacklisted South Africa and its neighbours since South African scientists flagged Omicron on November 25. The World Health Organization has labelled Omicron a variant of concern, while scientists are still assessing its virulence. Ramaphosa says the prohibition of travel is not informed by science and accused Western countries of Afrophobia for shutting their borders.

Sudan’s reinstated Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok has replaced the country’s police chiefs, in a move that came after more than 40 people were killed in a crackdown on pro-democracy protests following a military coup last month. Hamdok says he had sacked the director-general of the police, Khaled Mahdi Ibrahim al-Emam, and his deputy, Ali Ibrahim. He appointed Anan Hamed Mohamed Omar with Abdelrahman Nasreddine Abdallah as his deputy. Doctors have accused security forces of targeting protesters in the head, neck and torso with live ammunition, as well as with rubber-coated bullets and tear gas canisters. The police have denied reports they opened fire using live bullets.

Ethiopia’s state-run broadcaster says government forces were in control of the town of Chifra in the Afar region, their first major seizure since Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed said earlier this week he would head to the front lines to lead federal troops against fighters from the northern Tigray region. The Tigrayan forces captured Chifra, on the border between the northern Afar and Amhara regions, after fighting intensified last month. Ethiopian Broadcasting Corporation says Ethiopian Defense Forces and Afar Special Forces have controlled Chifra without providing further details

The government in Rwanda has announced new measures that include the suspension of flights to and from southern African countries. All arriving passengers must have a negative test and do a repeat test on arrival and seven days after arriving in the country. A seven-day quarantine has also been reintroduced for travellers coming from countries recently affected by the new waves. The national carrier Rwandair has halted services to South Africa, Zimbabwe and Zambia

The US-based pro-government ESAT TV reported that the Ethiopian army chief has denied accusations that Ethiopian forces killed Sudanese soldiers at the border between the two countries. Gen Birhanu Jula says there was no reason to attack Sudan and that the country was not in a position to carry out such attacks as it was fighting the rebels in the north. The army chief hopes the issues could be resolved peacefully through dialogue. Sudanese media had claimed that Ethiopian forces killed dozens of Sudanese soldiers in a disputed border area.

The Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority said that it had established a new Domestic Base Price framework and applicable gas wholesale price for the sector. Chief Executive Officer of the organisation, Mr Farouk Ahmed stated that the new framework was in fulfilment of the relevant sections of the new Petroleum Industry Act (PIA) 2021. Ahmed indicated that the applicable wholesale gas price for the power sector shall be the established domestic gas price. He hinted that the base price would be determined annually based on the criteria set in the third schedule of the Act, which are to reference base prices in Nigeria to prices of gas in countries with significant reserves and production of natural gas.

The Nigeria Deposit Insurance Corporation says it was reviewing its approach for determining the premium by banks to its Deposit Insurance Fund with a view to adopting a risk-based approach. Managing Director of NDIC, Mr Bello Hassan explained NDIC had commenced the review of its approach to the determination of premium/contribution by banks to our DIF to a more risk-based approach to ensure that, the probability of the risk crystallising becomes a major factor in the pricing methodology of our premium going forward.” The NDIC, in calculating premiums from deposit money banks, usually chose between adopting a flat-rate premium or a system that sought to differentiate premiums on the basis of individual-bank risk profiles.

The Minister of State for Labour and Employment, Festus Keyamo, says that the social media platform, Twitter, has agreed to all the conditions laid out by the Federal Government regarding its operations in Nigeria. Keyamo says the committee set up to review the operations of the platform since its ban in the country has made significant progress so far. He says Twitter reached out to the Federal Government to know what and what they can do to straighten up the relationship with the Federal Government.

The Nigeria Centre for Disease Control says it was monitoring emerging evidence on the new COVID-19 variant, Omicron, which was first recently identified in Southern Africa. The NCDC in a statement signed by its Director-General, Dr Ifedayo Adetifa, said the fears about its ability to evade protective immune responses and/or its being vaccine-resistant are only theoretical so far. The NCDC urged Nigerians to take necessary precautions while noting that the WHO and researchers across the world are working at speed to gain an understanding of the likely impact of this variant on the severity of COVID-19 and on the potency of existing vaccines and therapeutics.

India parliament in an announcement says the country’s government will introduce a bill to ban private cryptocurrencies and create a framework for a central bank-backed digital money, The Lok Sabha says the proposed bill seeks to prohibit all private cryptocurrencies in India after Prime Minister Narendra Modi warned that Bitcoin presents a risk to younger generations and could spoil the youth if it ends up in the wrong hands. Kashif Raza, founder of crypto-education platform Bitinning says the wording has created a panic adding that the industry expected the government to take a more favourable view after recent consultations with the industry. He added that obviously there will be a shutter-down on the industry adding that the industry will die in its natural way. Intellectual capital will move away, investors will face losses.

Europe reached the grim milestone of 1.5 million coronavirus deaths as nations scramble to tackle a worsening crisis with winter approaching. France accelerated its Covid booster rollout and Germany, with fatalities and infections surging, weighed new measures. Paris’s Health Minister Olivier Veran said Covid-19 booster shots, until now only available to people over 65 or with health problems, would be accessible to all adults starting this weekend. The minister said the stringent measure could see France through the fifth wave without recourse to another lockdown, which the government is desperately trying to avoid. The EU Commission recommended that the bloc’s vaccination certificate should become invalid once the holder’s latest dose is more than nine months old.

The European Union’s drug regulator approved the use of Pfizer-BioNTech’s COVID-19 vaccine for children between the ages of five and 11 paving the way for them to be given the first shot as Europe struggles to contain a surge in infections. The European Medicines Agency recommended that Pfizer-BioNTech’s vaccine, approved for EU use in teenagers between 12 and 17 years old be given as an injection in the upper arm in two 10 microgram doses, three weeks apart. The approval comes as Europe is again the epicentre of the pandemic, accounting for about half of cases and deaths.

Lebanon’s central bank says that it would fulfil all data requests from the consultancy Alvarez & Marsal for a forensic audit of its accounts amid reports that the firm was set to pull out due to a lack of cooperation. The audit is seen as a key condition for an International Monetary fund support programme and other foreign aid to stem Lebanon’s deepest economic crisis since its 1975-1990 civil war. Little progress has been made to address the crisis since the pound began to decouple from its 23-year-old peg to the US dollar in 2019.

Zimbabwe’s Finance Minister Mthuli Ncube has announced that the country’s economy is expected to rebound from the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic and grow by over 7% next year. The minister says the growth will be spurred by a strong agricultural season and higher global commodity prices while presenting the annual budget. Mr Ncube described the budget as a people’s budget, one that lowers taxes and increases spending on social services. Spending on health services will take up 14% of government expenditure including a pledge to revamp dilapidated public hospitals.

Britain is halting all flights from South Africa and five other countries in the region in response to the discovery of a highly transmissible new coronavirus variant. Direct flights from South Africa, Namibia, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Lesotho and Eswatini will be suspended until further notice. The British health secretary, Sajid Javid, says it was possible that current vaccines might be less effective against the heavily mutated variant. South African experts say it had spread rapidly among students in Pretoria. It's not clear whether the variant is more deadly than previous mutations.

Scientists in South Africa say they had detected a new Covid-19 variant with a large number of mutations, blaming it for a surge in infection numbers. The number of daily infections in Africa’s hardest-hit country has increased tenfold since the start of the month. Virologist Tulio de Oliveira says the variant, which goes by the scientific lineage number B.1.1.529, has a very high number of mutations while expressing hope that the World Health Organization will give it a Greek name on Friday. He added that the variant has also been detected in Botswana and Hong Kong among travellers from South Africa. The WHO says it is closely monitoring the reported variant and is expected to convene a technical meeting on Friday to determine if it should be designated a variant of interest or of concern.