ITALIAN food and beverage group Cirio said this week it was making a firm cash offer to buy shares in South African food company Del Monte and to dismantle the complex Del Monte pyramid holding structure. The dismantling of the pyramid structure of Del Monte Royal Holdings (Delhold), Del Monte Royal Corp (Delcorp) and Del […]

GRIFFIN SHEA and OWN CORRESPONDENT, Harare | Friday ZIMBABWE President Robert Mugabe has blamed his nation’s unprecedented economic crisis on an international white conspiracy, as he defended his controversial land reform programme at the opening of his Zanu-PF party’s congress. He attacked the IMF, the West, and globalisation, saying reforms to liberalise Zimbabwe’s economy had […]

NIGERIA, Africa’s largest oil producer, will in February launch the bidding for licences to develop a slate of ”marginal” oil fields, a senior official said this week. Development of some 116 fields with reserves of around 1.3bn barrels would boost oil production and help the economy. The full bidding process will last approximately 12 months. […]

UGANDA’S economy is unlikely to meet its growth target of seven percent in 2000/01 in the wake of a depreciating shilling and persistent drought, the head of Uganda Manufacturers’ Association (UMA) said this week. By October the shilling had depreciated 21.1% against the dollar compared with a year ago, to a monthly average of 1,826 […]

SWAZILAND veterinary authorities have destroyed and buried over 100 cattle infected with the highly contagious foot and mouth disease (FMD) as part of a national strategy to contain a possible FMD outbreak. The animals were part of a shipment of live cattle from Kanhym Estate in Mpumalanga, and were meant to be slaughtered for local […]

JUSTIN ARENSTEIN, Nelspruit | Thursday MPUMALANGA’S cash-strapped provincial administration has grounded all government vehicles, except emergency or other essential services, until March 2001 as part of a package of extraordinary cost curtailment measures. Provincial government official spokeswoman Joy Letlonkane also confirmed that government landline and cellular telephone expenses would be cut dramatically and the use […]

HUNGRY firemen and emergency officers in Swaziland are threatening to go on strike to force the government to feed them at work. A representative said that since September 30 emergency personnel were expected to cook their own food after the caterers were dismissed. Emergency officers had already agreed not to respond to emergencies while they […]

SIZWE SAMAYENDE and JUSTIN ARENSTEIN, Middelburg | Thursday AFRICAN National Congress (ANC) councillors in Middelburg, Mpumalanga, have ousted the city’s proposed executive mayor in a clear show of defiance against the party’s national leadership. The revolt is the most extreme protest yet by disgruntled provincial ANC members who are campaigning against the party’s national executive […]

BRIAN LIGOMEKA, Grahamstown | Wednesday AFRICA’S growing debt burden is largely due to poor or corrupt political leadership and reckless economic management, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) said this week. IMF programme co-ordinator for southern Africa, El Tigani Ibrahim, said increasing numbers of African countries were struggling to service debt repayments because their political leaders […]