Electron Native

Morocco’s Royal Air Maroc or RAM is seeking a state loan guarantee to pay for June expenses as it struggles with $5 million in daily losses caused by the coronavirus pandemic, according to its chief executive officer, Abdelhamid Addou. Royal Air Maroc Source : Morocco World News The loan will help state-owned airline maintain its cashflow to meet financial commitments, Addou explains in a letter to RAM staff. The lockdown imposed by Morocco having closed down all flights and imposed a lockdown to help slow the spread of the coronavirus. Addou adds that RAM staff should brace for further austerity measures after salary and spending cuts that helped it uphold its financial commitments in March, April and May. “This is the worst crisis in our history,” he said after RAM’s traffic plunged by 60% in March and 100% in April. The company must adapt to new travel requirements and regulations caused by the pandemic, he said, adding that it could take three years to return RAM’s ...

Facebook and a consortium of African and global telecom firms have agreed a deal to build one of the world’s largest underwater or subsea cable networks. This will boost Internet availability across three continents, it focus on Africa, Middle East and some parts of Europe they said in a joint statement on Thursday. 2Africa Source: Tech Africa The partners in this project are South Africa’s MTN GlobalConnect and Mauritius-based infrastructure provider WIOCC are partners in the project, along with China Mobile International, French telecoms major Orange SA, Saudi Arabia’s stc, Telecom Egypt, and Vodafone. The project, called 2Africa, aims to build 37,000 kilometres of subsea cable infrastructure which will directly connect countries around the African coast to Europe and the Middle East, according to its website. The network will have a design capacity of up to 150 terabytes per second (Tbps) on key parts of the system, according to the site . The 11 new cables rolled ...

Nigeria’s The Debt Management Office informed the investing public his on its website on Wednesday, adding that a total of N33bn was offered while it recorded a total subscription of N165.56bn. The treasury bills were auctioned across 91-day, 182-day and 364-day tenors.   Debt Management Office, Nigeria. Source : Tribune Online. A total of N4.38bn was offered on the 91-day; N12.92bn for the 182-day tenor, and N16.5bn was offered on the 364-day tenor. The 91-day and 182-day tenors got total subscriptions of N22.33bn and N41.19bn respectively, while the 364-day tenor received N102.03bn subscription. Total allotments of N19.78bn, N40.09bn and N82.88bn were made on the 91-day, 182-day and 384-day tenors respectively. The bid rates in percentage were 1.3900-6.6398, 1.9400-7.4800, and 2.8000-12.8000, while the stop rates in percentage were given as 2.5000, 2.8500 and 3.8400 for the 91-day, 182-day and 364-day tenors respectively. According to the DMO, all...

South Africa’s National Treasury says it will table a new budget on June 24 to ratify plans for a 500 billion rand ($27 billion) stimulus package aimed at easing the economic impact of the coronavirus outbreak. National Treasury, Republic of South Africa. Source : CNBC. The statements explain that,“A revised fiscal framework will also be presented, to account for substantial revenue losses emanating from the economic shock of the pandemic and subsequent lockdown.” President Cyril Ramaphosa mentioned the rescue package in late April. It equates to 10% of GDP and includes higher welfare and unemployment grants as well as support for businesses.

Foreign investors in Nigeria have being assured that their investments are safe. The Governor gave this assurance, Central Bank of Nigeria, Godwin Emefiele. Central Bank of Nigeria Source : Wikipedia According to the punch The assurance is part of a statement from the CBN on Sunday. Emefiele assured investors interested in repatriating their funds from the country of the safety of their money, despite the drop in the revenue from crude oil. He noted that the CBN had put in place measures to ensure an orderly transfer of funds for those that might be interested in doing so. He said, “The foreign exchange available would be devoted to strategic importation or service obligations that are the priority. “The CBN, in collaboration with the Federal Ministry of Industry, Trade and Investment, is committed to galvanising the manufacturing sector in a bid to reset the economy.” Recalling a similar situation that occurred in 2015 over declining revenue, Emefiele said that the...

The South African grid is about to get a major boost. South Africa is developing a plan for a new 2,500 megawatt (MW) nuclear power plant, the energy ministry told lawmakers on Thursday. Nuclear Power Plant Source : Forbes Reuters News Agency reports that Africa’s most industrialised economy, which operates the continent’s only nuclear power plant near Cape Town, said last year that it was considering adding more nuclear capacity in the long term, after abandoning in 2018 a massive nuclear expansion championed by former president Jacob Zuma. Analysts had expressed serious concern about Zuma’s project for a fleet of nuclear plants totalling 9,600 MW because it would have put massive additional strain on public finances at a time of credit rating downgrades. Its current nuclear plant, Koeberg, has a capacity of around 1,900 MW and was synchronised to the grid in the 1980s. “The development of the roadmap for the 2,500 MW Nuclear New Build Programme will be comme...

Nigerians will be buying fuel at cheaper rates, again. The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation or NNPC has announced a 17.94 per cent reduction in the ‘ex-depot’ price of petrol. Petrol Pump Nozzle Source : Punch Newspapers Nigeria The price was reduced from N113.28k per litre petrol was sold to marketers in the previous month to about N108.00K per litre. The new ex-depot price is coming almost a week into the new month, following the promise last month by the Group Managing Director of the NNPC, Mele Kyari, that a new pricing template for petroleum products would be released every first of a new month. Ex-depot price is the ceiling price at which petroleum products depot owners or terminal operators are expected to sell to marketers. The marketers, through their various filling stations, then sell to the end users. With the reduction of the ex-depot price, a new retail price of petrol is expected to be announced by the appropriate agency, PPPRA. The Petroleum Prod...