With its publication of the “Luanda Leaks,” the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) effectively dispelled decades’ worth of myth-building surrounding Isabel dos Santos, daughter of Angola’s longtime president José Eduardo dos Santos. The investigative series explains how the younger Dos Santos – the former head of Angola’s state oil…
Sub-Saharan Africa again was the world’s lowest-ranking region in the 2019 Corruption Perceptions Index, released Wednesday by the Transparency International (TI) organization based in Berlin, Germany. The report painted “a bleak picture of inaction against corruption,” the NGO said, with some countries – Liberia, Madagascar and Malawi among them –…
The president of Equatorial Guinea will need to declare his assets in keeping with requirements set by the International Monetary Fund, in order for the West African nation to receive a US$283 million bailout agreed to earlier this month. That’s according to a Bloomberg interview with Lisandro Abrego, the IMF’s…
Participants in the three-day African Oil & Power conference, which runs through Friday in Cape Town, are showcasing African industry’s efforts to align with this year’s theme of “Make Energy Work.” Gwede Mantashe, the Minister of Mineral Resources and Energy in South Africa, served as keynote speaker on Thursday with…
Egyptians were experiencing some Internet disruptions on Sunday as protests against President Abdul Fattah al-Sisi continued into the weekend, with service interruptions that appeared to target news sites and social media messaging. NetBlocks.org, an organization that tracks shutdowns and disruptions across the globe, reported that BBC News and other news…
In Zimbabwe, crisis is in the air again. Two years after the country’s long-time ruler Robert Mugabe was ousted in a military coup, a crippling energy crisis forces people to live by candlelight as the economy is lurching back towards hyper-inflationary territory. After years of turmoil under Robert Mugabe, the…
Arnaud is a French freelance writer with an African heart who has lived in 10 different Sub-Saharan countries in the past decade. He is currently based in Paris.
The African National Congress (ANC) was pulling in 57.7 percent of the support in South Africa’s legislative election, as the country’s electoral commission neared the end of vote-counting on Friday night. The ANC’s lead comes with 96 percent of the vote counted by 8 p.m., as the commission wraps up…
With just five days to go before South Africa’s legislative elections, the main opposition party Democratic Alliance (DA) made the rounds in Johannesburg with a novel way to send its message ahead of a final campaign rally on Saturday. The DA paid for a digital billboard and beamed its campaign…
A four-year investigation by the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) advocacy group traced illegally sourced timber from the forests of Congo Brazzaville and Gabon, to discover what it says are extensive holdings by a Chinese firm linked to bribery, corruption, tax evasion and ecosystem destruction. “According to evidence collected by EIA,…
Ten human rights and anti-corruption organizations said Friday that they are aligned in their opposition to Equatorial Guinea, and a decision they say retaliates against the French lawyer who pressed a successful money laundering case against Teodorin Nguema Obiang. The arrest warrant issued by Equatorial Guinea turned the tables, listing…
Sierra Leone has begun a long-awaited inquiry to determine what happened to millions in funding during the nation’s devastating Ebola crisis – money that government officials and outbreak survivors say never reached Ebola patients and their communities. The funds went missing as more than 14,000 people in Sierra Leone contracted…
By Miguel Sanz João Lourenço has been president of Angola since September 2017. About one year later, he cemented his hold on power by taking over the chairmanship of the ruling Movimento Popular de Libertação de Angola (MPLA). Although he reshuffled the government, for instance by replacing the transport minister, and the…
Former South African president Jacob Zuma joined his successor, President Cyril Ramaphosa, in a show of African National Congress unity on Tuesday as the ANC celebrated its anniversary in the KwaZulu-Natal province. The celebration at the Ohlange Institute – a site founded by the first ANC president in 1912 –…
The Congolese mining entity Gécamines issued a scathing rebuke to international NGOs on Wednesday, with a report that seeks to debunk the years of allegations about corruption and missing millions. The 60-page report begins with an introduction from Albert Yuma-Mulimbi, a close ally of outgoing President Joseph Kabila and the…
Former Brazilian president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, imprisoned earlier this year after a corruption scandal, now faces new charges that allegedly involved benefits for President Teodoro Obiang Nguema of Equatorial Guinea. Federal prosecutors charged Lula with money laundering after he accepted USD$260,000 as a donation to his Lula Foundation…