Search Results for: Botswana

The Financial Action Task Force (FATF) has unveiled plans to upgrade its recommendation 24 on transparency and beneficial ownership, stressing how the Pandora papers leaks confirmed the ML vulnerabilities posed by anonymous shell companies and other pro-secrecy arrangements.  In its proposals, FATF wants all countries to ban the issue of bearer shares and establish a beneficial ownership registry, “or use an alternative system that also enables efficient access to beneficial ownership information by competent authorities”.…

South Africa’s dairy sector has been dealing with a triple whammy of low economic growth, the Covid-19 pandemic, and a spate of unrest in July in parts of the country that caused major damage to retail outlets and the spoilage and wastage of up to 1 million litres of milk.…

IT is maybe not a common occurrence for the tobacco industry to find itself on the right side of judicial rulings, but in December, South Africa’s Western Cape High Court ruled that a four-and-a-half month national ban on sales of tobacco products, justified to prevent the spread of Covid-19, had been unconstitutional.…

The cutting edge IT field of quantum computing is developing across Africa, with South Africa considered the hub, in part through an IBM centre in Johannesburg that enables academics throughout the continent to freely access its quantum computer network, based in the USA, through the cloud.…

IF there was a sub-Saharan African country expected to steer a middle course between World Health Organisation (WHO) demands on smoking and protecting a stable and prosperous tobacco industry and market, it would surely be relatively wealthy Botswana – with an average per capital income in 2018 USD7,750.…

AFRICA is commonly hailed as the world’s next big focus of economic growth, but for the civil aviation industry, this prospect will require significant investment in new intra-African routes and related airport and ATC infrastructure. It will also require governments to remove immigration barriers preventing African air travellers flying to other countries on their home continent.…

Botswana looks set to boost southern African copper supplies with Khoemacau Copper Mining Pty. (Ltd), a subsidiary of a US-based company, Cupric Canyon Capital, planning to open a mine in the country’s Kalahari copper belt.

The planned mine has an initial annual production of 62,000 tonnes of copper (and 1.9 million ounces of silver), with managers hoping to increase yearly production to over 100,000 tonnes of copper and three million ounces of silver.…

AS government authorities in Botswana envisage seeing their country becoming an education hub for southern Africa, colleges within the country are steadily transforming themselves into universities.

Over the past 19 years, four colleges have evolved into fully-fledged universities – two private; two public.…

Gosego Motsamai, the new managing partner and country manager at KPMG Botswana, has blazed a trail by being the first woman to secure such a post in a Big Four firm within this dynamic emerging market country.

With 23 years’ experience, Motsamai still brims with passion for the profession and often works late into the evening to ensure deadlines are met, a tidy habit she has developed from her early days as an accountant.…

AFRICA is without doubt the continent to watch for airport and air traffic control investment in the future. It is the world’s second most populous continent (home to more than 1.2 billion people), and according to Airports Council International (World) – ACI World – Africa was the fastest growing region for air passenger traffic in 2017 and 2018, which rose 6.3% in 2017 year-on-year and 10.8% in 2018 to June year-to-date, year-on-year.…

WITH Kenya’s economy still growing fast – its GDP is projected to increase by 5.8% this year (2019) east Africa’s economic hub is expected to provide the paint and coatings sector plenty of extra sales. Such growth in the construction industry is reflected in its neighbouring countries, notably Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda, offering additional sales for companies with the scale to score regional sales.…

THE EUROPEAN Commission has included four American external territories – Puerto Rico, the US Virgin Islands, Guam and American Samoa – on a proposed blacklist of weak AML/CFT jurisdictions released today (Feb 13).

Brussels’ updated list includes 12 countries that are viewed with concern by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) – the Bahamas, Botswana, North Korea, Ethiopia, Ghana, Iran, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Syria, Trinidad & Tobago, Tunisia and Yemen. …

A BUDDY training system has been launched by the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO), enabling countries with significant regulatory capacity to help other states prepare for the upcoming CORSIA (Carbon Offsetting and Reduction Scheme for International Aviation) scheme. ICAO has been training national officials to advise on ensuring CORSIA’s legal requirements are written into local laws and also on building the emissions data monitoring, reporting and verification systems they need to measure their airlines’ carbon footprint.…

MAJOR universities from six African countries will next year (2019) be able to develop their services through each receiving USD20 million grants from the World Bank, via a regional rural development research initiative, with the money designed to turn these institutions into regional hubs for agricultural learning.…

CORRUPTION saps economic competition that drives productivity improvements and grows emerging market economies – this is a key reason behind the establishment of the Commonwealth Africa Anti-Corruption Centre (CAACC). Another is the established link between the perception of risk from corrupt practices in a country and foreign economic investment.…

A PROPOSAL to cut funding for the Fogarty International Center from the upcoming USA federal government budget by President Donald Trump’s administration has prompted an outcry from academics and educators across Africa.

For decades Fogarty, part of the USA National Institutes of Health (NIH), has been instrumental in developing medical teaching and research capacity on the continent.…

Demand is growing for a major international programme designed to support developing countries build up their tax audit capacity and – critically – the funding is there to meet that need. Launched as a joint initiative of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation & Development (OECD) and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in July 2015 after an initial pilot phase, Tax Inspectors Without Borders (TIWB) sees tax experts work side-by-side with local officials in developing and emerging markets.…

WITH the economies of sub-Saharan Africa emerging from past poverty, informality and occasional chaos, the regularisation of the region’s public sector accounts is increasingly viewed as an important way of ensuring growing tax revenues are spent wisely.

As a result, accounting experts have been encouraged by growing moves to adopt International Public Sector Accounting Standards (IPSAS).…

THE DIAMOND trade is still one of money launderers’ best friends due the precious stone’s high value to mass ratio, akin to the highest value banknotes that can be obtained. Indeed, it is maybe harder to trace diamonds than numbered banknotes, there is no reliable means by which the point of origin of a particular diamond can be ascertained just by examining it.…

THE MODERATION of growth across sub-Saharan Africa last year to 1.5%, (according to the World Bank), from an average 5-7% per annum in the previous 10 years, may signal that the region needs to firm up its financial professions and institutions to help preserve its recent economic gains.…

Vehicle registration in the landlocked southern African diamond-rich Botswana has surged over the past decade, with vehicle numbers increasing at an average annual 9.4% rate since 2006, according to statistics from the country’s department of road transport and safety.

The sudden ballooning sales for a country of just over 2 million people, which recently celebrated its golden jubilee independence, has ignited other auto industry support businesses – parts sales shops, car breakers and insurance companies selling motor vehicle insurance – and is fuelled by transactions made for both new and used cars sales.…

Botswana’s first vocational training school for the textiles and clothing sector has opened its doors, aiming to close the skills gap restricting the growth of the industry in this southern African country.

Farhan Ghafoor, general manager for the Textile and Clothing Institute of Botswana (TCIB), told just-style one of the biggest challenges facing the industry in Botswana is the “chronic shortage of skilled personnel”.…

The United Arab Emirates’ (UAE) spa market experienced healthy growth in 2015 compared to 2014, increasing 11% in value terms to reach Emirati Dirham AED1.57 billion (USD428 million), according to market research company Euromonitor International.

In 2016, the market is predicted to grow by 9% to hit USD435 million year-on-year, accounting for nearly 14% of the Middle East and Africa’s USD3 billion spa market, according to Euromonitor.…

A MEETING of the European Parliament’s special committee on tax rulings has grilled multinationals over European Union (EU) member state tax rulings. The European Commission fears they have been abused by governments giving companies low tax rates in return for registering businesses in their jurisdictions.…

While many economies in Africa are growing fast, there is a consensus amongst accountants that the continent has to build its business reporting and administration to make sure this growth is sustainable. Indeed, the third African Congress of Accountants (ACOA), staged in Port Louis, Mauritius, from May 11 to 14, heard that this essential work is needed now, even as some countries remain marred by severe socio-political unrest, economic instability, poverty, famine and disease.…

The Open University of Tanzania (OUT) is reaching out to higher education institutions in other neighbouring countries to establish collaborations that will encourage more foreign students to enroll for distance learning.
University vice chancellor Professor Tolly Mbwette said the institution’s board hoped to spread its influence regionally: “We are now the largest distance learning university in the region and our plan is to take distance learning to most countries in East Africa and those under the Southern African Development Community [SADC] by 2016.”…

Textile and clothing industry businesses from diamond-rich southern Africa country Botswana have formed a new industry grouping – the Botswana Textile and Clothing Association (BTCA). Its goal is to boost the sector’s efforts to fully utilise duty free incentives under the USA’s African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA), which it anticipates will soon be renewed by the US congress before it expires in 2015.…

Botswana’s first private university, the Malaysian-owned Limkokwing University of Creative Technology is now a fully licensed tertiary institution, after seven years operating under an interim licence. The university’s vice chancellor Dr. Raphael Dingalo said the institution’s staff and students were upbeat about the development, announced earlier this month (September 1), just before the graduation of more than 900 students, from several African countries.…

While Africa can be a tough place to work, it offers key opportunities for skilled financial professionals who can develop an understanding of how African business operates. Susanne Swaniker-Tettey, chief financial officer at Okavango Diamond Company Pty Ltd, is one such specialist.…

The Botswana International University of Science and Technology (BIUST) is now operating at its permanent home in country’s Central District, having moved from temporary premises near the capital Gabarone.
The project, promoted by the country’s former president Festus Mogae, has been launched to boost science, engineering and technology degree programmes within Botswana, boosting the quality of its labour force.…

Chinese investment in sub-Saharan Africa’s textile processing sector is creating new capacity for finishing, but progress is uneven. Whilst China’s growing presence in the region is far from universally popular, industry figures consulted by International Dyer across the continent were generally positive about the trend.…

An alumni association has been launched at Botswana’s newest private university, with the aim of linking its staff and students to the country’s well-do-to resource-based economy. The Botho University Alumni Association was launched last Thursday (Feb 27) by Botswana’s former President Festus Mogae at its campus in the capital Gaborone.…

Botswana’s first private university, the Malaysian-owned Limkokwing University of Creative Technology (Limkokwing Botswana), has continued to flex its muscles in this diamond-rich Southern Africa nation, taking advantage of a fast growing tertiary education sector. Botswana’s college and university student (aged 18-24) enrollment has grown from 11.4% in 2007/08 to 16.4% in 2012, or 46,613 students.…

SUB-SAHARAN African makers of cosmetics and personal care products are profiting from a growing and increasingly stable regional market, where economic growth is increasing demand for personal luxuries.

A report, ‘Business in Africa – Corporate Insights’ by Dianna Games, Standard Bank South Africa estimates that more than half of Africa’s population would be living in urban areas by 2030 and 60% by 2050, when the population would be about 2.4 billion, compared to 1 billion now.…

THE EUROPEAN Commission is attempting to move the legal boundary where tax avoidance becomes tax evasion, criminalising some aggressive tax planning that has caused controversy across Europe. The move is one a number of recent practical tax and anti-fraud law reforms that Brussels has been pushing to help tax authorities in the European Union (EU) collect reasonable levels of revenue.…

The southern African nation of Botswana has a glittering reputation for its gem diamonds, of which it is largest producer in the world. But on a continent where widespread corruption and poor governance have until recently inhibited foreign investment, Botswana – with a population of only two million people in a landlocked area larger than France – has acquired a reputation as a poster child for financial probity.…

BARACK Obama seems ready to accept an extension of the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) for another 15 years before it expires in 2015, but sub-Saharan African textile manufacturers might have mixed feelings.

African ambassadors in Washington DC have been under strict instructions from their governments to lobby the United States Congress to renew the law, forming an ambassadors’ AGOA working group led by Ethiopian ambassador Girma Birru.…

AT a time when the world seems increasingly led by lifelong politicians, it is perhaps refreshing to hear from a political leader who has a solid background in business, and such is former Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin.

Speaking to Accountancy Futures, he showed how more than half-a-century of business and public life can be brought to bear in financial and commercial mentorship.…

IF there is one paint ingredient that marketers agree should be left off the label, it has to be lead. General and scientific opinion agrees this metal causes health problems and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), working with the UN Strategic Approach to International Chemicals Management (SAICM) has embarked on plans to eliminate architectural and household lead paints in Sub-Saharan Africa by 2020.…

SOUTH Africa’s paint and coatings industry is expected to increase in value from 560.0 million in 2009 to USD712.47 million in 2016, according to market analysts Frost & Sullivan. But the sector has faced tough times since the global financial crisis hit in 2008, and is only now recovering from the recession that hit South Africa as a result, and that recovery has been slow.…

BY ANDREW MARAMWIDZE, IN GABARONE

Economic uncertainties are keeping Botswana’s textile industry teetering on the brink, with its exports falling hard, despite a USD4.5 million (Botswana Pula BWP38 million) government stimulus package spent during and after 2010.

The latest export figures from the Botswana ministry of trade and industry show Botswana netted a paltry USD41 million in textile exports during the first quarter of 2012.…

BY ANDREW MARAMWIDZE, IN GABORONE

Canadian metals miner Hana Mining has told an international mining conference in Botswana that it is projecting 3.6 million tonnes of ore production from its planned second copper-silver mine in Botswana’s Kalahari Copperbelt. Speaking to the on-going Botswana Resource Sector Conference in the capital Gaborone today, Johannes Tsimako regional manager for the Vancouver-based company, said: "The project is getting bigger, there is a lot of potential that is still untapped."…

BY ANDREW MARAMWIDZE, IN GABORONE

Australia-based mining company Discovery Metals Limited’s share price has increased in line with the company’s progress in developing the first copper-silver mine in Botswana’s Kalahari Copperbelt, a major mining conference in the country’s capital Gabarone was told today (26/6).…

BY LEAH GERMAIN, IN EDMONTON

CANADA’S diamond industry is blossoming into a world leader as the third largest producer of rough diamonds, after Botswana and Russia. But ready profits from valuable natural resources can encourage crime, specifically money laundering. Leah Germain investigates the country’s current legislation and precautions taken by the industry to prevent the laundering of assets through the purchase of diamonds.…

BY ANDREW MARAMWIDZE, IN GABARONE

THE BOTSWANA government claims it is fulfilling demands made by the European Union (EU) to improve livestock disease controls in the face of foot and mouth disease outbreaks, and hopes an EU beef import ban will soon be lifted.…

BY JOHN PAGNI

A FINNISH company is claiming to have invented a new system for sequestering carbon dioxide emissions, diluting them in water, which is filtered through feldspar minerals, turning CO2 into bicarbonate. Cuycha Innovation Oy claims the system will be trialled in Botswana and South Africa this year and next.…

BY KATHERINE DUNN

WELL-MEANING environmental health campaigners can kill innocent victims through unintended consequences of their positions. Whether it is opposing the use of malaria killing insecticide DDT or opposing the use of vaccines, such campaigns open environmentalists to criticism because they are opposing the use of proven disease control methods.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

ASSESSMENTS of tax information transparency standards for eight key jurisdictions have been released by the Global Forum on Transparency and Exchange of Information for Tax Purposes, which is run by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation & Development (OECD).…

By Keith Nuthall, International News Services

Both projects draw on the eight volume Unesco-coordinated General History of Africa written from 1964 to 1999 which tried to create a standard for the continent written from an African rather than a colonial European perspective.

An evaluation study on using this general history in higher education throughout the continent will be written this year.…

By Keith Nuthall

Historians are working with Unesco and educationalists to try to develop a common African history syllabus, including the teaching approach and pedagogical materials. The ambitious project will initially focus on helping primary and secondary schools across the continent and, this coming year, an assessment will consider how universities in Africa could benefit from such work.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

HISTORIANS are working with Unesco (UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) and educationalists to try and develop a common African history syllabus, teaching approach and pedagogical materials. The ambitious project will initially focus on helping primary and secondary schools across Africa, and this coming year an assessment will consider how universities in Africa could benefit from such work.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

A CANADIAN company exploring for metals and diamonds in northern Botswana is receiving Canadian dollars CAD5 million in investment from the International Finance Corporation (IFC), of the World Bank. Tsodilo Resources Limited has licences to explore for metal deposits surrounding the globally-renowned Okavango Delta nature conservation area.…

BY ALISON MOODIE

THE SOUTHERN African knitwear industry has taken a serious knock over the past decade. Tough Chinese competition, a global recession and as regards the regional powerhouse South Africa – an overvalued currency – these are just some of its problems.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

PEER reviews have begun assessing the banking and tax transparency systems promoted by the G20 group of nations following the international contagion of financial problems sparked by the credit crunch. The Organisation for Economic Cooperation & Development’s (OECD) Global Forum on Transparency and Exchange of Information will undertake the process.…

BY CLEMENCE MANYUKWE

AFTER being allocated a piece of land in the year 2000 as part of the country’s controversial and often violent land reform, it has taken nearly a decade for small scale tobacco farmer Tendai Dambanjera to commercially justify the claim of what he says is his ancestral land.…

BY BILL CORCORAN and ALAN OSBORN

IT is now some five years since a group of London-based multinationals, among them British American Tobacco (BAT), set up a group aimed at improving the conditions for doing business with and through Africa – named the Business Action for Improving Customs Administration in Africa (BAFICAA) initiative.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

A KILLER disease is decimating fish stocks in the Zambezi river valley, threatening rural livelihoods in Angola, Botswana, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, Zambia and Zimbabwe, the UN Food & Agriculture Organisation (FAO) has warned. Its ‘global information and early warning system’ (GIEWS) says the disease ‘epizootic ulcerative syndrome’ (EUS) (caused by a fungus ‘aphanomyces invadans’ with "a high rate of mortality") is spreading through the Zambesi system.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

EUROPEAN Union (EU) import duties on sugar imported from Mozambique, Lesotho, Swaziland and Botswana are to fall following a trade deal signed between these countries and the EU. Sugar is a dominant part of commerce between these countries and Europe.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

IT has long been outmoded and inaccurate to split the world into two camps: industrialised developed economies, and largely agricultural developing countries. The growth of the 1990s and the current decade means there is a wide range of social and economic sophistication and wealth amongst the poorer of these two old-fashioned categories.…

BY STEVEN SWINDELLS

POLITICALLY stable Botswana is moving ahead with investment in expanded and upgraded airports despite the economic downturn which has hit the southern African country’s tourism sector.

The main project is the US$60 million upgrade and expansion of the Sir Seretse Khama International Airport in the capital Gaborone.…

BY CLEMENCE MANYUKWE

SHYLETTE Chifamba, 38, works for 12 hours each day at Harare’s Baines Avenues Clinic, one of the country’s elite private hospitals. Mrs Chifamba has worked for 13 years as an operating theatre nurse, five of which were at the government-run Harare Central Hospital, where she was also trained.…

BY LUCY JONES, in Dallas; ALAN OSBORN, in London; KARRYN CARTELLE, in Tokyo; BILL CORCORAN, in Johannesburg; PAUL COCHRANE, in Beirut; RACHEL JONES, in Caracas; MARK ROWE; and KEITH NUTHALL

WITH the World Trade Organisation’s (WTO) Doha Development Round being slow to proceed since its 2001 launch – and only this year approaching something resembling and end game – free traders wanting to encourage global commerce have looked to bilateral and regional trade deals.…

BY MONICA DOBIE
WITH Sainsbury removing all plastic carrier bags from its checkouts for last Friday (April 27), handing out reusable paper bags made from 100% recyclable material, another nail is being hammered into the global reputation of this ubiquitous packaging.…

BY BILL CORCORAN, in Johannesburg
AS Zimbabwe descends further into economic and political meltdown the country’s ruling elite are continuing to enrich themselves through fraud, theft and bribery. Bill Corcoran reports from Johannesburg.

UNLIKE politically stable countries where large scale commercial crime is just as likely to occur in the private sector as it is in the public, troubled Zimbabwe’s major fraudsters and thieves are today predominantly found in state run companies or government departments.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE WORLD Trade Organisation (WTO) has exempted from its standard free trade rules for a further six years countries involved in the Kimberley Process Certification Scheme combating ‘blood diamond’ sales.

Its current waiver was to expire December 31 and protects trade restrictions undertaken by participating countries preventing rough diamonds being exported to non-signatory states.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THERE is a large and growing list of regional money laundering organisations, with formal or informal links with the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), so a question mark could hang over why the Commonwealth is getting involved in fighting dirty money.…

BY STEVEN SWINDELLS, in Johannesburg

ONGOING recruitment of South African nurses to the UK is pushing South Africa’s already hard pressed public health system close to the brink of collapse and putting patient care at risk, the country’s lead nursing union and health experts have warned.…

BY STEVEN SWINDELLS, in Johannesburg

THE FORTEEN countries of the Eastern and Southern Africa Anti-Money Laundering Group (ESAAMLG) have their AML/CFT work cut out. Under-funded, lacking resources, short of political will and working in a region that leaks money like a sieve…it is a demanding context for the group’s daunting tasks.…

BY RICHARD HURST, in Johannesburg

THE PAINT and coatings industries in the Southern African states of Botswana, Namibia, Zimbabwe, Swaziland, Lesotho and Zambia are closely linked to that of the regional economic giant South Africa in the that the major manufacturing plants are located in the industrialised area of South Africa’s Gauteng province with branch offices in the neighbouring states acting as agents for the parent companies in South Africa.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Union (EU) is to become the chair of the diamond industry’s Kimberley Process in 2007, serving as vice-chair to Botswana next year. The European Commission said: “Our primary objective as Chair will be to promote the fullest possible implementation of the KPCS (Kimberley Process Certification Scheme) by all participants”.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
A EUROPEAN Food Safety Authority (EFSA) review has ruled that existing European Union anti-BSE controls on imports of bovine meat and livestock from southern Africa’s Namibia, Botswana and Swaziland are adequate and need not be changed. However, the risk of BSE contamination in Namibia is growing it said, falling in Botswana and stable in Swaziland.…

BY RICHARD HURST, in Johannesburg

THE PAINT and coatings industries in the Southern African states of Botswana, Namibia, Zimbabwe, Swaziland, Lesotho and Zambia are closely linked to that of the regional economic giant South Africa in the that the major manufacturing plants are located in the industrialised area of South Africa’s Gauteng province with branch offices in the neighbouring states acting as agents for the parent companies in South Africa.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
SUB-SAHARAN Africa countries are restricting their growth through burdensome company registration regulations, claims the International Finance Corporation (IFC). It adds most countries in the region (bar South Africa and Botswana) have weak property protection laws. Chad requires 19 procedures to register a business, compared with two in Australia.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
A SUPERMARKET boom in sub-Saharan Africa is raising standards in food production and distribution, which many small producers struggle to meet, said the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO). It says the growth of mass retail in South Africa, Kenya, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Namibia, Botswana and Swaziland is having “a direct impact on the lives of millions of small farmers.”…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
AS with many projects inspired by the start of the next 997 years and the last three, the framing of the United Nations’ (UN) Millennium Development Goals was an ambitious enterprise.

Imposing statistically measurable targets for international organisations and national governments in making improvements in global poverty, education, gender equality, health, the environment and education, they have proved tough to attain.…

BY RICHARD HURST
BOTSWANA’S diamond sales rose by 4.7 per cent to US$2.17 billion in 2002, due mainly to a buoyant US market, according to Debswana, the company responsible for all the country’s output, which is a partnership between the Botswana government and the South African mining company De Beers.…

BY MATTHEW BRACE, in Brisbane, EDWARD PETERS, in Hong Kong, RICHARD HURST, in Johannesburg, MARK ROWE, in London, SWINEETHA DIAS WICKRAMANAYAKA, in Columbo and MONICA DOBIE, in Montreal.
FRAUD is fraud, jurists might say. And although jurisprudence generally has a universal flavour and there are frauds that are committed the world over, it would be a travesty of the truth to say that crimes involving deception uniform by nature.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
*A supermarket boom in sub-Saharan Africa is raising food production and distribution standards, which many small farmers cannot meet, said the UN’ Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO). It called for the funding of cooperatives, micro-loans and training, especially in South Africa, Kenya, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Namibia, Botswana and Swaziland.…

BY RICHARD HURST
MONEY laundering is all about fake respectability, transforming the seedy and ill-gotten into the legitimate and well-earned; so in Africa, where better to launder criminal money than through the continent’s most developed economy, South Africa.

Mike Savage, partner at Ernst & Young South Africa, said that the biggest problem facing African governments wanting to seriously tackle money laundering is to pinpoint the movement of funds that are moved across porous borders in a bid to cover tracks and conceal sources.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
PORK and pig exports from Luxembourg to the rest of the European Union have been banned by the European Commission after classical swine fever was detected on three farms in the Grand Duchy. The transshipment of pigs across the country’s busy motorways linking Germany with France and Belgium has also been blocked, along with the export of porcine semen, ova and embryos.…

BY RICHARD HURST
USA President George W. Bush has approved 35 African countries as eligible for tariff preferences regarding clothing and textile exports to America under the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA), with Zimbabwe and Gambia being notable sub-Saharan African pariahs from the move.…

BY RICHARD HURST, in Johannesburg
THE UNITED States’ House of Representatives has voted overwhelmingly to double the quota of clothing and textile products that a group of African countries can export to the US duty free, increasing them from 1.5 per cent of overall US imports to three per cent.…

Keith Nuthall
GUINNESS UDV is perfecting the brewing of Guinness and Kilkenny at Namibian Breweries with an eye to allowing the south west African brewer to offer these brands under licence to the regional markets of Namibia, Botswana and South Africa.…