African press review 29 April 2015

The International Monetary Fund is worried about South Africa, Ecowas is worried about Togo, the African Union is worried about Burundi. There's been more reaction to the latest round of presidential appointments in Kenya and a Cairo court postpones the Morsi trial to the end of the month.

The International Monetary Fund is worried about the South African economy. That's the top story in this morning's Johannesburg-based financial paper BusinessDay.

The Pretoria government's decision to slow spending as part of its current fiscal consolidation plan and continuing electricity shortages are the key factors hampering South African growth.

The IMF’s sub-Saharan Africa regional economic outlook report, published yesterday, shows the South African economy expected to grow by 2.0 per cent this year and slightly better next year.

The global lender forecasts that sub-Saharan Africa will grow by 4.5 per cent this year and by over 5.0 per cent in 2016, mainly supported by improving global economic growth and demand and infrastructure investment.

A related story in Nigeria says countries in the sub-Saharan Africa would need to spend more than 800 billion euros to fix its electricity generation, transmission and distribution problems by 2040.

Nigeria alone needs to invest over 300 billion euros to ensure uninterrupted power supply by 2030.

BusinessDay also reports reaction to the news that South Africa's Higher Education and Training Minister Blade Nzimande has been refused a visa by the Israeli government.

Nzimande was meant to visit the Palestinian territories on Saturday on a working visit that included discussions with his Palestinian counterpart and the opening of an African Centres Study at a local university.

The South African Jewish Board of Deputies and the South African Zionist Federation have described the refusal as regrettable.

Groups including the South African Communist Party and the Congress of South African Trade Unions have called for the expulsion of the Israeli ambassador.

Ghanaian President John Dramani Mahama, the head of the Ecowas west African bloc, arrived in Togo yesterday to mediate in the dispute over alleged irregularities in last Saturday’s presidential vote.

Mahama was accompanied by Ivorian President Alassane Ouattara.

Results from 11 of Togo’s 42 voting districts put outgoing president Faure Gnassingbé comfortably ahead of his opposition rivals, after he won nearly three quarters of the valid votes counted.

But Togo’s main opposition candidate, Jean-Pierre Fabre, has complained of widespread irregularities and wants the announcement of results to be halted.

Hundreds of people marched in Burundi’s capital Bujumbura yesterday, the third day of protests against President Pierre Nkurunziza’s decision to run for a third term, a move critics say violates the constitution and the Arusha peace deal.

Official estimates suggest that more than 20,000 people have fled from Burundi to Rwanda and thousands more over the border to the Democratic Republic of Congo in the wake of Nkurunziza’s announcement last Saturday.

In Kenya it is reported that the African Union is to send a team of envoys to Burundi to help “defuse current tension”.

The decision was reached on Tuesday evening after a meeting of AU’s Peace and Security Council.

AU Commission Chair Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma was unable to give any details about the composition or size of the team, nor could she say when the African Union team would begin work.

In Kenya itself the main story in the Daily Nation reports that several people are feared dead after flooding hit the west-central town of Narok.

At least 10 vehicles were swept away and the Narok-Bomet road was cut off temporarily yesterday afternoon after flood waters swept through the town.

The top story in the Kenyan Standard says that the opposition Orange Democratic Movement has slammed the Jubilee administration over Monday's appointments to state corporations by President Uhuru Kenyatta.

The party accuses the Jubilee administration of recycling failed politicians to key state companies, a move the opposition says will do nothing to help reform the agencies.

The Egypt Independent reports that the Cairo Criminal Court yesterday postponed the trial of deposed President Mohamed Morsi and 10 other leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood accused of leaking official documents to Qatar.

The trial was postponed to 30 April.

Morsi is already serving a 20-year prison sentence on separate charges.

In Nigeria The Guardian reports that suspected Boko Haram gunmen yesterday attacked Bultaram Village in Yobe State killing 21 people.