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African press review 3 August 2017

Autopsy shows gruesome manner in which Kenya's top election official was killed. More woes for South Africa's mobile phone giant, MTN and Nigeria voices frustration at the slow delivery of its new home made cars policy.

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We begin in Kenya, where the front pages of the dailies are dripping with revelations about how top election official Chris Msando died.

The Kenyan Star says a post-mortem examination conducted on the remains of the slain ICT manager at the country's elections commission on Wednesday show that he was tortured and strangled to death.

The newspaper reports that the examination was carried out by the chief government pathologist Johansen Oduor, in the presence of a private pathologist and some of Chris Msando’s relatives.

According to Daily Nation, investigations into the murders continued on Wednesday, with acting Interior Cabinet Secretary Fred Matiang’i saying the best detectives were on the case.

But the publication says the work of the detectives is likely to be hampered by their failure to find his still missing mobile phones.

 

Standard Digital reports that the slain ICT Manager had reported to police that his life was in danger after receiving death threat phone messages from unknown people.

According to the publication, police spokesman Charles Owino admitted advising Msando to seek police help in dealing with the threats but he declined saying he was too busy to follow the matter up.

The Standard says he apparently provided them with two numbers that sent some of the threatening messages.

 

Five days to the Kenyan elections, the Johannesburg Star consecrates its coverage on the role of youths in the vote.

According to the newspaper, this might just be the end of the political rivalry between the Kenyatta and Odinga families which have defined post-colonial politics in Kenya for six decades. Just 13 per cent of Kenya’s registered voters are below 35, according to official figures.

But the Star says that Kenya’s future will easily start after the election basing its projections on statistics showing that 80% of Kenyans are below 30. For the publication, they are bound to make the difference after being abused and discarded and left with jobs by decades of corruption and paternal, tribal politics.

 

In South Africa, BusinessDay headlines alarming news from the mobile phone provider MTN that it suffered a 19 per cent plunge in interim revenue over the six months leading to June 2017. According to the publication, MTN stated in a report released this Thursday that its earnings dropped from 5 billion euros (R79bn) to 4 billion euros (R64bn), over the period.

BusinessDay says the company’s biggest region, West and Central Africa, which includes its largest market Nigeria, suffered a 28 per cent drop in revenue to 2 billion euros.

The publication observes that MTN’s CEO Rob Shuter underlined in the results statement, that "macroeconomic conditions remain challenging across a number of our markets, with Nigeria continuing to experience a weaker naira as well as hard currency liquidity challenges".

 

In Nigeria, Punch leads with news that more than 400,000 vehicles have been assembled in the country since the launch of a new automotive policy four years ago.

The paper quotes the head of the Federal Government’s automotive industry task force, Jelani Aliyu, as saying that over 8,000 vehicles have been produced since the start of 2017.

Aliyu who spoke at a stock-taking meeting in Lagos on Wednesday reportedly revealed that the figures represents just 10 per cent of the production capacity of 53 automakers which have established assembly plants in the country since 2013 when the first licenses were approved.

According to Punch, the head of the Automotive Industry Committee also named the challenges slowing down the business: customs procedures, limited access to foreign exchange, unrestrained importation of pre-owned automobiles and smuggling.

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