African press review 26 September 2011

Football in South Africa, human rights in Botswana, bicycle theft in Uganda and the death of Africa's first female Nobel Peace prize winner, Wangari Maathai, are the stories making headlines in Africa's media.

The Sowetan reports that the South African government plans to probe allegations that two local soccer officials are responsible for inflating the costs of broadcasting games involving Bafana Bafana, the national football team.

The sudden hike in broadcasting rights fees led to the South African Broadcasting Corporation's failure to broadcast Bafana's recent Afcon qualifier against Niger.

The French-based Sports Five, which holds the screening rights, has since clashed with the SABC over the exorbitant amounts the company charged the public broadcaster to screen Bafana games.

A new broadcasting rights deal is currently being negotiated which should allow the SABC to screen Bafana's crucial encounter with Sierra Leone next month.

The Johannesburg Star reports that three high court judges have prohibited the South African authorities from deporting a murder suspect wanted in Botswana without first obtaining a written assurance that the suspect will under no circumstances face the death penalty.

In a scathing analysis of Botswana’s human rights record, the court pointed to the secret execution of a South African citizen there in 2001 as well as other judicial hangings.

There's a heart-warming headline in today's Ugandan Daily Monitor: "Bicycle scandal," it reads, "police hunt suspect".

The story concerns a certain Patrick Bernard Bagarukayo who reportedly made off with 378,700 euros meant for the procurement of 70,000 bicycles for village chairpersons and local councils.

The police intervention follows last week’s parliamentary directive to have Bagarukayo arrested on allegations of fraud.

The alleged director of a non-existent firm, Amman Impex Ltd, Arjunan Rejesekaran, is also wanted by police and the Local Government and Public Service Committee of Parliament for failure to supply the bicycles.

There's bad news for consumers in Kenya, on the front page of today's Daily Nation.

As the shilling continues to lose ground against the dollar, consumers are being forced to dig deeper into their pockets for essential commodities.

Consumers Federation of Kenya secretary Stephen Mutoro said the cost of basic commodities like maize flour, sugar, milk among others have risen by about 200 to 300 per cent since January.

Since the economy was import and fuel driven, the 116 per cent increase in a fuel levy by power generating companies had led to the price increase in commodities manufactured locally, he noted.

He said the introduction of the Price Control Bill (signed into law earlier this month) might hurt consumers more because manufactures could be encouraged to adulterate commodities, thus affecting quality.

The Nation's web site has been updated to accommodate the news of the death of environmental activist Wangari Maathai.

Maathai will be remembered, according to the Nairobi daily, for her fight against the Moi regime's attempts to build a 60-storey building at Uhuru Park, in the centre of Nairobi city. She next took on powerful individuals in the Moi government who had hived off parts of the Karura forest in the outer fringes of the city.

She also joined mothers of political prisoners in a hunger strike in a quest to force then President Moi to free them.

The environmentalist later joined politics and was in 2002 elected the Member of Parliament for Tetu, Nyeri District and served as an Assistant Minister in President Kibaki's first government.

A Nobel prize winner, she was also a celebrated academic, the first woman in East and Central Africa to earn a doctoral degree.