African press review 10 April 2014

The probe into Jacob Zuma's Nkandla private residence, a bid to combat the rise in rhino poaching, killings in CAR and corruption in Uganda are among today's stories in the African press ...

In South Africa, financial paper BusinessDay reports that National Assembly speaker Max Sisulu has decided to call an ad hoc committee to consider President Jacob Zuma’s response to allegations that hundreds of millions of rand of taxpayers' money were used to fund upgrades to his Nkandla private residence.

Yesterday, Parliament issued its first official statement, saying that the panel would be formed.

While the committee is not expected to decide to impeach Zuma because the majority of its members will be selected from his African National Congress party, it will give credibility to Parliament’s democratic processes, says BusinessDay.

Last month, the Public Protector, Thuli Madonsela, found that Zuma had benefited improperly from the millions spent so far on the upgrade at Nkandla. The total expenditure is expected to exceed 17 million euros.

The committee will have 12 members, seven from the ANC, two from the opposition Democratic Alliance. The Congress of the People and Inkatha Freedom Party will each nominate one MP, and the final member will be selected from the smaller political parties. They are to report to parliament by the end of April.

BusinessDay's science pages report that South Africa and Mozambique are to sign a biodiversity agreement in a bid to curb rhino poaching.

Cooperation from Mozambique is critical because the country shares a long border with the Kruger National Park, the centre of the recent escalation in rhino poaching - from an average of 15 a year before 2008 to the record 1,004 rhinos lost last year.

A total of 277 rhinos have been poached in South Africa so far this year - 166 in the Kruger park. Animal experts say if the situation is not rectified, rhinos could be extinct in the wild by mid-century.

The front page of the Sowetan reports that less than 20 per cent of South Africa's top management positions are occupied by black Africans, according to the latest report from the Commission for Employment Equity.

Blacks represent 75 per cent of the economically active population of the country, whereas whites represent less than 11 per cent.

The front page of the Kenyan Daily Nation is dominated by killings in the Central African Republic, and in Nigeria.

The Nairobi-based paper says the first European Union troops arrived in the CAR yesterday, hours before today's vote on a UN resolution which is expected to authorise the deployment of peacekeepers. Police in the capital, Bangui, say renewed sectarian violence killed at least 30 people on Tuesday.

In Nigeria, scores of Islamist gunmen attacked a police station, a court and a bank in northern Nigeria yesterday, killing seven officers and a civilian, according to police sources.

The raid in the town of Gwaram in Jigawa state began at midnight Universal Time and sparked an hours-long shootout with the security forces, said Tamari Yabo, the assistant inspector-general of police in charge of the region.

Boko Haram Islamists have carried out dozens of attacks in surrounding areas, but Jigawa itself has up to now been spared much of the violence.

Across the city, at the Nairobi Standard, the main front page story is a lot more upbeat. Alongside a smiling picture of little Satrin Osinya, the boy whose mother died in last month's attack on Mobasa's Likoni Church, we read that Satrin has fully recovered from surgery to remove a bullet from his head, and is expected to be discharged from hospital later today.

In Uganda, the front page of the Daily Monitor is fairly grim. There we learn that evidence of corruption at the Uganda Revenue Authority, involving the loss of billions of shillings to tax evasion, fraud and unexplained payments to ghost suppliers, has been uncovered by the Auditor General.

The national auditor wants the tax body to explain the alleged financial indiscipline which MPs have blamed for poor service delivery in their constituencies. The Uganda Revenue Authority was once described by President Yoweri Museveni as “a den of thieves”.

The Monitor also reports that media activists in Uganda have asked the police and security agencies to stop interfering with journalists.

Yesterday in Kampala, the Human Rights Network for Journalists in Uganda claimed that the last three months had seen numerous arbitrary raids, threats and orders to media houses by the security forces. It was alleged that two radio stations had been prevented from broadcasting interviews with electoral reform advocates.