African press review 1 July 2015

The debate continues in South Africa about whether a chicken coop and a swimming pool constitute security upgrades at Presedent Zuma's private home in KwaZulu Natal. The Pretoria authorities decide to appeal against a South African court decision to charge the government with contempt.

Nkandla is back at the top of the front page of South African newspaper BusinessDay.

South Africa's Police Minister Nathi Nhleko yesterday defended his report into controversial security upgrades at President Jacob Zuma’s private residence in KwaZulu Natal, upgrades which cost an estimated 20 million euros in public funds. Nhleko's report found that the culvert, chicken run, cattle kraal, swimming pool, amphitheatre and visitors’ centre all formed part of security upgrades to Zuma’s home.

In the report, harshly criticised by the political opposition, the police minister presented a video as evidence of how the swimming pool could be used to fight fires. He also showed that the amphitheatre was not for entertainment but to bolster and support a road nearby that carried heavy security vehicles.

Nhleko added that scrutiny of the current security situation at Zuma’s private home suggested the need to effect further upgrades.

At the other end of the economic spectrum, a total of 44,000 South Africans lost their jobs in the first quarter of this year.

Stubbornly slow economic growth and the country’s power crisis were cited as factors contributing to the poor performance.

Private sector companies have been hit hardest by the national electricity company’s inability to keep the lights on   most of them experienced a decline in turnover, which forced them to slash jobs.

Private sector enterprises’ turnover fell by over five per cent in the first quarter   the highest decrease since 2010, according to financial figures released by Statistics South Africa yesterday.

Zambia has its own power problems. The authorities in Lusaka yesterday started rationing power supply to mines, as Africa’s second-biggest copper producer struggles to meet electricity demand.

Zambia was forced to cut generation capacity in May after water levels at the Kariba Dam and other sources of hydro power, fell after a prolonged drought.

Last week state-owned power company Zesco said it was increasing the rationing of electricity for all its customers, including mining companies, due to a power deficit.

Analysts say electricity rationing is putting pressure on local currency, the kwacha, due to reduced revenues from the mining sector.

Regional paper The East African reports that the race to choose a presidential flagbearer for Uganda's opposition Forum for Democratic Change (FDC), has drawn in two titans with former party leader Dr Kizza Besigye picking up nomination forms yesterday.

Besigye’s entry pits him against current party president Maj Gen Mugisha Muntu, who declared his bid last Thursday.

This will be Besigye's fourth bid for the top job. He first entered the presidential elections fray in 2001 after falling out with President Yoweri Museveni, whom he accused of turning the ruling party into an undemocratic organisation that had lost sight of its founding ideals.

The East African also says that South Africa's government will challenge a high court ruling that found the state erred in letting Sudan's President Omar Hassan al-Bashir leave the country despite a court order barring him from doing so.

Bashir was in South Africa to attend an African Union summit.

A Pretoria court said he should have been arrested to face genocide charges at the International Criminal Court.

High Court Judge Dustan Mlambo last week asked prosecutors to consider charging the government for allowing Bashir to fly out in defiance of the Pretoria court order.

Cairo-based newspaper The Egypt Independent claims that President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi is using a supposed fight against corruption as a cover for dubious practises and many of Egypt’s anti-corruption agencies are tangled in the problem they claim to be combating, according to an analysis report published by Foreign Affairs, an American journal of international relations and foreign policy.

Before the investment summit earlier this year in Sharm El-Sheikh and Sisi’s visit to the Davos World Economic Forum in Switzerland, Egypt sought to placate donor and investor worries about graft by unveiling a new "national strategy for combating corruption".

But the Foreign Affairs report, colourfully entitled "Abdel al-Sisi and the 40 Thieves", argues that the very groups who claim to be leading the fight against graft have themselves been implicated in corrupt practices.

At least nine billion dollars of state funds is hidden in thousands of unaudited accounts in Egypt’s Central Bank, as well as illegally in state-owned commercial banks, according to Foreign Affairs.