Morocco gets 272 million euros for power plant

Morocco won two loans worth 272 million euros from the African Development Bank (AfDB) to finance its electricity network expansion and a reform of its financial sector, the AfDB said on Thursday.

The bank has ramped up lending in response to the global downturn that left some African countries facing budget shortfalls and also led to private finance drying up.

It envisages lending about $10 billion this year and expects total lending to fall to around $7 billion next year.

Algeria to prosecute corrupt officials

Algeria is probing corruption cases in the wake of public outrage over the alleged misappropriation of billions of dinars and other manipulation of government projects for personal gain.

“The corruption cases revealed lately are just the tip of the iceberg,” financial journalist Slim Abdulrahman said last week. “What lies under wraps is far greater.”

The government estimates that $1.7 billion in public-sector funds have been lost to corruption.

Sfax Tunisia Trade Harbor to improve

The commercial port of Sfax, one of the most important transportation hubs, major port town, fishing port, and the base for ferries traveling to the nearby Kerkenah Islands in Tunisia, will witness in 2010 the setting up of 2 projects which aim at improving the quality of services and achieving 16% of freight traffic in Tunisian ports.

With a budget of 4 million 500 thousand dinars, the first project involves the development of a shipping platforms. It also aims at promoting the quality of services provided by commercial agents and port users, through maintenance and repair of stevedoring equipments and boosting their profitability.

Lockerbie bomber goes missing?

Politicians, relatives and friends of the 270 people who died in the 1988 Lockerbie bombing have expressed anger over the alleged disappearance of the convicted bomber Abdul Baset Ali al-Megrahi in Libya.

Mr Megrahi’s who has outlived doctors’ predictions that he would be dead by now was freed from the Scottish Greenock Prison on compassionate release after doctors visited him on 28 July and said he had less than three months to live.

Under the terms of his release from jail, the bomber cannot change his address or leave Tripoli, and must keep in regular communication with East Renfrewshire Council.

Sudan looks to attract investment in Farmland

Sudan wants to attract foreign investors to cultivate vast tracks of land that are currently unused in Africa’s largest country, State Minister for Finance Tarek Shalabi said.

“We have millions of acres of land, very flat and unspoiled and it hasn’t really been even explored yet,” said Shalabi, 41, in an interview on Dec. 15 in the capital, Khartoum. “Sudan is a very good place for agricultural investment.”

Arab countries such as Egypt, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia have started to invest in Sudanese farmland as their own agricultural industries fail to keep pace with their rising populations. Elsewhere in Africa, Indian and other foreign companies are buying up land in a process critics have described as a “land- grab,” exporting food from countries that are not self sufficient.

BM

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