CAIRO (Reuters) – President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi issued a decree establishing a Supreme Investment Council aimed at encouraging much-needed investment in Egypt, the state news agency said on Tuesday.

It will be chaired by Sisi and its decisions are binding on all ministries and public bodies.

Egypt has been trying to attract investment needed to restore growth since the 2011 uprising, which ushered in protracted political turmoil and scared away tourists and foreign investors – key sources of hard currency.

In comments on CBC television channel, Investment Minister Dalia Khorshid said the government would submit an investment law to parliament within next month.

“The draft of the law is ready…and we want to finish it during the next month,” Khorshid said.

The government has been working on a new investment law it hopes will slice through Egypt’s notorious red tape and make it easier and quicker for foreign investors to do business.

The decision to establish the council, published in the Official Gazette on Sunday, said its members will include the prime minister and the Central Bank governor and ministers of defence, interior, finance, investment, trade, justice and the head of the General Intelligence Service.

The board will meet every two months upon the chairman’s invitation and the decisions will be made by voting with a majority. The president will take the decision in case the votes are equal.

The council’s roles include following up on the execution of investment plans, development of major economic projects and projects that partner with the private sector.

(Reporting by Ahmad Elhamy and Ali Abdelatti, Writing by Amina Ismail)

Read more

DUBAI (Reuters) – Emirates airline could reduce the frequency of its flights to African cities or cut routes completely if current economic and financial challenges on the continent continue, President Tim Clark told reporters on Tuesday.

Foreign airlines flying to Nigeria have started to refuel abroad because jet fuel supplies there have become more expensive and scarce as the country battles a hard currency shortage.

Emirates has started a detour to Accra, Ghana to refuel its daily Abuja-bound flight, a spokesman said last month; the airline had already cut its twice-daily flights to Lagos and Abuja to just one.

“In certain African countries, the currencies have really gone down, so we’re reflecting on a number of these to look at where it’s just not worth us to travel,” Clark said on the sidelines of an International Air Transport Association event.

He added that Emirates’ load factor – a measure of capacity utitlisation – for the rest of 2016 and 2017 would probably be in the mid-70s to low-80s in percentage terms, although there would be some peaks and troughs in that time.

(Reporting by Tom Arnold; Writing by David French; Editing by Andrew Torchia)

Read more

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) – Two South African former tax service employees who have been charged with fraud alongside Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan asked the state on Monday to review the charge, the National Prosecution Authority (NPA).

Oupa Magashula and Ivan Pillay worked under Gordhan during his tenure as boss of the South African Revenue Service (SARS) from 1999 to 2009.

Opposition parties and critics have described the accusation as part of a ploy to muzzle the Treasury, which has been critical of the political influence yielded by allies of President Jacob Zuma.

The NPA said it had invited Gordhan to make representations regarding the charges to its head, Shaun Abrahams, by Tuesday afternoon.

Gordhan said on Friday he considered such review pointless because he doubted the “ability or willingness” of the NPA to give him a fair hearing.

Gordhan has been summoned to appear in court on Nov. 2 on charges that he broke the law when he granted early retirement to Pillay and then re-hired him as a consultant.

(Reporting by Mfuneko Toyana; Editing by John Stonestreet)

Read more

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) – South Africa’s Oakbay Investments said on Monday no monies had been removed from a mine trust fund set up under domestic laws for environmental clean-up work.

“The Rehabilitation Fund balance was moved from Optimum Mine Rehabilitation Trust’s account with Standard Bank to Bank of Baroda in June 2016,” Oakbay Investments said in a statement.

(Reporting by Tiisetso Motsoeneng. Editing by Jane Merriman)

Read more

By Ola Noureldin

CAIRO (Reuters) – Vodafone Egypt and Etisalat Misr signed licensing agreements on Sunday for the operation of 4G mobile broadband networks in Egypt in deals that will allow the country to introduce long-delayed high speed telecoms services.

Egypt is selling four 4G licences as part of a long-awaited plan to reform the telecoms sector and raise much-needed dollars for depleted government coffers.

Its three existing mobile network operators – Orange, Vodafone and Etisalat – had initially all turned down the 4G licences saying the amount of radio spectrum on offer was inadequate.

The Vodafone Egypt and Etisalat Misr agreements come after Orange signed a deal last week, agreeing to pay $484 million after the regulator amended conditions for buying additional spectrum.

“The terms and conditions we signed last night are different from three weeks ago, we consider the terms now completely satisfactory to launch top quality 4G services,” Stefano Gastaut, CEO of Vodafone Egypt told a news conference announcing the deal.

The change in terms was related to the frequencies offered by the telecom regulator, Gastaut said, adding that this new acquisition makes Vodafone Egypt the biggest holder of spectrum in the country.

The regulator said previously that it would consider running an international auction for the remaining 4G licences if the country’s existing mobile carriers refused to do a deal.

Telecom Egypt, the state’s fixed-line monopoly, was the only company to take up the state’s original offer, buying a 4G licence in August for 7.08 billion Egyptian pounds ($797 million) to enter the mobile market directly for the first time.

“Now that the four companies have signed the 4G licence, the telecom sector has raised $1.1 billion, in addition to 10 billion Egyptian pounds ($1.13 billion)for the state budget,” Telecom Minister Yasser al-Qadi said.

Companies had originally objected to a requirement that half the licence fee be paid in dollars. Orange Egypt agreed last week to the provision. Vodafone Egypt and Etisalat Misr did not disclose what portion they would pay in foreign currency.

The regulator announced last week that operators that paid for a licence entirely in U.S. dollars would be given priority in buying additional spectrum.

Vodafone Egypt agreed to pay $335 million in a deal signed in the early hours of Sunday morning, the regulator said.

Etisalat Misr, the Egyptian unit of Etisalat agreed to pay $535.5 million and plans to purchase 10 megahertz (MHz) of additional spectrum after the deal, a company official said.

Telecoms regulator head Mostafa Abdel Wahed said all payments will be made in full, without instalments, and the companies will have one month to complete any foreign currency transfers.

Both Etisalat Misr and Vodafone also agreed to buy fixed line phone service licences for $11.26 million each, the regulator said.

($1 = 8.8799 Egyptian pounds)

(Additional reporting by Nadine Awadalla; Writing by Asma Alsharif and Ola Noureldin; Editing by Mark Potter, Greg Mahlich)

Read more

By Matthew Mpoke Bigg

ACCRA (Reuters) – Illegal miners operating at AngloGold Ashanti’s Obuasi mine in Ghana have ignored a government deadline to leave, delaying company plans to restart production.

Up to 5,000 miners were still working at Obuasi in the Ashanti region on Friday, four days after a deadline for them to leave, said Benjamin Annan, spokesman for the Association of Small Scale Miners. He said relocation plans that would enable them to move were yet to be finalised.

“We will move immediately the Minerals Commission representative has done the demarcations,” Annan told Reuters.

AngloGold officials say previous deals to get the miners out were ignored and as a result it could not attract new investment or complete a study on how much it would cost to bring the mine back to life.

The Obuasi mine began production a century ago and is crucial to gold mining in a country that also exports cocoa and oil. Output was halted and almost all staff laid off in 2014 when falling gold prices made it uneconomic to access new and deep-lying reserves. Gold prices have since recovered somewhat.

Crime and unemployment have since soared in Obuasi town and in February men broke into the concession, digging shafts that intersected with the mine’s official tunnels and allowed them to access ore thousands of feet underground.

At least 130 illegal miners have been killed, according to AngloGold’s figures.

The illegal miners were due to move to a different part of the AngloGold concession under a deal worked out by a committee that included small scale miners set up by the government regulator, the Minerals Commission.

“We are counting on them to leave on their own, or be pushed out and also lose the ground that we have earmarked for them,” said Toni Aubynn, chief executive of the commission.

Local officials said security forces were unlikely to evict the miners ahead of a presidential election in December, given that many families rely on the miners’ income.

The apparent decision not to force the miners out is an example of what many business leaders say is a slowdown in government decision-making as the election approaches.

“All we can do is continue to monitor and hope to see results on the ground,” Eric Asubonteng, managing director of AngloGold Ashanti Ghana, told Reuters. The company is also pursuing arbitration in Washington with the government, he said.

(Editing by Edward McAllister and Mark Potter)

Read more