JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) – South African Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan has ordered an investigation into the tax collection authority, officials told parliament on Thursday, underlining rising tensions between the Treasury and the revenue agency.

Gordhan has expressed concerns at the leadership of the South African Revenue Service (SARS), saying earlier this week he could not vouch for the accuracy of the information it provided because of a lack of accountability and cooperation from its top management.

SARS said in a statement on Thursday it was concerned over the comments questioning the integrity of its leadership.

News of the latest investigation adds to the impression of a system in turmoil after months of tension between President Jacob Zuma and the finance minister, who himself survived a separate probe into allegations of fraud while he was the head of SARS.

The tensions have unnerved investors at a time when Africa’s most industrialized economy is stalling, with growth forecast at 0.5 percent this year by the Treasury.

An 8-member team set up by the Treasury to investigate governance at SARS said in a presentation to parliament, seen by Reuters, that it was studying whether the agency was sufficiently accountable and had the capacity to deal with illicit financial flows.

It was unclear when the probe was initiated, but Business Day newspaper quoted the head of the committee, Dennis Davis, as saying it had been carrying out its work for several months.

Davis could not be reached for comment at the number provided on the committee’s website. SARS spokesman Sandile Memela and Treasury spokeswoman Yolisa Tantsi did not immediately reply to telephone and email requests for comment.

“The implication is that he has a lack of confidence in the top leadership at SARS,” political analyst Daniel Silke said, referring to Gordhan.

Gordhan and SARS commissioner Tom Moyane, who was appointed in 2014 by Zuma, were at loggerheads earlier this year when Moyane refused to halt an operational turnaround plan that had been vetoed by the minister.

At the time, media reported that Gordhan had threatened to resign from the cabinet unless Moyane was removed from his role.

(Reporting by Tiisetso Motsoeneng and Mfuneko Toyana; Editing by James Macharia and Mark Trevelyan)

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LUANDA (Reuters) – Angola’s state-owned oil firm Sonangol will not pay the government any dividends this year, its chief executive said, as crude revenues plunge in Africa’s second-largest producer.

Sonangol is an important source of revenue for the government, but the firm has amassed hundreds of millions of dollars in debts and has deferred payments to its suppliers in recent months.[nL8N1DM3PU]

“In 2016 it is estimated that there will not be dividends for the shareholder, which is the state,” Sonangol Chief Executive Isabel dos Santos said at a media briefing on Thursday.

Dos Santos, the daughter of President Jose Eduardo dos Santos who has ruled the oil-rich nation since 1979, added that the firm’s gross income has dropped to an estimated $15.3 billion, from more than $40 billion in 2013.

Sonangol’s debt is estimated at $9.85 billion and the firm still needs to find a source of finance for $1.56 billion in payments to suppliers this year, she said.

“Sonangol has been honoring the monthly payment related to its financial obligations to the banks,” Dos Santos said.

(Reporting by Herculano Coroado; Writing by TJ Strydom; Editing by Richard Pullin)

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TUNIS (Reuters) – The Tunisian government will sell its stakes in telecom companies Orange Tunisia and Ooredoo next year, a senior official told Reuters on Thursday.

“The government will sell next year its 10 percent stake in Ooredoo and its 51 percent holding in the company Orange Telecom,” Habib Dabbabi, a junior minister in digital economy, told Reuters.

He added that the government had not decided whether it would carry out the sales by tender or on the stock market.

The government will keep its 65 percent holding in Tunisia’s third major telecoms company, Tunisie-Telecom, Dabbabi said.

French telecoms firm Orange has a 49 percent stake in Orange Tunisia, which has more than 4.5 million mobile phone subscribers in the North African country. Ooredoo Tunisia is controlled by the Qatari companyof the same name and has about 6.5 million mobile subscribers.

The government confiscated a 51 percent stake in Orange Tunisia from a son-in-law of former leader Zine El-Abidine Ben Ali after he was ousted in an uprising in 2011. The son-in-law, Marouane Mabrouk, has appealed against the government’s seizure of the stake.

Tunisia has a population of 11.5 million people and mobile penetration of 97 percent.

(Reporting by Tarek Amara; editing by Susan Thomas)

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By Felix Onuah

ABUJA (Reuters) – Nigeria hopes to conclude the sale of a $1 billion Eurobond by the end of the first quarter of 2017 and will seek to make its foreign exchange market more flexible, vice president Yemi Osinbajo said on Tuesday.

Nigeria is in its deepest recession in 25 years and needs to find money to make up for shortfall in its budget. Its revenues from oil have plunged due to low international prices and militant attacks in its crude-producing heartland, the Niger Delta, that have cut its output.

The government began the process of appointing banks for the sale of the Eurobond in September and had said it wanted to issue the bond by the end of the year. It has yet to announce a lender to lead the sale, however.

“At the very latest, between the end of the year and the first quarter of next year we will begin to see all that process concluded,” Osinbajo told Reuters in an interview.

The vice president said the severe loss of petro-dollars had caused “serious” foreign exchange shortages and had been worsened by attacks on its oil pipelines and export terminals.

The government had wanted to issue the Eurobond to help plug a gap in its record 6.06 trillion naira ($19.9 billion) budget this year, in addition to tapping concessionary loans from the World Bank and China as its oil revenues fell.

So far only the African Development Bank has come to its aid, approving a $600 million loan, the first tranche of a total $1 billion package.

Osinbajo also said his office was working with the central bank to make the foreign exchange market more flexible and more reflective of actual demand and supply.

The regulator in June officially ended its policy of pegging, or fixing, the naira’s exchange rate at 197 per dollar to let the currency float freely. But the exchange rate has since been stuck at 305 to 315 on the official market due to dollar shortages, while on the black market the naira is changing hands at 470 per dollar.

LOSING REVENUES

Nigeria’s crude production, which was 2.1 million bpd at the start of 2016, fell by around a third in the summer following a series of attacks by Delta militants who want a greater share of the country’s energy wealth to go to the impoverished southern oil-producing region.

“At one point we were losing almost 1 million barrels per day (bpd) which translated to 60 percent of oil revenues … and that affects the availability of dollars,” Osinbajo said.

The militants, after saying in August they would halt hostilities to pursue talks with the government, said this month they had resumed attacks because of the continued presence of the army in the region.

Osinbajo said that the government was prepared to talk with the militants but that maintaining security was essential for law enforcement.

Ratings agency Moody’s forecast that Nigeria’s economy could expand by 2.5 percent next year if it could produce 2.2 million barrels of oil per day – the level at which the government made its budget calculations.

To help cover its budget shortfalls, the government is keen to ensure it is collecting taxes efficiently, Osinbajo said.

“We will continue to consider the issue of raising tax and raising VAT. But at the moment we are more concerned with ensuring that we really improve our coverage,” he said, referring to tax collection.

On the missing Chibok schoolgirls, the vice president said the release of 21 of the girls in October was a result of government engagement with Boko Haram.

He did not provide any update on the remaining missing girls, but he said the government was continuing to engage with Boko Haram.

($1 = 304.20 naira)

(Writing by Chijioke Ohuocha; Editing by Hugh Lawson)

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ABIDJAN (Reuters) – Heineken is planning to take on Castel for the top spot in Ivory Coast’s growing beer market by competing with the French company on price, the general manager of the Dutch firm’s new brewery said on Monday.

Following a decade-long crisis that ended in 2011, Ivory Coast has emerged as Africa’s fastest growing economy, according to the International Monetary Fund, and beer consumption is rising in the cocoa producing country of 23 million people.

Heineken, the world’s second largest beer maker, and Africa-focused trading firm CFAO invested 100 billion CFA francs ($162 million) to build a brewery that opened this month near the commercial capital Abidjan.

Groupe Castel, a private firm founded by the Castel family, produces the majority of the 270 million litres of beer consumed annually in Ivory Coast at its Solibra brewery in Abidjan and has maintained an iron grip on the market for years.

Besides its ever-popular Castel, Flag and Solibra Bock brands it also brews other well-known beers under licence such as Diageo’s Guinness and Carlsberg’s Tuborg.

“We want to be the leading beer seller in Ivory Coast,” Alexander Koch, general manager of Heineken’s new Brassivoire brewery, told Reuters.

“The market has been served by a single actor, Castel, for years … We judged it promising enough to move in with this investment.”

For now, the Dutch company is focusing on producing its local Ivoire brand at the new plant, which has a capacity of 160 million litres a year, said Koch.

The recommended unit price for a 60 cl bottle of Ivoire will be 500 CFA francs a bottle, said Koch, which is lower than the rival brands produced by Castel, Africa’s second largest producer of beer and soft drinks.

Heineken has operations in 10 other African countries including Nigeria, South Africa, Democratic Republic of Congo and Ethiopia.

($1 = 617.7200 CFA francs)

(Reporting by Loucoumane Coulibaly; editing by Nellie Peyton and David Clarke)

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TUNIS (Reuters) – The European Investment Bank (EIB) has agreed to grant loans to Tunisia worth 400 million euros for youth and infrastructure projects, the Tunis government said on Monday.

The deal will be signed during an international investment conference in Tunis on Tuesday, the prime minister’s office said in a statement.

It quoted EIB President Werner Hoyer as saying the money would be provided for projects targeting youth, children, and schools, as well as a bridge project in the northern city of Bizerte. The projects will have an “immediate impact”, it said.

The statement added that the EIB had made a commitment to provide a total of 2.5 billion euros worth of funding to the North African country, without giving details.

Tunisia’s economy has been hit by social unrest and militant attacks following a 2011 uprising that toppled former leader Zine El-Abidine Ben Ali, leaving many young people frustrated at a lack of economic opportunities.

Earlier on Monday, Tunisia’s government said it was planning to issue a Eurobond worth 1 billion euros in January as it seeks funding to cover its deficit.

(Reporting by Tarek Amara; Writing by Aidan Lewis; Editing by Catherine Evans)

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