Skip to main content

African press review 22 October 2014

Advertising

South African opposition party, the Democratic Alliance (DA), has called for cuts in government expenditure, including a reduction in the size of the Cabinet, ahead of the release of the medium-term budget policy statement by Finance Minister, Nhlanhla Nene, later today.

Cutting corruption and waste, eliminating some departments and reducing the number of senior personnel were among the DA’s prescriptions to deal with the ever-widening budget deficit. Reining in the public-sector wage bill will also be crucial, as tax revenue is expected to fall short of forecasts because of slower than expected economic growth.

DA parliamentary leader, Mmusi Maimane, pointed out that South Africa, with 35 ministerial portfolios, has one of the largest Cabinets in the world, with more ministers than the US, Germany and Japan, all of which have much bigger economies and broader tax bases.

Maimane said that some of these departments are superfluous and must be disbanded.

Financial paper BusinessDay's editorial has a similar message for the South African Finance Minister. The headline reads "Nene needs to announce bold actions."

The tone of the editorial is uncompromising: "the country’s economy and fiscal position have deteriorated significantly over the last five years," says BusinessDay. "Some of this has been due to external factors such as poor growth and a slowing in SA’s main trading partners, the eurozone and China, but most of it has been due to the actions and inaction of the government. Despite promises to do better, billions of rand disappeared into a black hole of indecision, misuse, wasteful spending and corruption in the public sector."

BusinessDay concludes that "five years ago a finance minister could have afforded to obfuscate and offer platitudes. That space is now gone. Nhlanhla Nene needs to set the bar high, administer tough love and demonstrate South Africa’s resilience in the face of increasing challenges."

On its African Nexs pages, BusinessDay reports that Nigeria’s disputed claim to have brokered a ceasefire agreement with Boko Haram and a release deal for more than 200 kidnapped schoolgirls was aimed at improving the country’s tarnished reputation abroad and had little to do with domestic politics, according to analysts.

The ceasefire announcement last Friday briefly suggested that the five-year Islamist uprising in Nigeria's north-east could be nearing an end, and that the girls seized from the town of Chibok in April might rejoin their families.

There are already strong signs that the deal will prove hollow, says BusinessDay, pointing out that violence continued over the weekend and that the credentials of the so-called Boko Haram negotiator have been widely questioned.

In Nigeria itself, the weekend supposed ceasefire has vanished from most front pages, with only the Daily Trust continuing to give the story any prominence. Even there, the tone is dubious. The paper notes that there has been no public reaction to the ceasefire story from any recognised Boko Haram leader, adding that many Nigerians are likely to greet claims of a ceasefire with scepticism after five years of violence. Since the girls' abduction, Nigeria's military has twice claimed to have rescued some or all of the girls, only to back-track hours later.

Several rounds of negotiations with Boko Haram have been attempted in recent years but they have never achieved a peace deal, partly because the group has several different factions.

In Kenya, the main story in the Daily Nation reports that the country risks sanctions from the International Criminal Court following alleged leaks of confidential information on the court's efforts to seize President Uhuru Kenyatta’s assets.

The ICC yesterday accused the Nairobi government of seven breaches of the court's code of confidentiality.

At the centre of the dispute is an order issued by the ICC’s Pre-Trial Chamber on 5 April, 2011, which instructed the court registrar to request the Kenya government to help it to identify, trace, freeze - and seize if possible - Kenyatta’s assets.

The Rome Statute, the constitution document of the ICC, says that requests to State Parties, like those that the court accuses the government of disclosing, must remain confidential.

Daily newsletterReceive essential international news every morning

Keep up to date with international news by downloading the RFI app

Share :
Page not found

The content you requested does not exist or is not available anymore.