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African press review 28 May 2015

Did South Africa get to host the 2010 World Cup by unfair means? Does the way world football is governed need to be changed? How? Should anybody care? Should Jacob Zuma pay for his new chicken coop in Nkandla? Will he? Why? Why is Nigeria's oil industry in such a state? Will it change soon?

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Football is making front-page news this morning, especially in South Africa.

Johannesburg-based financial paper BusinessDay gives front-page prominence to the story about alleged corruption in Fifa, the governing body of world football.

Under the headline "US alleges South Africa bribed Fifa for World Cup," we read that the US attorney-general, Loretta Lynch, believes that corrupt officials at the global football body took bribes during the process that awarded the 2010 World Cup to South Africa.

Yesterday US officials revealed an indictment charging 14 senior soccer officials and marketing executives with involvement in a 150-million-euro bribery scheme surrounding the promotion of world tournaments.

The South African Football Association has refused to comment.

Also in BusinessDay, news that South Africans will have to wait another 24 hours for Police Minister Nathi Nhleko to say whether President Jacob Zuma should repay any of the public funds spent on upgrading his private residence in Nkandla, KwaZulu-Natal.

According to the financial daily, the Nkandla issue remains a political headache for the governing African National Congress and for Zuma himself, as opposition parties and the public continue to question the spending of the rand equivalent of 20 million euros on construction work at the president's private home.

Zuma has defended himself by saying that he did not ask for the upgrades, including a swimming pool, a cinema and a chicken coop. The president assigned Police Minister Nhleko the task of determining whether he should pay back any of the public money spent on the work.

Nhleko is to make his announcement at 7.00pm this evening.

BusinessDay also tries to untangle the recent dispute in the Nigerian oil sector, saying the strike which ended earlier this week exposes basis disfunctions which the incoming government under president-elect Muhammadu Buhari will have to address.

Nigeria earns 75 per cent of the national income from oil. The government uses much of that revenue to subsidise fuel prices. Nigerians can buy petrol for less than 50 euro cents per litre. The government is supposed to pay the fuel companies the difference between that price and the market rate within 45 days.

As if that wasn't complicated enough, the collapse of the global price of oil has left Nigeria struggling to pay its bills. Government revenue fell 23 per cent in the first three months of 2015 compared to the first quarter in 2014. Servicing the debt burden now consumes more than a fifth of government revenue. Most state governments are in arrears and some public servants say they have gone eight months without pay.

Against that background, Muhammadu Buhari will be sworn in as president tomorrow, having promised to clean up the way oil wealth is managed in a country that possesses the world’s 10th-largest crude reserves.

Other stories on the African front pages . . .

At least 40 per cent of South Sudan’s population will face severe food shortages over the next couple of months as the latest escalation in the civil war between supporters of President Salva Kiir and his sacked deputy Riek Machar disrupts farming and aid deliveries.

The number of people facing famine is projected to hit 4.6 million by July, nearly one million more than in April, according to the chief adviser for the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation.

The Kenyan Daily Nation reports that President Uhuru Kenyatta’s popularity has dropped from 67 per cent in December to 48 per cent last month, according to a new opinion poll.

The Nairobi-based paper says perceptions about Kenyatta seem to have been affected by the government’s generally poor response to terror attacks and general insecurity.

The main story in The Egypt Independent says that the chief of Israel's air force yesterday played down worries voiced by some Israeli officials about the possibility of Egypt acquiring advanced Russian-made air defences.

Major-General Amir Eshel told reporters in Tel Aviv that he was worried at reports that Moscow was planning to sell the same defence system to Tehran but he reminded journalists that Israel and Egypt have been at peace since 1979.

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