African press review 22 July 2015

Burundi counts the votes and the dead in the wake of yesterday's controversial presidential election. Kenya signs a multi-billion-shilling deal to improve the road to South Sudan. Jacob Zuma is accused of various forms of dishonesty. And Kenya's teachers are off to court to defend their right to a pay rise.

As Burundi counts the votes and the cost after yesterday's presidential election, Washington has criticised the poll saying it lacked credibility and that the Bujumbura government put its own legitimacy at risk.

The story is on the front page of regional paper The East African.

A US State Department spokesperson is reported as saying the election risked unravelling the fragile progress made through the implementation of the Arusha Agreement which brought Burundi's civil war to an end.

Also in The East African, news that Kenya and the World Bank have signed a deal worth the shilling equivalent of 450 million euros for the rehabilitation of part of the 600-kilometre highway linking Eldoret to Nakodok on the border with South Sudan.

Work on the upgrade is set to begin early next year, raising prospects for enhanced cross-border trade and also easing access to petroleum deposits in the Lake Turkana basin.

The honesty of South African president Jacob Zuma is called into question by at least two separate articles on the front page of this morning's Johannesburg-based financial paper BusinessDay.

The first report says Police Minister Nathi Nhleko yesterday came under intense pressure after briefing the parliamentary committee that continues to investigate the spending of public money on the president’s private home in KwaZulu-Natal.

Nhleko's report absolving the South African leader from repaying any of the money spent was described by MPs as a whitewash.

Nhleko was also accused of making favourable findings to protect his own job.

The police minister's report directly contradicts the findings of Public Protector Thuli Madonsela, who said Zuma had improperly benefited from the publicly financed construction work and should pay back at least some of the rand equivalent of 20 million euros involved.

The parliamentary committee is to visit the president's property in Nkandla later today to inspect the disputed works.

Further down the BusinessDay front page we learn that the public-interest group Accountability Now has laid charges of corruption and defeating the ends of justice against Zuma and Minister of Justice Michael Masutha over the latest ouster in the revolving leadership at the National Directorate of Public Prosecutions (NDPP).

The complaint centres on a "golden handshake" of nearly one and a half million euros allegedly paid to the former NDPP boss‚ Mxolisi Nxasana‚ after Zuma called off an inquiry into Nxasana’s fitness to hold office.

Accountability Now says a complaint had been lodged with the police in Cape Town.

It won't come as any consolation to South Africans to learn that Zuma is not alone.

A report to be released later today by Lawyers for Human Rights and the African Centre for Migration and Society says almost a third of the people who have to deal with South Africa’s refugee reception offices have been asked for bribes.

The report describes corruption in the refugee-and asylum-seeking process as "very serious".

Teachers are back on the front page of Kenya's Daily Nation, with the news that unions will today appear before the Court of Appeal in Nairobi to defend a judgment directing the government to increase teachers' basic salaries.

The government's Teaching Services Commission filed the appeal two weeks ago alleging that Employment and Labour Relations Court had erred in the June judgement which ordered an increase in the basic salary of teachers by between 50 and 60 per cent over a four-year period.

The Standard continues to focus on the weekend visit to Nairobi of US President Barack Obama. The main headline reads "What Obama is bringing to Kenya".

According to the report, President Uhuru Kenyatta last night went on national television to assure Kenyans that the US leader's visit will not be just another photo opportunity but a chance for the country to reap huge economic benefits.

Uhuru said the visit would focus on critical issues such as the war on terrorism and investment in key area like energy, manufacturing and information technology but would steer clear of the debate about human rights for homosexuals.

The United States is currently Kenya’s second most important trading partner, after the European Union.