African press review 20 February 2012

Malema is to keep fighting another week. An SA property company's Nigeria luxury leisure  plan looks set to flop and lose money for a union pension plan. Zambia and Gabon may face each other on a football pitch again soon. There are now seven vacancies in Uganda's cabinet. Tanzania, Uganda, Burundi and Rwanda discuss laying tracks. And Sarkozy has reportedly won't talk to Wade.

In South Africa, BusinessDay reports that suspended ANC Youth League president Julius Malema’s battle for political survival looks set to run for another week. There has been no indication as to when the party’s national disciplinary committee will announce its decision on Malema's appeal to have his five-year suspension for disciplinary breaches reduced.

On Friday the mitigation hearing for the Youth League leader and two other suspended ruling party members ended.

It is understood that prosecutors told the disciplinary committee panel that Malema should be expelled from the ANC, a more severe sentence than the original five-year suspension.

BusinessDay also looks at the fate of the financially troubled property company Pinnacle Point Group which is now likely to have its Lagos Keys project in Nigeria, with an estimated value of 40 million euros, terminated as it cannot raise funds to develop the venture.

The Lagos state government earlier in the month sent a letter to the property group saying it intended to terminate the company’s land ownership and development agreement due to an alleged breach of terms. It gave the group 30 days to remedy the breach, failing which the agreement would be terminated.

In 2009, Pinnacle Point West Africa, signed an agreement with the Lagos state government to develop a luxury leisure destination. But since the agreement was signed, not a single sod of soil has been turned.

Instead, Pinnacle Point Group is now under liquidation in South Africa and the subject of an inquiry into its business affairs.

The liquidators’ representatives said that as the company did not have any money it would be impossible to complete the deal.

Investors who stand to lose substantially from the demise of Pinnacle Point include members of the Southern African Clothing and Textile Workers Union. They had 26 million euros of their pension money invested in the company’s shares and they are are now worth nothing.

The Times of Zambia reports that the Football Association of Zambia is targeting Gabon for a friendly match on 29 February.

An association spokesperson said in Lusaka yesterday that negotiations with the Gabonese Football Federation have already started and the two parties hope to seal the deal soon.

Zambia lost most of its international squad in a plane crash in 1993 in Gabon and recently won their first-ever Africa Cup of Nations in the same country, said the spokesman, adding that Gabon is not an ordinary place for Zambia.

The game is likely to be played in Libreville since the Levy Mwanawasa Stadium in Lusaka, which is the only stadium that could host an international match, is still not open.

In UgandaThe Daily Monitor reports that President Yoweri Museveni has summoned his cabinet for an impromptu meeting this morning to discuss the crisis in the administration following the resignation last week of two senior ministers over corruption allegations.

Ministers Syda Bbumba (Gender) and Khiddu Makubuya (General Duties) resigned after the Public Accounts Committee found them guilty of causing financial loss to the taxpayer and abuse of office for their role in approving inflated compensation claims in excess of 10 million euros.

The latest resignations bring to seven the number of vacant cabinet posts.

Regional newspaper The East African reports that Tanzania, Uganda, Burundi and Rwanda have reached a formal agreement to construct a multi-billion-dollar railway network, which will also serve South Sudan.

The project, to commence in 2014, is expected to take three years to complete and will cost 3.5 billion euros.

The China Civil Engineering Construction Corporation is currently undertaking a feasibility study.

The privately-owned Le Quotidien in Senegal reports that President Abdoulaye Wade has definitively lost the support of French President Nicolas Sarkozy.

The daily says the Senegalese president has been trying to contact Sarkozy for the past 10 days but Paris is not answering the phone.

Similarly, claims Le Quotidien, the door has been closed on Dakar's Foreign Affairs minister Madické Niang and on Karim Wade, both dispatched to Paris to meet the French leader.