You’ve heard about the $2.1bn “defense gate”, the $180m Haliburton bribe scandal, the $145m cash in an upscale apartment in Lagos, $20bn missing NNPC funds, 27 of 36 state governors charged with corruption in 2007, “grass-cutter scandal” whereby the Muhammed Buhari government’s scribe “chopped” millions of funds meant for the nearly 2.6m mostly poor women…
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Nigeria is an unknown quantity as far as mining is concerned. Yet, the country is richly endowed with a wide variety of mineral resources, namely coal, lignite, coke; gold, columbite, wolframite and tantalite; bitumen, iron ore and uranium, the latter found in about five of the country’s 36 states. Its coal is reputed to be…
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AUGUST 31, 2017 The US government is investigating China Petroleum and Chemical Corporation, Sinopec, over an alleged $100 million bribe paid to some Nigerian officials. According to Bloomberg, the bribe was aimed at resolving a $4 billion business dispute between the company’s Addax Petroleum unit in Geneva and the Federal Government. The dispute is said…
DetailsRethinking Mineral Resources Nationalism in Africa Originally re-published in Digest (Asmara, Eritrea), No. 61, August 2011, pp. 1-5 Okey C. Iheduru Abstract This piece explores the strain in African mining as at 2011 caused by the latest bout of “resource nationalism” whereby many countries sought to reverse the liberal mining regimes the World Bank…
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Introduction First Quantum Minerals (FQM), which has operating mines in Australia, Zambia, Mauritania, Turkey, Spain and Finland, is also developing two other projects in Latin American — Haquira in Peru and Taca Taca in Argentina. This piece seeks to shed some light on the Vancouver, Canadian miner, its operations and deep embeddedness in Zambian politics…
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by OKEY C. IHEDURU The fate of Africa’s minerals and mines is currently being discussed in a forum which opened yesterday in far-away Perth, Western Australia. The forum is the seventh edition of the Africa DownUnder Conference, a yearly rendezvous hosted by Bill Repard, the CEO of Paydirt Media Pty Ltd. of Australia, for…
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A groundbreaking study on the world’s fastest growing middle class, by the University of Cape Town Unilever Institute and research house Ipsos, estimates that the Sub-Saharan African middle class now consists of over 100 million people, excluding South Africa, with an aggregate spending power of over $ 400 million per day. Titled African Lions,…
DetailsBy MATS GRANRYD Sub-Saharan Africa is, and will continue to be, the fastest growing mobile market in the world. By the end of the decade, there will be more than half a billion mobile subscribers in the region, up from 420 million at the end of 2016. Among the growth drivers is the under-16 age group,…
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Since the early 2000s, Zambia has moved from an interventionist, economic nationalist policy tradition to a business-friendly country, although with occasional populist rhetoric and threats to FDI that fizzle out after each presidential election. This cycle of empty threats that has left foreign mining companies earn super profit without the country’s rich mineral resources contributing…
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The changing balance of power in global energy security As Asia’s oil demand grows, its dependence on imports brings vulnerabilities Nick Butler © Reuters The centre of gravity of the global energy economy has shifted. Demand and therefore trade have shifted from the Atlantic Basin to the Pacific. The immediate implications are obvious: the oil…
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