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Netherlands Development Finance Company (FMO) has finalised two more African power sector loans, following its recent extension of financing support for the Rabai diesel IPP in Kenya.

The World Bank’s International Development Association approved additional financing worth $50m on 17 May for the Energy Sector Utility Reform Project. The government will contribute $1m. Following a slow start in 2013-14, the programme has supported the Electricity Distribution and Supply Authority (EDSA) with a management contract, capacity building and rehabilitation and expansion of the distribution network. The bank provided $40m for the initial project.

The National Stock Exchange of Australia (NSX) has reviewed and removed nine of the ten conditions imposed on African Petroleum and International Petroleum when they listed on the NSX two years ago.

India’s Tata Power announced on 17 September that it had sold its 50% stake in power developer Cennergi to its joint venture partner Exxaro Resources. The shares were held through Tata Power’s wholly owned subsidiary Khopoli Investments. ABSA Bank advised Khopoli on the transaction.The R1.55bn ($106m) transaction is part of a wider sale of international assets in a drive to reduce the company’s debt. Tata Power has been losing money from its 4GW coal power plant near Mundra in India.

The World Bank on 14 June approved an International Development Association credit of $40m to improve electricity sector governance and operations. The additional financing for the Madagascar Electricity Sector Operations and Governance Improvement Project will help ensure full implementation of a performance improvement plan for state utility Jiro sy Rano Malagasy (Jirama) that was prepared in 2016.

Government-owned development finance institution Industrial Development Corporation of South Africa (IDC) has announced that its investment commitments will rise to R102bn ($14.8bn) over the next five years.

The US Department of Justice on 30 June filed a complaint in the Columbia District Court for the civil forfeiture of £22m, the value of shares in the former Griffiths Energy International used to bribe Chad’s former ambassador to Washington, Mahamoud Adam Bechir. Griffiths Energy was fined C$10.35m by a Calgary court in January 2013 for violating the Canadian Corruption of Foreign Public Officials Act. The company renamed itself Caracal Energy and was bought by Glencore in 2014.In 2009, Griffiths’ founder Brad Griffiths, who later died in a boating accident, and his business partner Naeem Tyab agreed to pay Bechir and his associates $2m in currency and shares for their help in influencing the award of oil acreage in Chad.

Backed by bilateral and international financial institutions, Meridiam Infrastructure Finance (MIF) is near to launching its first African equity fund, which will seek to position it as a developer as well as investor in long-term projects, as it has done in Europe, Turkey and North America. Paris-based MIF’s Africa fund, which is targeting an initial E300m of equity, enjoyed a successful first close in May and “is moving far down the path”, towards a launch, partner Julia Prescot told the European Investment Bank’s first ‘Africa Day’, held in Luxembourg on 11 July.

The Economic Community of West African States, with funding from the World Bank Group, is seeking expressions of interest from consultants to carry out a study on battery storage in the region. The consultant will build on a study conducted by DNV GL.

Angola has moved in recent weeks to take concrete legal action against the children of former president José Eduardo dos Santos over longstanding corruption allegations. José Filomeno dos Santos went on trial in December, accused of taking $500m out of the country in 2017 during his time as head of the country’s sovereign wealth fund, while at the end of December, a Luanda court ordered the freezing of Isabel dos Santos’ Angolan bank accounts and shares in state companies, as well as the assets of her Congolese art collector husband, Sindika Dokolo.

Public works, housing and planning minister Mohammed Salah Arfaoui used a 1 June meeting with a visiting International Monetary Fund delegation to underline the government’s determination to push ahead with public-private partnerships (PPPs). The PPP bill has met tougher-than-expected opposition during its passage through the National Assembly – it is strongly supported by international financial institutions, but is seen by Tunisian opponents as too favourable to foreign investors. A 21 May hearing on the bill by the assembly’s finance committee saw its deputy chairman Mohsen Hassan attack government representatives, calling for further scrutiny and amendments of the sort donors will not approve.

The suspension by President Goodluck Jonathan of Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) governor Sanusi Lamido Sanusi led the naira to fall sharply and investors to rue the volatility of Nigerian politics. But it was hardly a surprise, following years of controversy surrounding the highly talented and combative governor, and months of Sanusi’s increasingly public criticism of the management of the oil sector and government finances by Jonathan and his close ally petroleum minister Diezani Allison-Madueke. By naming names in the Senate, Sanusi was more or less directly implicating the ruling clique on Aso Rock in gross malfeasance.

Lootah Group has joined the quiet flow of Gulf investors who are buying into fractured Somalia and its constituent parts. Despite the piracy and civil war now making global headlines, some areas are still seen by some as ‘virgin territories’ ripe for exploration and investment.

The Cairo-based African Export-Import Bank (Afreximbank) said on 8 July that it had closed general syndication of its largest-ever term loan facility, raising around $900m from the two-year, dual-tranche facility. The loan attracted total commitments in excess of $1bn; the final facility was set at $458m and E406.5m ($441m), after a scale-back by the initial mandated lead arrangers and book-runners: Arab Banking Corporation, Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi, Commerzbank Luxemburg (sole co-ordinating bank and documentation agent), Credit Europe Bank, Emirates NBD Capital, Rand Merchant Bank, HSBC Bank, ICBC (London), Investec Bank, Korea Development Bank, Mizuho Bank, National Bank of Abu Dhabi, Standard Bank (Isle of Man branch) and Standard Chartered Bank (facility agent) as initial mandated lead arrangers.

Gabon still presents great opportunities for small- to medium-sized oil companies in the offshore, but rising resource nationalism and changes in the political environment are causing concerns over the sanctity of contracts, according to US independent Vaalco Energy.