The most important developments in sub-Saharan Africa. Six days a week.
Ethiopia's government set up a six-month federal caretaker administration for Tigray on 16 October, with a regional election among its main tasks. Its four chief executives include Asefa Abraha, a former Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF) negotiator, and Brigadier General Gebre Egziabher Beyene of the Tigray Peace Forces, which fight alongside the federal army. The move follows the TPLF's loss of Mekelle and the breakdown of the arrangements agreed in the 2022 Pretoria peace deal. It is the first federal takeover of Tigray's government since November 2020, when a similar caretaker failed to establish authority and federal troops left within eight months. The TPLF has called Tigrayans who work with Addis Ababa traitors.
President Cyril Ramaphosa opened a second concentrator plant at Vedanta Zinc International's Gamsberg mine in South Africa's Northern Cape on 16 October. The expansion doubles ore processing from about four million to eight million tonnes a year and raises capacity to about 500,000 tonnes of zinc in concentrate; the Presidency says this makes Gamsberg one of the world's largest zinc operations. Vedanta, whose first phase at the mine opened in 2019, plans to add zinc smelting capacity in the province. Refining at home would let South Africa sell zinc metal rather than concentrate, but Ramaphosa said this depends on affordable power and efficient rail and ports.
Equatorial Guinea will build its own oil refinery, Vice-President Teodoro Nguema Obiang Mangue announced on 15 October at a crisis meeting with the fuel distributors Gepetrol Servicios, TotalEnergies and Tradex. Experts are due next month to study the project, with work set to start in 2027; the state will also spend $20 million so that Gepetrol can buy and store enough fuel for three to six months. The meeting followed the second fuel shortage in less than four months, for which the government fined the local TotalEnergies unit about $1.7 million and Tradex about $855,000. Local refining and state reserves would move fuel supply away from shipments handled by private distributors and towards the state company.
Payments company Onafriq said on 16 October that it will close Baxi, the Nigerian agent banking network it bought in 2021, but keep its cross-border payments and card business in the country. Baxi's agents have been moved to another principal bank and have 30 days to transfer their funds; Onafriq did not say how many agents or staff are affected. The company blamed the weaker naira, inflation, thinner margins and the rapid spread of instant account-to-account transfers, which have cut demand for cash services at agents. The exit follows those of the mobility firm Moove and of Uber, and shows how the weak naira is pushing foreign-owned consumer platforms without scale out of Nigeria.
Australia's Deep Yellow on 16 October dropped its target of a final investment decision on the Tumas uranium project in Namibia by the end of 2026, saying equity market conditions do not support one. The company set no new date and will keep paying for civil and concrete works from its cash reserves; Namibia renewed the project's environmental clearances on 2 October. Tumas is designed to produce about 3.6 million pounds of uranium oxide a year, and managing director Greg Field said difficult equity markets constrain funding options for uranium developers. The delay pushes back a new source of Namibian uranium supply even though site works are well advanced.
