The most important developments in sub-Saharan Africa. Six days a week.
Madagascar's government has requisitioned the Toamasina II thermal power plant run by private producer Enelec and handed its operation to the state utility Jirama, ending Enelec's heavy fuel oil supply contract. A bailiff served the decree, adopted by the Council of Ministers on 3 November, on 6 November; it covers the plant's staff and equipment for up to 24 months. The plant is contracted for 32 megawatts (MW) but delivers no more than 14 MW, and Toamasina, the country's main port city, has suffered repeated power cuts despite a presidential warning in July. The takeover shows the state will seize private plants it blames for Jirama's losses, raising the risk for independent power producers.
President John Mahama said on 7 November that seven companies had been shortlisted, after due diligence, from 47 that sought to partner the Ghana Ports and Harbours Authority (GPHA) on a new port at Keta, in the Volta Region. The firms, not yet named, must now complete designs and arrange financing before construction starts; no cost or timetable was given. The authority, which obtained the project's environmental permit in June, plans Keta as a transit hub for Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger, linked to the Eastern Corridor road and future railways. A port beside the Togolese border would compete with Lomé, Cotonou and Ghana's own Tema for Sahel transit cargo.
Sierra Leonean payments company Monime launched Dash in Freetown on 7 November, an app that lets people pay straight from their bank accounts using a name tag instead of an account number. Unlike a mobile money wallet, Dash holds no balance: money stays in the bank until it reaches the recipient, whether a Dash user, a bank account or a mobile money wallet, and a partnership with Afrimoney opens more than 2,500 merchants to bank-funded payments. Monime, licensed by the Bank of Sierra Leone, already connects over 2,000 businesses to banks, mobile money and cards. Dash could give bank accounts the everyday reach of mobile money, provided enough banks link up and fees stay competitive.
Sudan's Sea Ports Authority signed a final build-operate-transfer contract on 8 November with Suakin Petroleum for a dedicated liquefied gas berth and storage at Suakin port on the Red Sea. The berth, 12 metres deep, will take carriers of up to 5,000 tonnes and feed 28,000 tonnes of storage; construction is to take 24 months, and the value was not disclosed. Suakin Petroleum, a venture of Turkey's R Gas and Sudan's Petrodar, proposed the project in October 2025 and later signed a memorandum of understanding. The berth would give Sudan a strategic gas reserve and a hub to supply its states and neighbours by truck and rail, but building it depends on private money during the war.