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Botswana will raise its stake in De Beers from 15% to 30% once Anglo American sells its 85% holding to the Global Diamond Consortium, President Duma Boko told parliament on 9 November. Botswana would become the largest shareholder; Boko said Namibia and Angola would also take part, and Anglo said it would work towards binding agreements with the consortium, led by former De Beers chief Gareth Penny. Anglo put De Beers up for sale in 2024 as prices fell; in October, Bloomberg reported Botswana was expected to settle at about 25%. A larger stake gives Botswana, which supplies about 70% of De Beers' rough diamonds according to Reuters, more control over sales but deeper exposure to a weak market.
DUSK Gabon, a subsidiary of Abu Dhabi-based New Energy Metals, said on 9 November that it had sent the government an updated feasibility study for mining the Mabounié deposit in Moyen-Ogooué province, at a cost of over $2 billion. At full capacity the project would produce about 16,000 tonnes of niobium a year, along with tantalum and titanium, from a mine, river transport, port facilities and processing plants near Port-Gentil. The deposit has lain idle for years; the company presented the revised plan to President Brice Clotaire Oligui Nguema in Beijing on 6 November. The project fits Gabon's push to process minerals at home, but no financing, final investment decision or construction contract has been announced.
Angola's President João Lourenço has authorised a direct award, without an open tender, for the first phase of the Cacombo dam on the Catumbela River in Benguela province, Novo Jornal reported on 9 November, citing a presidential order. The works are priced at about $661 million: $641.7 million for design and construction and $19.5 million for supervision, to be funded with external financing. The dam is meant to regulate the river's flow, ease silt removal and stabilise water levels for the Lomaum and Biópio hydropower plants downstream. Steadier flows would protect power and water supply in Angola's centre-south, while the direct award leaves the choice of contractor and the final price outside competitive bidding.
President Paul Biya signed a decree on 9 November calling Cameroon's voters to legislative and municipal elections on 7 February 2027, to be held on the same day. The polls will renew the 180-seat National Assembly and 360 municipal councils, last elected in February 2020 and whose mandates have been extended more than once; the government cited cost and logistics for holding both votes together. On the same day, Biya renewed the leadership of the electoral body, Elections Cameroon (ELECAM), for four years. The polls will be the first since the October 2025 presidential election, whose result Issa Tchiroma Bakary disputes; his party, suspended for three months on 27 October, says it will boycott them.
