March 11, 2013.

From Creamer Media in Johannesburg, I’m Motshabi Hoaeane.

Making headlines:     

Uhuru Kenyatta is declared the winner of Kenya's presidential elections.

South Africa’s Reserve Bank chief Gill Marcus says the rand may have weakened too much.

And, Zimbabwe says it will struggle to pay for its two upcoming votes.

 

Uhuru Kenyatta was declared the winner of Kenya's presidential election on Saturday, despite being indicted for crimes against humanity. However, his rival Raila Odinga said he would challenge the outcome in court and asked supporters to avoid violence.

Kenyatta, Kenya's richest man and son of Kenya's founding president, faces trial after the disputed 2007 presidential vote that unleashed a wave of tribal killings in the country. His victory avoided what could have been a divisive run-off pencilled in for April.

With 51-year-old Kenyatta in the top job, Kenya will become the second African country after Sudan to have a sitting president indicted by the International Criminal Court.

Kenyatta said in his acceptance speech that he and his team would cooperate with international institutions and that he expected the international community to respect Kenya's sovereignty.

 

Central bank chief Gill Marcus says South Africa's rand may have weakened too much this year, requiring policymakers to keep a close eye on wages and prices. However, she said South Africans aren’t inflation-target “nutters.”

Speaking on the margins of a financial conference in Italy, Marcus said this year's 15% fall in the rand against the dollar was "a bit overdone". She added that South Africa doesn’t target a level of a currency, but that right now it is weak. She said that the South African Reserve Bank would look in the medium-term to see how it retraced.

Marcus expects inflation, which is stoked by the weak rand, to return within a targeted 3% to 6% range after testing its upper range and possibly briefly overshooting it. “We expect inflation to go to the top of the band, possibly breaching that band but for a relative short period of time”, she said.

The central bank, which considers both inflation and sluggish growth important challenges, would take various elements into account when considering its next policy move.

 

Zimbabwean Finance Minister Tendai Biti said on Saturday that the southern African country would struggle to afford the two votes which are due to be held this year in the space of a few months.

Biti, who is also secretary-general of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), said the referendum would cost $85-million and these funds were not available from Zimbabwe's 2013 budget of $4-billion. The votes include a referendum and an election.

Biti said the Zimbabwean government expects that the international community will come to its assistance, while it’s also trying to mobilise resources from the domestic economy using various instruments including treasury bills and bonds among others.

However, the plan to seek funding for the votes from foreign donors or the private sector could be a hard sell, as Western governments have questioned human rights abuses in the country and businesses like platinum producer Zimplats are wary of rapidly-changing policies that threaten profitability.

 

Also making headlines:

Tunisian Prime Minister Ali Larayedh has unveiled a new Islamist-led coalition government that will serve only until an election is held before the end of the year.

A Brics think tank is expected to launch prior to the Brics Summit in Durban at the end of March.

And, Sudan and South Sudan are expected to withdraw their forces from the buffer zone.

 

That's a roundup of news making headlines today.