South Africa

PRETORIA – The Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) recommends May 1 to the Presidency as implementation date for the Companies Act of 2008. This comes after the DTI announcement that there should not be any more delays in the implementation of the Act, but the Companies Amendment Bill is still going through the necessary approval processes, which will culminate in President Jacob Zuma’s assent. The DTI says that the Presidency should be allowed to “apply its mind sufficiently in processing” the Bill before signing it into law. The systems and processes necessary for the operation of the Companies and Intellectual Property Commission is also on track, including the appointment of the commissioner and deputy commissioner. The Portfolio Committee on Trade and Industry adopted the Companies Amendment Bill on March 24, following a rigorous consultative process that resulted in the incorporation of recommendations from stakeholders. Issues that were raised by stakeholders during the eight-year process and rectified by the DTI include the domestication of companies, the business rescue model, the registration of external companies in South Africa and the clarification of independent reviews.

PRETORIA – President Jacob Zuma has named Lesetja Kganyago as the new deputy governor of the South African Reserve Bank (SARB) from May 16. Kganyago has been with the National Treasury since 1996, serving as director-general since 2004. Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan has been tasked to immediately start the process of appointing a new director-general for the National Treasury to ensure that there is a smooth transition, Zuma told journalists at a briefing in Pretoria. “Kganyago leaves behind a strong team at the National Treasury, one of the most stable in government,” Gordhan states. Zuma says that Kganyago’s experience in managing the South African economy and his role in the Group of Twenty and the Financial Stability Board will be important to his contribution to the SARB. Kganyago will also be responsible for specific portfolios in the SARB, which have still to be allocated, SARB governor Gill Marcus says.

Africa & the world

LIVINGSTONE – Leaders of the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) call for an end to political violence in Zimbabwe. Tensions are rising in the resource-rich State as an uneasy unity government comes apart at the seams and as President Robert Mugabe, 87, pushes for elections this year. "There must be an immediate end to violence, intimidation, hate speech, harassment and any other form of action that contradicts the letter and spirit of dialogue," the leaders from the regional bloc say. The meeting of SADC's security organ was attended by Zambia's President Rupiah Banda, South African President Jacob Zuma and their Mozambican counterpart Armando Guebuza. Mugabe and Zimbabwean Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai were also in attendance. SADC has been criticised in the past for being too soft on Mugabe but the tone of its leaders has been stiffening as the country lurches from crisis to crisis. What this ultimately means on the ground in the troubled country remains to be seen. Mugabe, who was forced into a unity government with rival Tsvangirai's Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) two years ago, is pushing for an early election this year before agreed democratic reforms. Friction is heating up between Mugabe's ZANU-PF party and the MDC over political violence, the cancellations of opposition rallies and the arrest of MDC officials on what the party sees as trumped-up charges.

TRIPOLI – Rebels cheer the defection of a Libyan minister as a sign that Muammar Gaddafi's rule is crumbling, but US officials warn he is far from beaten and make clear they fear entanglement in another painful war. After former Libyan foreign minister Moussa Koussa arrived in Britain, London urges others around Gaddafi to follow suit. "Gaddafi must be asking himself who will be the next to abandon him," Foreign Secretary William Hague says. Soon afterwards, Ali Abdussalam Treki declined to take up his appointment by Gaddafi as United Nations ambassador, condemning the "spilling of blood" in Libya. But reports of defections of more senior Gaddafi aides remain unconfirmed. Asked about an Al Jazeera TV report that he is one of several who have fled to Tunisia, top oil official Shokri Ghanem told Reuters by phone: "This is not true, I am in my office and I will be on TV in a few minutes." Koussa's defection, however, raised the spirits of rebel fighters put to headlong retreat in a counter-attack by Gaddafi forces earlier this week. "We are beginning to see the Gaddafi regime crumble," rebel spokesperson Mustafa Gheriani says in the eastern town of Benghazi. However, despite almost two weeks of Western air strikes, Gaddafi's troops have used superior arms and tactics to push back rebels trying to edge westward along the coast from their eastern stronghold of Benghazi toward the capital Tripoli. News that US President Barack Obama had authorised covert operations in Libya raised the prospect of wider support for the rebels. But Obama's order is likely to alarm countries already concerned that air strikes on infrastructure and troops by the US, Britain and France go beyond a UN resolution with the stated aim only of protecting civilians.

ABIDJAN – Fighters loyal to presidential claimant Alassane Ouattara attack the residence of incumbent Laurent Gbagbo in Abidjan, seizing control of the Côte d’Ivoire’s State television, an Ouattara spokesperson says. A military source in Gbagbo's camp confirms the attack on Gbagbo's residence but says that pro-Gbagbo forces are still putting up resistance at State broadcaster RTI. Residents in the area confirm heavy fighting. Loyalists of the internationally recognised president entered the city on Thursday after a swift offensive south aimed at ousting Gbagbo, who has refused to cede power since a November 28 election that United Nations-certified results showed he lost. Fighting between the rival factions raged for hours on Thursday and heavy weapons fire rang out in the centre of the commercial capital of the world's top cocoa producer. "His house is under attack. That's for sure. There is a resistance but it's under attack," Ouattara spokesperson Patrick Achi says. A military source in Gbagbo's camp confirms the attack, adding that Gbagbo's bodyguards are fighting back.

ANTANARIVO – Three opposition groups in Madagascar led by former Presidents have rejected a new unity government named as part of a roadmap to end the Indian Ocean island’s two-year political impasse. The government has 23 new Ministers, while nine members of the previous administration retain their posts – including the ministers of Finance, Mines and Hydrocarbons, Justice, Defence, and the Environment and Forests. Eight out of 11 political groups in Madagascar have initialled the roadmap, which allows President Andry Rajoelina, who grabbed power with military support in March 2009, to remain in power until free and fair elections are held. The three groups, led by former Presidents Marc Ravalomanana, Didier Ratsiraka and Albert Zafy, declined to initial the plan. Rajoelina did, however, include some members of the party founded by Ravalomanana and some dissidents within his movement. The Southern African Development Community (SADC) has long called for Rajoelina to step down so Ravalomanana could return to power but it shifted its stance earlier this year by approving the plan to leave Rajoelina in office until elections. Prime Minister Camille Vital says he thinks the new government is inclusive and the SADC will accept it. A member of Zafy’s group, however, says that the government was formed unilaterally by Rajoelina’s transitional administration to buy more time.

MOGADISHU – Uganda and Burundi say they have committed 3 000 extra troops to the African Union (AU) mission in Somalia, bolstering the fight against insurgents. The United Nations-backed transitional federal government of President Sheikh Sharif Ahmed controls part of the capital, and AMISOM – AU troops from Uganda and Burundi – is fighting to keep two hardline Islamist insurgent groups from taking over the rest. It has been facing a four-year-old rebellion led by the al-Shabaab rebel group, which professes loyalty to al-Qaeda. AMISOM says that, after a visit to Mogadishu by Major General Godefroid Niyombare and General Aronda Nyakairima, the defence chiefs in Burundi and Uganda respectively, the two countries have committed more soldiers. “In a joint statement to field commanders, the chiefs declared that both Burundi and Uganda had committed the additional 4 000 troops mandated by the UN in December and that they were already heading for predeployment training.” The transitional government is seen by the international community as the best hope of returning the Horn of Africa country to stability after two decades of conflict.

HARARE – Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe has vowed his party will not back down from its controversial drive to force foreign-owned companies to sell majority shareholdings to local blacks. Addressing supporters at the burial of a senior government official, Mugabe said that his Zanu-PF party regarded black economic empowerment as a key part of the national liberation struggle, dismissing fears it would hurt economic recovery. “We are not stopping,” he said. “So we are saying we must take over our country and those partners, those outsiders, who want to work with us must do so as junior partners. We are the senior partners – no more the junior partners,” he added.