The Rio Times Africa Intelligence

Thursday, September 17, 2026

By Matthias Camenzind, Publisher

Kenya's judges void the US$1.6 billion Safaricom sale.

Three High Court judges ruled on Tuesday that the government's sale of 15% of Safaricom to Vodacom was unconstitutional — no meaningful public participation, no competitive selection. Safaricom is not any company. It is Kenya's largest, and its M-Pesa network moves the money of East Africa. The shares now return to the state, on behalf of the public. What the ruling undoes, and what it sets in motion.

Ethiopia's main harvest may fall 30% — the rains failed, and El Niño is why

Washington draws a visa line for South African officials — not a travel ban, but a marker

Zambia charges two former officials over a US$259 million contract with a Hong Kong firm

Zimbabwe merges its power companies — and hires Eskom's former operations chief

Africa's payment system PAPSS looks to China, India and Brazil by early 2027

For expats: Comic Con Africa opens in Johannesburg next Thursday

The state of the continent

If you missed the last few days

Yesterday's brief was about money — Senegal's debt reaching Western portfolios, a militia taxing aid in eastern Congo. Today is about who checks power: judges in Nairobi, prosecutors in Lusaka, and the constitution in Kinshasa.

Good morning. The Safaricom ruling is a commercial story on its face and a constitutional one underneath. The sale was the flagship of Kenya's privatisation programme: 6.01 billion shares at KES 34 each, about US$1.58 billion, sold to Vodacom — the South African arm of Vodafone. The judges found the state had skipped the steps its own constitution requires. That finding now hangs over every state sale Nairobi has planned. Anyone holding Kenyan assets, or pricing them, just learned how deals in East Africa's largest economy can come undone — and that its courts will say so.

The same question runs through the day's other stories. In Kinshasa, police broke up protests against a referendum law that opponents read as a route to a third term for President Tshisekedi — the constitution currently bars touching the term limit. In Lusaka, the Anti-Corruption Commission charged two former education officials over a US$259 million supply contract with a Hong Kong trading firm. Three capitals, three answers to the same question: does anyone get to say no?

Why it matters: Watch three things: whether the government appeals, what happens to money already paid for the shares, and the fate of the rest of Kenya's privatisation list. Vodacom's M-Pesa partnership is not in question — the mobile-money network keeps running. What is in question is who owns the company behind it.

African currencies & commodities

Per US dollar, latest official reads.

NAIRA · NG

1,329.5

borrowing got cheaper

RAND · ZA

16.38

visa friction with Washington

SHILLING · KE

129.3

the Safaricom ruling

CFA FRANC · SN

568.6

pegged to the euro

CEDI · GH

11.49

nurses for Columbus, Ohio

SHILLING · UG

3,920

−6% since end of August

POUND · EG

52.1

steady after the Fed

BRENT CRUDE

US$107+

supply risk holds it up

The big moves · two stories that travel

Ethiopia's harvest may fall 30% — and El Niño is the reason › The kiremt rains of June to September feed the meher, the harvest that produces more than 85% of Ethiopia's crops. This year the rains failed. Cumulative rainfall ranks among the driest on record, and the famine early warning network FEWS NET says the harvest could come in up to 30% below average. The cause sits far away: a strong El Niño, with the tropical Pacific 1.8 degrees above normal in August. Tigray, eastern Amhara and Afar are worst hit. A failed meher does not stay in Ethiopia — it shows up later in food-aid budgets and grain prices far from Addis Ababa.

Washington puts South African officials on a visa list › Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced on Tuesday a visa restriction policy covering people connected to South African laws and policies Washington objects to — in practice, officials and lawmakers. The legal route is Section 212(a)(3)(C), which lets the Secretary declare a person inadmissible on foreign-policy grounds. It is not a travel ban, and no visa category is suspended. But between two countries that keep insisting the relationship is fine, markers like this one are how the distance gets measured. The rand softened on the day.

Expat & living

Ghana will send nurses to Columbus, Ohio › Accra signed a memorandum with the city of Columbus on Monday to send Ghanaian nurses to work there. The mayor signed for the American side; two ministers for Ghana. What was agreed is a framework — no numbers, no start date, no salary terms. The complication: the WHO lists Ghana among 55 countries where health-worker recruitment needs care, because Ghana's own hospitals are short of nurses. One to watch if you work in transatlantic healthcare staffing. The full text of what we know is here.

Comic Con Africa opens next Thursday in Johannesburg › Four days, September 24 to 27, at the Johannesburg Expo Centre in NASREC — not Sandton, as some listings said. Day tickets run about R250, a four-day pass around R750. Cosplay, gaming, celebrity panels. If you are in Gauteng next weekend, this is the plan. Tickets and details here.

Money, markets & business

Nigeria raised US$548 million to pay its power companies — seven-year paper at 18%, guaranteed by the state; the grid's old debts are being converted into bonds

Nigeria's bond auction came in a full point cheaper — 16.79% on the new ten-year, down from 17.79% in August; Abuja's borrowing costs are easing

PAPSS expects links to China, India and Brazil by early 2027 — Africa's own payment system settling trade in local currencies, no dollar routing; no agreement signed yet

38,000 Ivorian cocoa farmers sold through traceability cards — Europe's deforestation rules are rewriting how the world's biggest cocoa crop changes hands

Namibia is being pressed to buy into the Rössing uranium mine — China National Uranium holds 68.6%; the stake for sale is South Africa's, and nuclear fuel is back in demand

Kenya's 24-year sugar protection has lapsed — cheaper sugar from the bloc can now enter freely; Nairobi is quietly looking at new defences

Kenya has spent 8% of a US$390 million World Bank digital loan — more than two years in; procurement is the bottleneck

Zambia cancelled the licences of its fourth mobile network — the only locally owned one; rollout targets and quality standards missed

The state and its citizens

A lecturers' strike shut three Lagos state universities — the union wants the national pay deal adopted locally; four decades of these strikes have shaped a generation's degrees

Mali jailed a newspaper director for two years over a TV remark — tried by the anti-cybercrime unit that also investigated him; press freedom there keeps narrowing

Uganda's shilling lost 6% and pump prices climbed — in dollars, petrol barely moved; the whole rise is the currency

Ghana's EPA shut a cement plant over pollution breaches — monitoring returns are due by 1 October; enforcement with a deadline attached

Mahama ties vehicle tax relief to local content — batteries, tyres, glass made in Ghana; the percentage is still being negotiated

Novartis offered Ghana's medical fund equipment and training — no money committed yet; MahamaCares pays for chronic illness treatment

The wider world, from our desks

Zimbabwe merged its three power companies and hired Eskom's former operations chief — one utility now, under the sovereign wealth fund; July's three-hour national blackout is the pressure behind it

Morocco votes on 23 September — the minimum wage is the argument — MAD 3,422 a month now; the left proposes MAD 5,000 by 2029; voters under 24 are 3% of the register

Cape Verde's president seeks a second term on 15 November — and the speaker who steps in as interim head of state is the first woman to hold the office

Senegal counted 76 diphtheria cases across 11 regions — a vaccine-preventable infection; catch-up vaccination is under way in the south-east

Nigeria switched on a 3.3MWp solar mini-grid at an Abuja university — 58,726 students, batteries included; the programme reaches seven universities and two hospitals

AFCON 2027 qualifying starts next week — Nigeria hosts Madagascar on Friday; South Africa meets Guinea in Soweto on Saturday

Also from our newsroom

We publish the LatAm Market Brief each morning from this same desk. The Fed raised rates for the first time since 2023, and a firmer dollar is squeezing the carry trade that props up the real and the peso. Argentina reports second-quarter GDP this afternoon.

Matthias Camenzind
Publisher, The Rio Times