African press review 29 January 2015

News concerning South Africa's rich and Egypt's journalists in some of the African papers today ...

There's bad news for South Africa's rich on the front page of this morning's Johannesburg-based financial paper, BusinessDay.

The paper says that, having already announced a raft of austerity measures five months into his position, Finance Minister Nhlanhla Nene now has to consider raising taxes, particularly on luxury goods and capital gains.

The minister is due to present his budget next month, with a deficit of about 4 per cent for this financial year leaving the government with little or no room for manoeuvre.

Kay Walsh, economic advisor at professional services company Deloitte, said yesterday that any tax increases are likely to target the wealthy rather than the poor and middle class.

The South African government needs to raise at least 27 billion rand (that's two billion euros, give or take) in additional tax revenue over the next three years.

The main story in BusinessDay won't provide much consolation for the well-heeled, either. Under the headline "ANC plans to cap land ownership," we learn that the ruling African National Congress says land ownership should be limited to 12,000 hectares and the holding of land by foreign nationals should be banned.

The party has promised to deal "more firmly" with the land question.

The president of the country's largest union of farmowners has described the proposals as a contradiction of the National Development Plan, saying the new rules would further frighten potential foreign investors.

As power cuts continued across South Africa yesterday for the third day in succession, and more outages are forecast for today, a report in BusinessDay says the country's energy crisis could be alleviated in the short term by changing legislation to allow Eskom (the national supplier) to buy electricity directly from the private sector, and by cutting down on water usage.

A report commissioned by the Department of Science and Technology, and prepared by a panel of local and international experts, says that the core of the problem is Eskom's ageing and poorly maintained generation capacity. The experts say that a power-buying entity needs to be created to level the playing field between the public and private sectors, and that consumers needed to be encouraged to cut water usage, since water pumps use huge amounts of electricity.

The longer-term solution to the country’s power crisis, according to the expert panel, is to make significant capital investment in technologies such as nuclear energy.

There's a warning to journalists on the front page of this morning's Cairo-based Egyptian Daily News. The story explains that the head of the Egyptian State Information Service assembled a group of predominantly foreign journalists yesterday, and urged them to increase their reportage of the government’s point of view.

The chairman of the state information service told the correspondents that their coverage of the recent demonstrations marking the fourth anniversary of the January Revolution had failed to convey the importance of the threat posed by terrorism.

At least 23 people died in clashes between police and demonstrators, while 516 were arrested.

A public relations representative from the Ministry of the Interior told the assembled journalists that the Muslim Brotherhood had taken advantage of the anniversary and had called for attacks on trains, buses and other transportation, as well as electricity facilities, gas services, and public property. He did not explain how he knew this.

Five Kenyan MPs spent last night in police custody, according to the front page of the Nairobi-based Daily Nation.

The legislators from Narok County were arrested for “incitement” two days after violent demonstrations in Narok that left two people dead and several others seriously injured.

The leaders were taken into custody shortly after 6pm at the Directorate of Criminal Investigations headquarters in Nairobi where they presented themselves to record statements.

They are expected in court later today to face charges related to Monday's violence, which was sparked by a dispute over how the Narok County government spends the billions of shillings it collects every year from the Maasai Mara Game Reserve.

There's a report in the Nigerian daily, Punch, saying that Amnesty International yesterday claimed the military failed to protect civilians in Baga and Monguno, Borno State, despite repeated warnings about impending attacks on the two towns by Boko Haram.

The global rights group said that evidence gathered by commanders at the military base in Baga “regularly informed” the Defence Headquarters in November and December, 2014 of a threat by Boko Haram “and repeatedly requested reinforcements.”

Some reports suggest that as many as 2,000 people were killed in the attack on January 3.

The Director of Defence Information has rejected the Amnesty International claim. He would, wouldn't he?