African press review 17 April 2015

The South African president addresses parliament on the subject of xenophobic attacks, the governor of Nairobi faces eight hours of questioning on alleged  financial misdeeds, while another Kenyan MP is told to come clean on his links to Al-Shebab or resign his seat. And there's a suggestion that the World Bank is robbing poor people.

South Africa's racial troubles make the main story in the Johannesburg-based financial paper BusinessDay.

Under the headline "Zuma wants faster state action to deal with attacks on foreigners," the business paper reports that the effect of xenophobic attacks on South Africa’s international reputation and currency prompted President Jacob Zuma to take the unusual step of making a special plea in the National Assembly for the violence to stop.

The president’s intervention yesterday came as the xenophobic violence spread from KwaZulu-Natal to Gauteng and the rand lost ground to foreign currencies as a result of the violence.

Zuma condemned the attacks but said the government was aware of and was sympathetic to some of the issues that have been raised by affected South African citizens.

Mozambique was the first of South Africa’s neighbours to feel the repercussions of the xenophobic violence when a project involving the South African energy and chemical company, Sasol, was halted due to fear of reciprocal attacks.

A Sasol spokesperson emphasised that the energy company’s core operations in Mozambique were continuing but the low-pressure compression project being run by contracted service providers had been halted.

Zimbabwe’s Herald reported yesterday that South African music group Big Nuz had cancelled a performance in Bulawayo, ostensibly to help contain the violence inside South Africa.

The main story in the Kenyan Standard concerns the political future of Majority Leader and Garisaa Township Member of Parliament Aden Duale.

Yesterday 16 MPs, notably from President Uhuru Kenyatta's party the National Alliance and his deputy William Ruto's United Republican Party, called a press conference to demand that Duale "step aside" over allegations made in parliament that linked him to the Somali-based terrorist group, Al-Shebab.

Duale has strongly protested his innocence.

Nevertheless, says the Standard, the allegations refuse to die and have now triggered a storm in the ruling Jubilee coalition, where sharp divisions emerged yesterday as MPs fought to outdo each other in either vilifying or defending Duale, who has in the past made controversial comments about the war on terror.

Critics say the Majority Leader should name financiers and sympathisers of terrorism or resign his seat.

Over at the Kenyan Daily Nation, the main story reports that Nairobi Governor Evans Kidero yesterday became the first county boss to appear before the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission over graft allegations. This, after his name appeared in the “List of Shame” presented to Parliament by President Uhuru Kenyatta last month.

Kidero was questioned for about eight hours on issues ranging from his tenure as the chief executive of the Mumias Sugar Company   where millions of shillings are alleged to have been lost in suspect deals   to his current position as city governor where he faces investigation over procurement contracts running into hundreds of millions and suspect land deals worth billions of shillings.

The Daily Nation also reports that the Kenyan government is monitoring the situation in South Africa closely, and is ready to evacuate citizens threathened by anti-immigrant violence.

There have been no reported cases of causalities involving members of the Kenyan community in the South African disturbances.

The front page of the Cairo-based Egypt Independent reports that more than three million of the world's poorest people have been forced from their homes, land and jobs over the past decade by World Bank-funded projects.

This is based on an investigation by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, which analysed thousands of World Bank records and conducted interviews in 14 countries, including Albania, Brazil, Ethiopia, India, and South Sudan.

According to the investigation, the World Bank, which aims to end extreme poverty, has repeatedly violated its own policies on protecting indigenous people, with devastating consequences for some of the world's most vulnerable populations.