Month: June 2024

Blantyre, Malawi    — Malawi’s Constitutional Court on Friday dismissed the case of two applicants who wanted it to legalize same-sex relationships. State lawyers welcomed the ruling while lawyers for the applicants expressed disappointment.

The applicants, Jan Willem Akster from the Netherlands and a Malawian transgender man, Jana Gonani, brought their case to the Constitutional Court for interpretation of Malawi’s anti-homosexuality laws following their arrest in 2021.

Akster is currently facing nine charges of sexual abuse and sodomy, while Gonani is charged with unnatural offenses.

They said Malawi’s laws violate their fundamental rights, including a right to privacy and dignity.

However, Judges Joseph Chigona, Vikochi Chima and Chimbizgani Kacheche rejected their arguments.

Chigona said the applicants failed to bring evidence of how the provisions in the country’s laws discriminated against homosexuals.

Chigona also said Akster failed to prove that Malawi’s laws violated his right to health.

“The first applicant was asked in a cross examination if he had ever accessed a public hospital and replied that he had gone to Zomba Central Hospital after he had been involved in a car accident,” Chigona said. “When he was asked about his experience there, especially if he was asked about his sexual orientation before he was assisted, he said he was not. He actually said that he was medically assisted so well. The only complaint he had about the facility were spiders in the ward.”

Chigona said the court also dismissed claims that Malawi police violated Gonani’s right to privacy when they ordered him to undress, to confirm his claims that he was transgender.

“We know that by Section 24 of Criminal Procedure and Evidence Code that police are empowered to search a suspect who is reasonably suspected of having committed a particular offense and who has been arrested,” the judge said. “The caveat is that the search only extends as it is reasonably required for discovering a thing upon this person in connection to the offenses he was suspected of.”

Minority rights activists and religious leaders attended the delivery of the judgment, which took over six hours.

Rights activist Michael Kaiyatsa of the Center for Human Rights and Rehabilitation said he was not happy with the ruling but would comment more after going through the written judgment.

Defense attorney Bob Chimkango said, “To be honest, we are satisfied with the process, but the only thing that we may not be agreeing with is the judgment itself. But it’s too early to comment as you will notice it’s a 135-page document. We were just listening — we were not working on it. So we will be waiting for it to be given to us, analyze it and then advise the client accordingly.”

A spokesperson for Ministry of Justice, Frank Namangale told reporters outside the court that the government was happy with the ruling.

Same-sex marriages have been a controversial issue in Malawi.

In July 2023, religious leaders led street protests across the country against the potential legalization of same-sex marriage.

Friday’s judgment means homosexuality remains an offense in Malawi, punishable by a maximum prison sentence of 14 years.

The Constitutional Court said Friday that the applicants were free to ask parliament to amend the country’s homosexuality laws if they were not satisfied with its judgment.
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In Kenya, where same-sex relations constitute a crime punishable by up to 14 years in prison, the only option for the LGBTQ+ community to meet is through dating apps and social media. But now, those Kenyans say, the platforms are being used to trap victims in a web of blackmail, extortion and physical and sexual assault. Juma Majanga reports from Nairobi, Kenya. Camera: Amos Wangwa.
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HARARE, ZIMBABWE — The International Monetary Fund has asked Zimbabwe to rein in corruption — said to be costing the economy billions of dollars each year — while giving some rare praise for the country’s new currency, the most stable Zimbabwe has seen in years.

Following a recent mission to Zimbabwe, the IMF says the country’s new Zimbabwe Gold currency, or ZiG, has ended a bout of macroeconomic instability that saw the preceding currency, the Zimbabwe dollar, suffer radical depreciation, causing prices to skyrocket.

The IMF said that if macro-stabilization is sustained, cumulative inflation for the remainder of the year would be about 7% — a figure Zimbabwe has not achieved in years.

In an interview with VOA, Persistence Gwanyanya, a member of the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe Board, welcomed the IMF’s report for acknowledging that the country’s new currency had stabilized the economy.

“We think that there has been some notable improvements with regards to … fiscal accountability,” Gwanyanya said. “Whilst there are isolated cases of corruption that we acknowledge, the overall picture is that there has been significant improvement in fiscal management in the country. And unsurprisingly, we continue to improve. But to achieve the ambitions, we reduce the leakages, we improve … accountability further in the economy.”

In the report, the IMF said Zimbabwe’s economic governance still has significant weaknesses, and said corruption poses a risk to economic performance that needs to be addressed.

Last month, Zimbabwe’s prosecutor general, Loice Matanda-Moyo, also the former head of the anti-corruption commission, said corruption costs the country nearly $2 billion annually, devastating the economy and ordinary citizens.

The Zimbabwe Anti-Corruption Commission says it is investigating a case from last year in which the electoral commission reportedly paid $1.2 million for a server it could have bought on the open market for less than $25,000. The money went to a company owned by an ally of President Emmerson Mnangagwa.

Godfrey Kanyenze, an economist and founding director of the Labour and Economic Development Research Institute of Zimbabwe, said reducing corruption is crucial if the country’s economy is to improve.

“Corruption is a cancer that has to be dealt with, we need political will to address this particular issue and there is to be a price to corrupt activities. The culture of impunity must be replaced by zero tolerance for corruption, as is the case in other countries where the state has played a leadership role,” Kanyenze said.

Steven Dhlamini, an economics professor at National University of Science and Technology, said the IMF report addressed all issues that Zimbabwe needs to get on track.

“Overall, it is a very positive report, it confirms that our policy trajectory is on the right path and we are hopeful that authorities are going to continue implementing these policy measures that have been commenced since last year,” Dhlamini said.

In its report, the IMF said Zimbabwe’s economy is showing “resilience” even as effects of the El Nino drought were being felt. The economy is expected to grow 2 percent in 2024, down from 2023’s 5.3%.
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Johannesburg — “Kenya is not IMF’s lab rat,” was just one of many slogans condemning the International Monetary Fund that was seen this week on demonstrators’ placards at protests in Kenya against proposed tax hikes. 

The protests, fueled by tech-savvy youth on social media, were sparked by the Kenyan government’s plans to significantly raise taxes to pay off its enormous debt. 

The government did a U-turn after things turned deadly Tuesday when protesters broke into parliament in Nairobi and police opened fire, killing over 20 people, according to rights groups. 

Embattled President William Ruto announced he was listening to the protesters’ concerns and was scrapping his controversial finance bill. He said he would instead introduce budget cuts and austerity measures to try to shore up the country’s finances.   

But the chaotic events in one of Africa’s major economies, also a key U.S. ally, have led to questions about the debt choking many developing countries, and who is to blame. 

International financial institutions  

Kenya owes $80 billion in domestic and foreign debt. Its debt stands at 68 percent of GDP, well above the World Bank and IMF’s recommended maximum of 55 percent. 

The tax hikes in Ruto’s unpopular bill were aimed at avoiding default and came after an agreement earlier this month between Kenya and the IMF on a comprehensive reform package.   

Most of Kenya’s debt is owed to international bondholders, while its biggest bilateral creditor is China, to which it owes $5.7 billion.    

Washington frequently accuses Beijing of “debt trap diplomacy” — unscrupulous lending that leaves developing countries overly burdened. China, which has undertaken large infrastructure projects across Africa under President Xi Jinping’s global Belt and Road Initiative, vehemently rejects the allegations. 

Experts have different takes on whether China or Western monetary institutions are to blame for Kenya’s current woes. Kenya owes billions of dollars to Western countries and the IMF as well as China. 

“The key culprit is the lack of a well-functioning global financial safety net,” said Kevin P. Gallagher, director of Boston University’s Global Development Policy Center.  

“Programs from the International Monetary Fund and World Bank made the situation worse, rather than better, and the flaws in the G20 Common Framework to work out debt problems were seen as too risky for Kenya to enter into,” he said, referring to the debt restructuring mechanism that other indebted African countries like Zambia and Ghana have been using. 

China’s role 

Gallagher said China’s loans to Kenya have decreased in recent years, according to his university’s data, and it has little to do with the East Africa country’s debt woes. 

“Indeed, the Kenyan case disproves accusations of ‘debt-trap diplomacy’ on the part of China. If China was doing debt trap diplomacy it would be seizing Kenyan assets, instead Chinese capital has been the most patient during these rough times,” Gallagher told VOA. 

David Shinn, a former U.S. diplomat, said the blame couldn’t be placed on any one factor. 

“China is the largest bilateral lender, but its loans are quite modest when compared to the international financial institutions and holders of Eurobonds,” he told VOA. 

“All of these players share the blame for too much debt. The Kenyan government should not have allowed itself to take on so much debt and those who offered loans should have been more circumspect,” he continued.  

Alex Vines, director of the Africa Program at Chatham House, was also even-handed, saying, “China is part of the debt burden, but private equity is also contributing to the overall burden.”  

Aly-Khan Satchu, a Kenya-based economist, said Kenya was “in a perfect debt storm.”  

“You know you’d get whiplash for looking at Kenya’s politics. From a period of looking east, we’re back to looking west again … and therefore a big decision has been made to wrestle Kenya away from the Chinese orbit, with the support of the World Bank and the IMF.” 

However, Satchu said, one of the problems is that Kenya has had to reroute some of the IMF and World Bank’s money in order to pay its debts to China, particularly for a Chinese-built railway.  

Harry Verhoeven, a senior researcher at Columbia University, told VOA neither China nor the IMF is uniquely responsible for Kenya’s problems. 

“I think the IMF is not wrong in its diagnosis that there’s not enough revenue being raised, I think that’s certainly right,” he said. “Where you can be more critical of the IMF is, so far at least, that it hasn’t spoken up very much … about the distributional effects of how that revenue should be raised, or what the government has proposed to raise it.” 

Other factors 

Analysts note it wasn’t just loans that got Kenya into its fiscal predicament. The country was hard hit by the COVID-19 pandemic and has also suffered from the fallout of Russia’s war on Ukraine — which has seen global food and energy prices rise. Climate change-induced floods have also hurt the country’s economy. 

Samuel Misati Nyandemo, a senior economics lecturer at the University of Nairobi, said the Kenyan government, having withdrawn the controversial finance bill, now has a tough road ahead.  

“The government should try to balance between raising revenues and address the cost of living and doing business in the midst of entrenched corruption, impunity and wastage of public resources,” he said. 

Kenya, he warned, might not be the last African country where frustrations boil over and citizens take to the streets.  

In impassioned remarks in April, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said, “the world cannot afford to continue throwing developing countries’ plans and futures onto a raging bonfire of debt.” 

He said around 40% of the world’s population now live in countries that spend more on interest payments than health or education.
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Nigeria is one of the world’s leading producers of ginger, but a massive outbreak of fungal disease last year caused millions of dollars of damage. The Nigerian government has launched an emergency recovery intervention to help ginger farmers. Timothy Obiezu reports from Kaduna.
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