The new refinery is expected to become a regional processing hub for gold from Mali and neighbouring countries. Credit: Alexey_Rezvykh/Shutterstock.
Mali has initiated construction of a new gold refinery backed by Russia, marking a step towards the country’s goal of asserting greater control over its natural resources, according to a Reutersreport.
The facility, with a 200 tonne (t) capacity and a controlling stake held by Mali, is a joint venture (JV) with Russia’s Yadran Group and a Swiss investment firm.
The new refinery is expected to become a regional processing hub for gold, not only from Mali but also from neighbouring countries such as Burkina Faso.
Despite West Africa’s status as a major gold producer, the region has lacked a functional and globally certified gold refinery.
This has been a long-standing gap in the market despite previous attempts to establish such a facility, including by Ghana, the continent’s leading gold producer.
Mali’s interim president Colonel Assimi Goita has emphasised the refinery’s role in improving the tracking of gold production and exports.
He pointed out that, like many African nations, Mali suffers significant financial losses due to gold smuggling, exacerbated by the lack of certified refineries and traceability programmes.
The construction of the refinery is part of broader mining reforms under Mali’s military leader, who assumed power in 2021.
These reforms have included a revised mining code that aligns with changes in neighbouring countries such as Guinea, Niger and Burkina Faso, causing unease among investors.
Tensions have been evident in Mali’s mining sector, as seen with the recent court decision to place the Loulo-Gounkoto gold complex operated by Canadian mining company Barrick under temporary state control amidst a tax dispute. Mining Technology
In a moving tribute that underscored his pan-African leadership and the African Development Bank’s (AfDB) deepening development footprint across the continent, Tanzania has named a key national infrastructure, the 112-kilometre Dodoma Outer Ring Road, after the immediate past President of the African Development Bank (AfDB), Dr. Akinwumi Adesina.
The announcement was made recently during the inauguration ceremony attended by President Samia Suluhu Hassan and Adesina, who was on a two-day working visit to Tanzania.
The Tanzanian leader described Adesina as “a visionary leader, a tireless son of Africa who has dedicated his life to transform the narrative of the continent.”
In a statement, President Suluhu declared: “I have accepted a recommendation by the Ministry of Works to rename the Dodoma Outer Ring Road as the Dr. Akinwumi Adesina Road.”
The newly named dual carriageway forms part of the Cape to Cairo continental corridor and is a strategic infrastructure project intended to ease congestion in Tanzania’s rapidly expanding administrative capital while enhancing regional trade and connectivity.
The road project was financed by the AfDB with $138 million, in addition to $42 million from the Africa Growing Together Fund, and $34.69 million from the Government of Tanzania.
Speaking at the commissioning, President Suluhu Hassan praised Adesina for the transformative support Tanzania has received under his leadership.
“Your visionary leadership has brought significant socio-economic change to Tanzania and across Africa,” she said, highlighting the role of the AfDB in major infrastructure developments including the ring road, the Msalato International Airport, and the Standard Gauge Railway connecting Tanzania to Burundi and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
“These projects address the realities of Dodoma’s fast-rising population and the increasing demand for efficient transport,” she added.
Since beginning operations in Tanzania in 1971, the AfDB has invested over $9 billion in the country, with $4.73 billion or 53 per cent disbursed in just the last decade under Adesina’s leadership.
Recognising this contribution, Suluhu said: “On behalf of the people of Tanzania, I express our gratitude to the African Development Bank for being a dependable partner of our country’s development journey.” By Nume Ekeghe, ThisDay
Boniface Kariuki, a 22-year-old hawker shot by police in Nairobi CBD, addresses the press on Wednesday, June 18, 2025.
The father of Boniface Kariuki, the young man who was shot by an anti-riot police officer at the Nairobi Central Business District (CBD) yesterday, has expressed frustration over his son's situation.
Kariuki's father, while addressing journalists on Wednesday morning, revealed that he received reports of his son's condition yesterday evening through social media platforms.
According to him, at around 8 pm, he received a phone call from Kariuki's close associate, who confirmed that indeed his son had been shot by police officers in the city centre.
"I received a phone call from his friends who told me that my son had been shot. At first, when I saw his image on social media, I could not promptly confirm if it was him; however, I later identified him," Kairuki's father narrated.
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He went on to add, "When I saw the photo of him injured, I was so shocked and broken, I could not believe what I had seen. From the video that I watched using my phone, I saw the police shooting him."
Kairuki's father disclosed that his 22-year-old son was the firstborn in a family of four children and was shot by the police while undertaking his routine business of selling masks within Nairobi CBD.
Moments after receiving reports of his child's situation, Kairuki's father abandoned his journey back home and instead rushed to Kenyatta National Hospital (KNH), where his son had been taken for treatment.
"I visited my son in the ICU; he was in a dire condition and placed on oxygen. His heart was still beating. But when I saw him at the hospital, I became hopeful," said Kairuki's father.
"My son is a vendor within this city. He usually sells masks and sometimes beauty products such as earrings. When I arrived here at the hospital, the doctors assured me that they would help my son," he added.
Boniface Kariuki was shot by an anti-riot police officer on Tuesday afternoon at Moi Avenue during heated demonstrations against Deputy Inspector General of Police Eliud Lagat.
A footage shared widely on social media platforms depicted two police officers beating up Kariuki before one of the officers cocked his gun and aimed at the 22-year-old, shooting him in the neck.
While the identity of the officer who shot Kairuki is yet to be revealed, the National Police Service, through its Spokesperson, Muchiri Nyaga, on Tuesday night, stated that the rogue officer had been arrested. By Timothy Cerullo, Kenyans.co.ke
Baktash Akasha (L) and his brother Ibrahim Akasha when they appeared in a Mombasa court for their extradition case on January 2, 2017. [File Courtesy, Standard]
Briton Muhammad Asif Hafeez, jailed recently by the US for orchestrating an international drug trafficking empire, had close links with the notorious Akasha brothers in Mombasa.
The New York court convicted Hafeez, aka Sultan, of conspiring to import heroin and hashish into the U.S. He was arrested in the UK on August 25, 2017, and extradited to the US in 2023.
Described by the US prosecution as a ‘puppet master’ of a global criminal enterprise that stretched across several continents, Hafeez presented himself as a reputable business mogul and had pleaded guilty to the offence.
However, the drug empire of Hafeez, whose prison time is set to lapse in 2033, having been in jail since 2017, started to crumble in 2014 after the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) launched a sting operation in Mombasa.
According to the video clips played in the US court, DEA agents taped a meeting between him and the Akasha brothers selling 99 kilos of heroin and 2 kilos of meth to a Colombian drug dealer.
Evidence filed in a US court revealed that Hafeez was at the centre of trafficking huge consignments of drugs offloaded and loaded on small fishing boats from Tanzania, Kenya, and Mozambique.
In a New York court, the prosecution showed a clip showing that Hafeez inspired both reverence and fear in the underground drug world. His associates called him “the Sultan” (ruler), and he was the supplier of unnamed Colombian drug dealers.
Ibrahim Akasha, the young son of the late Kenyan Akasha Ibrahim Abdalla, untangles nylon paper, pours a white substance onto foil paper, and burns it to demonstrate the heroin’s purity.
Authorities nabbed Ibrahim and his brother Baktash Akasha in the same sting operation. They extradited them to the U.S. in January to face narcotics charges following a New York court indictment on October 28, 2015.
The two, alongside Indian drug felon Vijayghiri Goswami and Pakistani Gulam Hussein, were snatched away by the US and Kenyan police, who raided Baktash’s seaside home in the high-end estate of Nyali.
According to the indictments, Hafeez conspired with Baktash, Ibrahim, Goswami, and Gulam Hussein to import heroin into the U.S. Baktash was the leader of the “Akasha Organisation”.
Baktash was responsible for the production and distribution of tonnes of narcotics within Kenya and throughout Africa and maintained a network used to distribute narcotics for importation into the U.S.
“Hafeez supplied the Akasha Organisation’s primary narcotics suppliers, including the late Akasha, who led the Akasha Organisation before his murder in the Netherlands in 2000,” the U.S. stated. Attorney Damian Williams told the court.
However, the DEA and the Kenya police set a dragnet to monitor the trafficking of the drugs that led to the arrest of Hafeez and the two Akasha brothers, Goswami and Gulam.
In October 2014, Ibrahim delivered a kilo of heroin sample, on behalf of Hafeez and the Akasha Organisation, to confidential sources acting at the direction of the DEA in Nairobi.
According to Mr Williams, in early November 2014, Ibrahim delivered 98 additional kilograms of heroin to the confidential sources. During this investigation, Baktash boasted in a recorded meeting that Hafeez had distributed “tonnes” of narcotics with his father and the Akasha Organisation.
It’s unclear whether Baktash and Ibrahim knew Hafeez before their father’s murder. It is clear from court records that Hafeez, Goswami, and the late Akasha patriarch worked together in Mozambique.
Significantly, after an assassin’s bullet felled Mzee Akasha in the red streets of Amsterdam, Netherlands, sibling rivalry almost brought the patriarch’s empire to its knees.
Barely two years after his death, on March 28, 2002, his son, Kamaldin, was shot dead outside his petrol station in Makupa, Mombasa, in a case of fratricide.
The violent feud within the polygamous Akasha clan exposed the Akasha sons’ pursuit to inherit from their father. After Kamaldin was killed and Habab quit the illicit trade, Baktash took over the reins.
However, sources said that Goswami's arrival in Mombasa on November 22, 2012, appeared to have opened a new door for the Akasha sons to rebuild their late father’s empire.
Goswami entered Kenya on a forged Indian passport on November 22, 2012, after serving a 17-year drug conviction in the United Arab Emirates, according to security sources.
Sources in the security sector assert that Goswami revived the links with the “Akasha Organisation” led by Baktash.
Like Hafeez, Goswami employed a game of deception, presenting himself as an accomplished businessperson or investor across Africa. In Mombasa, Goswami enjoyed police protection.
In Mombasa, he lived with a gorgeous Bollywood actress, Mamta Kulkarni, as his mistress at the affluent Nyali estate. He was close to a former principal secretary and an MP who guaranteed him protection.
During an interview with this reporter in 2017 at Mombasa Port Police cells, he got permission to hire armed bodyguards because his life was under threat and he needed to be protected.
He also claimed that he was a marked man by the Indian government, which piled pressure on Kenya to extradite him to India for trial. He did not state what offence he had committed in India.
The media-shy Goswami admitted that he was jailed in the UAE after his conviction for drug trafficking and manufacturing, although he alleged that he was framed.
In a startling revelation, Goswami told us then that he entered Kenya via JKIA in 2014 as an investor and had even travelled to Rwanda and India. We could not independently confirm the claim.
“They (immigration officers at JKIA) knew my record,” said Goswami in an admission that his conviction in India was a matter of public notoriety that Kenyan officials knew.
Sources in the security circles, however, insist that Goswami entered Kenya on a forged Indian passport on November 22, 2012, after serving a 17-year drug conviction in the United Arab Emirates.
Why did he come to Kenya?
In an interview, Goswami claimed he had known the late Akasha for 26 years when he lived in Zambia. Goswami said he and the late Akasha invested in a mining business in the southern African nation.
Goswami claimed he came to Kenya in 1994 after Zambia deported him, but did not state why. He added that in the 1980s, he passed through Kenya but did not explain from where or to where.
Other reports indicated that Goswami fled Zambia and South Africa, where authorities investigated him for murder, drugs, and racketeering, before he ended up in Dubai, where a court convicted him.
Although the late Akasha reportedly introduced the narcotics trade to his arsenal of businesses in the 1970s and 1980s, he embodied a contradiction of the good and the bad.
Other reports indicate that Goswami's and Hafeez’s arrival in Mombasa sparked wars among competing drug cartels, allowing the DEA and Kenyan detectives to infiltrate them.
For instance, according to court records, in December 2016, Baktash and Ibrahim fought with a prominent businessman in a Nyali club; someone drew and fired guns.
The businessman reportedly walked into the club and confronted the Akasha brother and Goswami, who were having drinks with his friends, including the PS, MP, and an elegant woman, before the fight broke out.
The U.S. detectives claimed that the PS and MP received money from Goswami, the Akasha brother, and Hafeez in early January 2017 for protection.
During these wars, a DEA sting operation in Mombasa netted Goswami, Baktash, Ibrahim, and Gulam. By Bernard Sanga, The Standard
Uganda’s Ministry of Finance Planning and Economic Development has unveiled a Shs72.136 trillion national budget for the 2025/2026 financial year, setting its sights on transforming every corner of the country into a hub of commercial activity.
Presented by Finance Minister Matia Kasaija last Thursday, the budget signals a strong shift towards full monetisation of Uganda’s economy, underpinned by commercial agriculture, industrialisation, digital transformation, and expanded access to markets.
Speaking against the backdrop of a rapidly growing economy, Kasaija painted a picture of a Uganda ready to transition from resilience to acceleration.
“The budget for next financial year, and over the medium term, is focused on people and wealth creation,” he said.
Consequently, the theme of the financial year 2025/26 is: “Full Monetisation of Uganda’s Economy through Commercial Agriculture, Industrialisation, Expanding and Broadening Services, Digital Transformation and Market Access.’”
The Shs72.3 trillion resource envelope represents one of the largest in Uganda’s history, with domestic revenue expected to contribute Shs37.2 trillion, roughly 60 percent of the total.
The rest will be financed through borrowing and grants. The budget deficit is estimated at 7.6 percent of GDP.
But Kasaija reassured Ugandans, stating that the government had a clear strategy to enhance domestic revenue mobilisation, widen the tax base, and strengthen tax administration.
“Government plans to collect Shs37.2 trillion in domestic revenue next financial year,” he said, adding that focus would be placed on tackling smuggling, corruption at Uganda Revenue Authority (URA), and leveraging digital tools like the Electronic Fiscal Receipting and Invoicing System to plug leakages.
Priority sectors such as health, education, agriculture, infrastructure, and tourism received large shares of the allocation.
Healthcare emerged as a major beneficiary, with Shs5.87 trillion earmarked for next year. Kasaija detailed plans to functionalise health centre IVs, scale up e-health systems, and expand emergency medical services.
He said the government had already delivered 20 digital X-ray machines and installed CT scanners in 14 out of 16 regional referral hospitals.
“We are strengthening the National Ambulance and Emergency Care System,” he added.
In education, the minister allocated Shs5.04 trillion to support Universal Primary and Secondary Education, student loans, the construction of new seed schools, and improvements in teacher recruitment and digital inspections.
Kasaija also confirmed the upcoming operationalisation of Bunyoro and Busoga universities, as well as continued investment in sports infrastructure ahead of African Champions Cup (CHAN) and African Cup of Nation (AFCON 2027). APA News
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