Verto Morning Digest, 3 November: South Africa votes tomorrow for 257 municipal councils

Tomorrow’s municipal vote in South Africa decides who runs Johannesburg, Cape Town, eThekwini and the other cities where water, electricity and building approvals reach businesses and households. In Niger, the first fuel bought from Algeria has arrived by road under military escort, months into shortages that have now reached the capital. We also carry a revised Ebola death toll from Congo, Egypt’s signature on a $1 billion World Bank loan and Nigeria’s October business survey. Senegal’s deputies meet in plenary on the revised 2026 budget this morning.

Twenty-nine million South Africans are registered for Wednesday’s municipal vote

Polls open at 07:00 on 4 November and close at 21:00 for elections to South Africa’s 257 municipal councils, with 29,230,808 people on the voters’ roll, up 11.5% from 26,204,579 at the 2021 local elections, the Electoral Commission said. The commission has secured 23,696 voting stations, and special voting for people unable to reach a station on the day ran on 2 and 3 November. Opening the national results centre on 28 October, chief electoral officer Sy Mamabolo declared the results system “ready and fit for purpose”. Ballots are counted at each station after polls close, and the commission has seven days to declare final results. The councils chosen tomorrow set municipal tariffs and approve building plans, so for most South African companies the outcome is a practical one.

Algerian fuel reaches Agadez under military escort as Niger’s shortages spread

Niger’s state oil company SONIDEP took delivery of its first fuel from Algeria at its Agadez depot on 1 November, after a journey of about 2,000 km from the Adrar refinery through Assamaka and Arlit. The batch, 1.65 million litres in 53 tankers, is the first part of a larger SONIDEP order, ActuNiger reported from the reception, which Petroleum Minister Hamadou Tinni attended. Algerian soldiers escorted the convoy, with Nigerien troops joining it at the border, days after Algeria’s parliament approved a deployment to Niger to protect energy interests. Filling stations in Maradi, Zinder and Agadez have been short of fuel for months, and the shortage reached Niamey this month; the government set up a crisis committee and, by decree on 12 October, a technical committee. Tinni blamed global supply disruption and price swings, saying that producing crude “ne garantit pas automatiquement l’autosuffisance en produits finis” (does not automatically guarantee self-sufficiency in refined products). Niger has not published a fuller account of why a crude producer is now importing refined fuel by convoy.

Ebola deaths in Congo revised to 5,372 after a data reconciliation

The outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo had killed 5,372 people among 10,414 confirmed cases as of 30 October, a fatality rate of 51.6%, according to a situation report from the National Institute of Biomedical Research (INRB) published on 1 November. Health ministry data reported a day earlier showed 5,026 deaths and 10,351 cases. The authorities attributed the jump of 346 deaths to a retrospective adjustment of records between the national data team and the outbreak managers in Ituri province, not to a surge on a single day. The Bundibugyo strain driving the outbreak has no approved vaccine or treatment.

Egypt signs for the second $1 billion of World Bank budget support

Egypt has signed the financing agreement for a $1 billion World Bank development policy loan, its foreign ministry said at the weekend. The loan is the second of three operations under the bank’s GROWTH programme, and its board approved it in May with a $200 million guarantee from the United Kingdom inside the package. The money supports reforms Egypt committed to before approval: governance of state-owned enterprises, fewer barriers to private investment, stronger tax collection and lower government borrowing costs, alongside automatic enrolment of Takaful and Karama cash-transfer recipients in universal health insurance and new rules for greenhouse-gas monitoring and carbon credits. The signature comes days after the central bank raised rates by 100 basis points, its first increase since March 2024.

Slower growth, faster price rises for Nigerian firms in October

Nigeria’s private sector expanded for a ninth straight month in October, though more slowly, as the Stanbic IBTC Bank Nigeria PMI eased to 55.7 from 56.4 in September; readings above 50 indicate growth. Output and new orders still rose sharply across the four sectors surveyed, but hiring was the weakest in three months, with services and wholesale and retail shedding staff. Purchase costs rose at the fastest pace in four months, mainly because of fuel, and selling prices followed. “Output prices maintained their uptrend in line with continuous increase in fuel and transportation costs,” said Muyiwa Oni, head of equity research for West Africa at Stanbic IBTC.

Related on Africa Verto: Algeria’s parliament approves sending troops to Niger to protect energy interests; Congo’s confirmed Ebola cases pass 10,000; Egypt’s central bank raises rates by 100 basis points