IMF funds troubled Sahel nations

The IMF has approved emergency aid totalling nearly $230m to help two Sahel countries fight the coronavirus. Its executive board has given the green light to disbursements of $115.3m to Burkina Faso and $114.5m to Niger to address the Covid-19 pandemic. A report on the News24 site notes that the funds are being allocated under the IMF's Rapid Credit Facility, to help meet urgent balance-of-payments needs. The two countries are also struggling with a jihadist insurgency in the Sahel that has claimed thousands of lives.

In Kenya, the Governor of Nairobi has sparked an outcry by announcing that he will distribute alcohol as part of food packs for poor families who are missing work because of the coronavirus pandemic. Governor Mike Sonko said he had included a ‘small bottles of Hennessy in the food packs that we will be giving to our people’. BBC News reports that he claimed that research by the WHO ‘and various health organisations’ revealed that alcohol plays ‘a very major role in killing the coronavirus or any sort of virus’. Sonko has previously faced allegations of drug trafficking and money laundering.

Also in Kenya, police chief Hillary Mutyambai says the grace period for not wearing face masks has expired and violators will be arrested. The Ministry of Health has gazetted that anyone found in public without a mask will be fined US $190 or face a six-month jail term. BBC News reports that public transport operators had asked the government to supply them with masks, citing high costs.