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AfCFTA Signs a 20-year, $3.1b Customs Concession
AfCFTA Holdings Limited, the AfCFTA Secretariat and AfriTrade CMP Limited signed the 20-year, $3.1 billion AfCFTA Customs Modernisation Project concession in Abuja on 5 August. AfriTrade CMP is a subsidiary of Nigeria’s Bergmans Security Consultant and Supplies Limited. The agreement follows a memorandum of understanding signed in Lagos on 1 July.
Bergmans says it will finance the project and deploy non-intrusive inspection technology, integrated data centres, multilingual customs portals, real-time cargo tracking and standardised cross-border procedures. The company said implementation would begin in at least six countries, but none has been named. No rollout timetable, charging structure or country-level agreements have been disclosed yet.
AfCFTA Secretary-General Wamkele Mene said the project was based on Bergmans’ work with the Nigeria Customs Service and would not add costs to national budgets. Bergmans is the parent company of Trade Modernisation Project Limited, the concessionaire for Nigeria’s customs-modernisation programme.
Nigeria reintroduced a 4% free-on-board levy in August 2025 to fund the customs-modernisation programme, including the B’Odogwu platform, risk-management systems and non-intrusive inspections. The Finance Ministry suspended it the following month, although the Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry subsequently said Customs continued collecting it. It’s the only publicly disclosed example of how a Bergmans-led customs-modernisation concession has been funded.
Rwanda Shuts 130 Drinks Factories and Suspends 52 Brands
Rwanda’s Food and Drugs Authority revoked all licences to import neutral spirit on 1 August, cutting off supplies of ethanol used by many local producers. The move followed about 50 deaths, more than 100 cases of vision loss and over 500 people treated after consuming illicit and substandard alcohol this year.
Inspectors visited 246 production sites over two weeks. Authorities seized products worth more than Rwf2.6 billion (est. $1.77m at current rates), imposed nearly Rwf360 million (est. $245,000 at current rates) in fines and arrested 56 people. Police began destroying more than 470,000 litres of confiscated ethanol at the Nduba dumpsite on 5 August.
The regulator also suspended 52 imported brands from Uganda, Burundi, Kenya, India, Poland and Tanzania, including Tanzania’s Konyagi, Uganda’s Bond 7 and Kenya’s Gilbey’s. The Rwanda Standards Board separately withdrew S-Mark certification from dozens of beverages. Four of the six countries of origin are East African Community partners, whose national standards marks are supposed to be mutually recognised across the bloc.
Gotion’s Moroccan Battery Factory Nears Production
Gotion Power Morocco is finalising commissioning of Africa’s first integrated lithium-iron-phosphate battery gigafactory in the Kénitra Atlantic Free Zone. Production is expected to begin by the end of summer.
The African Development Bank approved a €100 million loan on 24 July and plans to mobilise up to a further €141 million from financial partners. It’s acting as Mandated Lead Arranger under the New African Financial Architecture for Development.
The factory will initially produce 10GWh annually, compared with the 20GWh stated in the 2024 investment agreement, with possible expansion to 100 GWh. It is expected to create more than 600 direct jobs and reach 70% local industrial integration. Secondary reporting places the first phase at approximately $1.3 billion, whereas the 2023 memorandum estimated the overall project at MAD 65 billion, equivalent to nearly $7 billion. Output will primarily supply automotive plants in Morocco and southern Europe.
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