1. A row is brewing between Zambia and Dangote Cement, a major employer in Africa’s second largest copper producer, after a government minister accused an executive at the local unit of the Nigerian company of attempting to bribe him.
2. The dispute appears to be the latest in a string of incidents in which the southern African nation’s government has resorted to strong-arm or unorthodox tactics against foreign investors it believes are circumventing labour laws.
3. Dangote Industries Zambia has 400 workers building a $400m cement plant, a staff count that should rise to 2,000 when production starts in November, deputy industry minister, Miles Sampa, toldReuters.
4. During a tour of the plant in Ndola, 300km (188 miles) north of the capital, Lusaka, labour minister, Fackson Shamenda, said a Nigerian executive seconded to the Zambian unit tried to bribe him at a hotel a week ago.
5. The company described the allegations as “malicious misinformation.”
“For the record, DIZ categorically deny any claims of corruption and bribery, and reserve our rights on this matter,” it said in a statement.
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