In many ways the initial public offering of the Kenya Electricity Generating Company (KenGen) in 2006 was a watershed in the history of the country's capital markets. It was the first big flotation in a decade in a market thirsting for new offers by the government since the Kenya Airways share issue in 1996.

Demand for Safaricom shares is expected to remain high after it is listed, influenced by a subscription level of about 400 per cent.

The Mozambican government on Tuesday announced the sale of 10 per cent of the shares in the publicly-owned Mozambican Hydrocarbon Company (CMH) - but only Mozambican individuals or companies may purchase the shares.

Despite being assured of making at least Sh50 billion from the yet-to-be concluded Safaricom IPO, the Government is back on the market seeking to borrow at least Sh7 billion through the monthly Treasury bonds auction.

The Tanzania government is reviewing two huge infrastructure management contracts that formed key planks of its privatisation programme.

Thanks so much for your help, foreign investors! That is what Kenyans are thinking after it emerged foreigners will scoop the Safaricom shares for Sh5.50, after a much-hyped book building.

The law of neo-liberalism states that "government is a bad manager"; that business men and women were more transparent and accountable and were thus better able to manage corporate business within the framework of the private corporate sector than the state; that this business men and women should either be white or have a white backing.

The much-hyped Safaricom's initial public offer has raked in Sh191 billion in bids from local and international investors.

Safaricom has so far attracted Sh191 billion from both local and foreign investors, surpassing the Treasury's target of Sh50 billion by nearly four times and making it Sub-Saharan Africa's biggest initial public offering.

A proposed Bill that will partially open up the Tanzania Energy Supply Company (Tanesco) to private investors has divided parliament, with some members openly claiming that sections of the new Act could be a source of grand corruption.

Millions of Kenyans who applied for Safaricom shares are likely to get between 30 and 35 per cent of what they hoped for in the recently concluded initial public offering.