Tag: GreatLakesNews

{Ugandan police have recovered a vehicle belonging to Mumias Anglican Church of Kenya (ACK) Bishop Beneah Salala that was stolen in Eldoret town last week.}

The vehicle, a Toyota RAV4, was found 20 kilometres from Tororo in eastern Uganda on Friday night and towed to Kenya.

According to the clergyman, two armed gangsters carjacked his mechanic as he drove the sport utility vehicle to Mumias on Wednesday, August 31.

“He had just finished servicing the vehicle when he was carjacked by two gangsters on the outskirts of Eldoret town at around 7pm.

“The gangsters, one armed with an iron bar, forced him to the vehicle’s back seat and drove up to Mateka area in Bungoma County where they abandoned him and drove off with the vehicle,” Rev Salala told the Nation by phone.

“I was called by the district police commander in charge of Tororo on Friday [who informed me] that they had recovered the vehicle,” he added.

He said it took the intervention of President Uhuru Kenyatta and his deputy William Ruto to recover the vehicle.

“I want to thank them because immediately [after] I contacted them through short text messages, police swung into action and within hours, the vehicle was recovered,” he stated.

The vehicle was taken to the Busia police post.

Only two weeks ago, a vehicle belonging to the wife of former presidential candidate Peter Kenneth was stolen in Nairobi and recovered in Uganda.

{Two men, including an accountant of Mpanda hospital called Amédé Niyorugira and Innocent Busoni, a businessman, were killed yesterday around 9p.m in Nyamabere locality in the western province of Bubanza.}

According to Pierre Nkurikiye, the spokesperson of the Burundian police, armed men driving in “T.I” type vehicle shot them while returning home on a motorbike. The police tried to intervene but criminals had already run away.

‘Victims were just from a concert held by a Burundian artist living in Kenya nicknamed ‘Kidumu’ at Liani Bar about 7pm. On their way back, they were followed by these criminals who shot them with a handgun,” says Nkurikiye.

He explained that land-related conflicts would be behind that crime. Pierre Nkurikiye indicates that two people were arrested to help the police with their inquiries. On August 31, a moto-taxi driver was killed in the same locality by an armed man disguised himself as a passenger.

{Fear of economic competition among countries is one of the barriers to East Africa Community integration.}

Members of the National Assembly committee on regional integration said some countries in the region are at a “lower production level” than others.

The committee’s vice chair Christopher Nakuleu said the EAC member states need to address the issue of economic status of the countries to speed up integration.

“Before the integration was introduced, countries were operating on different production levels. For instance the GDP of Burundi is 11 times less than Kenya. This disparity poses a major challenge,” Mr Nakuleu said.

They observed that past perceptions that led to collapse of East Africa community in 1977 have also contributed to lack of commitment by some member states to the integration.

“Re-introduction of East Africa community was meant to encourage competitiveness among member states. This will not only improve regional economy but foster unity,” said the Turkana North MP.

The committee members also accused some countries of derailing the regional incorporation by failing to implement some projects.

They said Kenya is lagging behind in putting up some structures to facilitate integration saying Uganda has completed similar projects.

The committee members were inspecting implementations of cross border projects on the Kenya-Uganda border.

Kisumu County Women Representative Rose Nyamunga challenged member states to educate citizens on benefits of integration.

“There are challenges that are yet to be fully addressed like insecurity. Citizens of most (EAC) countries are ye t to fully embrace the integration due to fear of unknown,” he said

Other MPs present included David Ochieng (Ugenya) and Emmanuel Wangwe (Navakholo).

{Mr Museveni says Africa is the place to be right now.}

The inaugural Global African Investment Summit opened yesterday in the Rwandan capital Kigali, with political leaders and business executives agreeing that Africa is on the right trajectory of development.

The summit, however, noted that more efforts such as strengthening of economic integration to create more markets are still required.

The summit, held in Africa for the first time with previous editions held in London, was attended by President Museveni and his Rwandan counterpart Paul Kagame, who during an interactive panel, reiterated the vast potential for investment that Africa has.

President Museveni, during the panel, indicated that while there are still some structural bottlenecks such as underdevelopment of infrastructure, “Africa is the place to be right now.”

“Business logic means two players, that is the producer and the consumer but the two are linked by infrastructure,” Mr Museveni said.

He reiterated that regional economic integration is the only way to cure the problems of small markets.

The summit sought to build discussions on the creation of the Tripartite Free Trade Area (TFTA) that seeks to integrate Africa’s three major regional economic blocs— the East African Community, Southern African Development Community, and the Common Market of Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA). TFTA was launched last year.

{A Kenyan has been elected vice-president of the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights (ACHPR).}

Justice Ben Kioko was named following the election of new bureau at the court in Arusha, Tanzania, on Monday.

Judge Sylvain Ore from Cote d’Ivoire was named president, succeeding Justice Augustino Ramadhani from Tanzania whose term ended on September 5.

The ACHPR started its 42nd Ordinary Session on Monday. The session ends on September 16. The session also saw two new judges, Justice Ntyam Ondo Mengue from Cameroon and Justice Marie Thérése Mukamulisa from Rwanda, sworn-in.

The two were elected at last month’s African Union Summit in Kigali, Rwanda.

The terms of office for Justice Elsie Thompson (Nigeria), who was the vice-president, Justice Fatsah Ouguergouz (Algeria) and Justice Duncan Tambala (Malawi) also ended on September 5.

The court, which meets four times a year and may hold extraordinary sessions, is made up of 11 judges elected in their individual capacity from African Union member states.

The judges’ session that started on Monday will examine about 60 applications and four requests for advisory opinions.

EXTENSIVE LEGAL EXPERIENCE

Justice Kioko, who was elected judge of the ACHPR in July 2012 for a six-year term, has extensive legal experience and expertise, having worked with several African Union bodies and the regional economic communities including East Africa Community, Igad, Comesa and Ecowas among others.

Justice Kioko served in the legal service of the OAU/AU in various capacities, rising to become the chief legal adviser to the African Union Commission from 2001 to July 2012.

He was also involved in the conceptualisation, drafting and negotiation of treaties adopted under the aegis of the OAU/AU since 1994 and the adoption of the treaty organs.

He was also involved in the drafting and negotiation of human rights instruments relating to combating corruption, the rights of women, democracy, governance and elections.

On the ACHPR, Justice Kioko was part of the initial group that sought the assembly decision on the matter in 1994, met in Addis Ababa and Geneva to initiate the Zero draft Protocol, and subsequently convened all the meetings of government experts and ministers of justice prior to adoption of the Protocol by the executive council and the assembly.

Justice Kioko serves as member of Advisory Group on Implementation of the Human Rights Standards Project, Human Rights Implementation Centre, Faculty of Law, University of Bristol in the United Kingdom; member of the editorial board of the Commonwealth Law Journal, Commonwealth Secretariat, London, United Kingdom; and associate member of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators.

{Tanzania Ports Authority (TPA) has explained the decline in cargo volume at the Dar es Salaam Port, attributing the situation to enhanced supervision aimed at controlling tax evasion. It, however, noted that despite the drop in cargo traffic, the port has continued to perform well in terms of revenue collection.}

According to a TPA report presented recently to the Parliamentary Committee for Industry, Trade and Environment, between 2011/2012 and 2015/2016, the authority’s revenue collection increased by an average of 16.85 per cent per year.

In 2015/2016, a total of 694,383bn/- was collected, compared to 679,331bn/-, which was raised in 2014/2015. Dar es Salaam Port has been attracting cargo from the neighbouring landlocked countries of Zambia, Malawi, Burundi, Rwanda, Uganda, DRC and Zimbabwe.

TPA Director General Deusdedit Kakoko told the ‘Daily News’ in Dar es Salaam yesterday that the drop in cargo volume was not only being experienced in Tanzania but also in other countries such as Kenya and South Africa.

Mr Kakoko said that according to a report by TPA officials who visited the countries, the Port of Durban in South Africa registered a 10 per cent decline in cargo volume in the first quarter of this year while at Mombasa Port, it dropped by 1.5 per cent for the same period.

He cited China’s economic downturn as one of the reasons behind the decline of cargo volume in many ports, since 34 per cent of the world’s economy depended on the Far-East country.

The DG explained that cargo traffic at the Dar Port has decreased by 800,000 tonnes between 2014/2015 and 2015/2016. He added that despite the high volumes recorded in the past, some traders tended to evade from paying taxes thus denying the Authority revenue.

“It is true that cargo volume at the Dar es Salaam Port has dropped. But the situation has not affected our revenue collections because even with the high volume recorded in the previous years, TPA could not get its fair revenue because some traders were not paying taxes as required by law. We have strengthened supervision to ensure tax compliance,” the DG said.

Mr Kakoko said, however, that the introduction of Value Added Tax (VAT) on transit cargo should not be considered as the main reason contributed to the decline in cargo volume at the port because the mechanism became effective in this financial year.

“The drop in cargo volume started to be experienced even before the introduction of VAT, although some traders may have decided to shun from using the port but this should not be regarded as the main reason for the drop in cargo volume because it became applicable in the past two months,” Mr Kakoko noted.

The Tanzania Revenue Authority’s Director of Education and Taxpayers’ Services, Mr Richard Kayombo, told the ‘Daily News’ that the drop in cargo volume involved mainly cargo for domestic consumption and to a lesser extent on transit cargo to DR Congo as fuel cargo and those on transit to Zambia and Burundi went up.

Mr Kayombo said that the government’s initiatives to control tax evasion loopholes at the port may be the main reason for the fall in cargo volume.

“It is obvious that revenue collection could drop with the decline in cargo volume but it has not been so …it seems that traders who shunned using our port are the ones who were evading taxes,” Mr Kayombo charged.

TRA statistics show that while cargo volume at Dar Port has dropped, customs revenue in 2015 ranged between 200bn/- and 300bn/- while in the period between December last year and August this year, the average of customs revenue per month has been between 400bn/ and 550bn/-.

Last week, the Parliamentary Committee for Industry, Trade and Environment said it plans to invite the Prime Minister, Mr Kassim Majaliwa, key stakeholders and ministries responsible for ports’ management to a meeting to find a solution to the decline of cargo volume at Dar es Salaam Port.