Tag: GreatLakesNews

{Lubumbashi – Fourteen Chinese people suspected of illegally exporting red wood from the Democratic Republic of Congo were arrested on Thursday, local officials said.
}

“We have arrested Chinese people… who were cutting wood in our region,” Celestin Pande, acting governor of the Haut-Katanga region, told AFP.

Pande said 17 000 tons of red wood had been illegally exported to China through Zambia over four months.

“We have arrested 14 Chinese nationals with (tourist) visas, who were involved in cutting and illegally exporting red wood,” an immigration official in Haut-Katanga added, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Since the beginning of the year, a crisis linked to exotic wood exports has poisoned relations between DRC and neighbouring Zambia.

Zambia has seized several hundred vehicles transporting padauk, a dense wood used in construction and woodworking, from DRC as part of investigations into exports to China.

Kinshasa has denounced the seizure, but on Thursday a delegation from the capital decided to ban the logging and exportation of red wood from Haut-Katanga.

Haut-Katanga’s forests have been devastated by illegal logging, with wood mostly used for charcoal, the main source of energy for an electricity-deprived population.

Source:News 24

{A lack of foreign currency means petrol pumps are running dry across Burundi, the government has admitted, as the country struggles with a serious two-year-old political crisis.}

Long queues have been quickly forming in the capital Bujumbura where petrol is only available at some of the fuel stations some of the time.

“It’s been a disaster for the last week because we only find one or two stations stocked every other day across the whole capital,” said Hassan, a 35-year-old taxi driver reached by telephone.

He said that when a fuel truck delivers, the news spreads like wildfire among desperate motorists, and “hundreds of cars and buses rush over to it, and in a few hours there is not a drop left.”

The shortage has triggered a sharp rise in the price of black market petrol which now sells for 7,000 Burundi francs ($4 or 3.70 euros) per litre, more than three times the official rate.

The price of taxi rides has increased and many drivers have chosen to leave vehicles at home and travel on foot, leaving the capital strangely quiet.

But the situation is worse still outside Bujumbura.

In the second city of Gitega residents said there has been almost no petrol for the last month.

“Sometimes one of the 10 stations in the city receives a few thousand litres, but they are gone in a few hours,” said one resident who did not want to be named saying anything the government might dislike.

– ‘Total asphyxiation’ –

Urged by parliament to investigate the cause of the shortages, Burundi’s energy minister, Come Manirakiza, said last week it was down to “the lack of sufficient foreign currency” to pay for imports to the landlocked central African country.

Manirakiza said that “due to the period we are in” importers were unable to get hold of the US dollars they need to import fuel.

Burundi is in the midst of a deep political crisis triggered by President Pierre Nkurunziza’s decision to run for a controversial third term in April 2015, a move his opponents said was illegal.

Many months of sometimes violent upheaval followed, leaving at least 500 dead while a further 400,000 people have left the country.

The political crisis has triggered an economic crisis, deepened by sanctions imposed on Burundi by the EU, the impoverished nation’s biggest donor, accounting for 70 percent of aid.

The EU and member countries stopped direct budgetary support to the Burundian government in protest at a brutal crackdown on opponents, but specific projects are still being financed, a diplomat said on condition of anonymity, including dams, roads, health and education.

The EU also continues to pay for fuel for power stations supplying around one-sixth of the country’s electricity.

That support, the diplomat said, has “saved the country from total asphyxiation”.

Source:The Independent

{President Museveni has said private sector led ventures in large infrastructure projects is a necessity for Africa to attain a certain level of economic development but the challenge is their “carelessness” and desire to recoup investments in a short period. }

He said this often results in the high cost of doing business on the continent.

The President also criticised international financial agencies that have either funded or expressed interest in funding infrastructural projects in Africa such as the World Bank, saying they are unserious and one of their biggest problems is “frivolity.”

“They take small things, say tendering, when you go for tendering, they bring all sorts of jokers, and then they want the same ground field for the tenderers; then when the small ones don’t win, then they appeal….then you find a project taking like five years to start,” said Mr Museveni, who was speaking on Wednesday as the chief panellist at this year’s World Economic Forum on Africa in Durban, South Africa.

He added, “Why can’t you (financial lending institutions) look for serious groups and are the ones which tender for business instead of wasting time with these jokers. We shall be democratic (in terms of business) later after we have had some of the infrastructures.”

Unlike other panellists who made case for investment in other sectors such as education, the President argued that it will be a miracle to “see a country that develops without electricity.”

The government is currently undertaking massive infrastructural projects including, dams and roads and is also in talks with the Chinese government for an advance loan of $2.8b (about Shs8 trillion) for the multi-billion Standard Gauge Railway.

Once roads and railway are in place, the President said it will help phase out the transport bottleneck and help farmers get their produce to the market, which will boost productivity with related economic returns. With surplus power in place, the President says this will spur industrialisation and agriculture because farmer’s warehouses will be effective a model for long term economic development planning, a line of thinking which is still subject of debate.

He made a case for Africa using its own means to fund projects such as “paying less salaries” to public servants to be able to divert the rest of the money in the budget to infrastructural development.

“When you do that, then you can ask these agencies to come in and help.” He added that there is political will on the continent to attain economic development but one main challenge countries are grappling with is the piecemeal approach to development, further exacerbated by “ideological meandering.”

“In the last 55 years, I have found out that taking one element and concentrating on it is not enough,” Mr Museveni noted. “It must be infrastructure plus others like education, fragmentation of markets. You must ask, if you produce goods and services, who will buy? And is it sustainable?” He however, stressed that good infrastructure projects are ones that do not result into high costs for doing business by the private sector.

{{Theme}}

The Forum under the theme “Achieving Inclusive Growth through Responsive and Responsible Leadership” which ends today was attended by more than 1,000 participants from several countries around the world to exchange ideas on economic progress, prospects and challenges on the continent. Other members on the panel discussion on the topic “Agenda 2063: Infrastructure Update” moderated by the Vice President of the World Bank’s IFC, included Patrick Dlamini, the chief executive officer of the Development Bank of Southern Africa, Andrew Baldwin, a managing partner of Ernest & Young, and Carlos Pone, CEO of US based engineering firm AECOM.

{{Forum}}

The Forum under the theme “Achieving Inclusive Growth through Responsive and Responsible Leadership” which ends today was attended by more than 1,000 participants from several countries around the world to exchange ideas on economic progress, prospects and challenges on the continent.

Source:Daily Monitor

{A Swiss court has ruled that the remains of Burundi’s deposed king Mwambutsa IV, who died 40 years ago, must stay in Switzerland, ending a drawn out legal battle, local media reported on Tuesday.}

Mwambutsa led Burundi at independence from Belgium in 1962, but was deposed just four years later in a dispute linked to rivalries between ethnic Tutsis and Hutus, which still haunt the country.

The monarch died in Switzerland in 1977, leaving clear instructions that his remains should never be returned to Burundi.

But his daughter and the Burundian government campaigned for his remains to be repatriated, reportedly hoping to use the occasion to organise a ceremony promoting national reconciliation.

In 2012, one of the king’s relatives authorized the exhumation of his remains ahead of an eventual repatriation.

Mwambutsa’s niece princess Esther Kamatari opposed the process insisting the king’s last wishes should be honoured.

Switzerland’s federal court, the nation’s highest legal authority, has sided with Kamatari, the ATS news agency said.

The judges upheld a ruling issued last year by a lower court in Geneva.

Amid the legal back and fourth following his exhumation, Mwambutsa’s remains have been held in a cold-storage facility at a Geneva funeral home for the past five years.

Kamatari fled Burundi herself in 1970, ultimately settling in Paris where she worked as a model, including for top designers like Christian Dior and Yves Saint Laurent.

She voiced interest in contesting in Burundi’s 2004 presidential election but never made it onto the ballot.

Burundi has been seized by crisis for two years, since President Pierre Nkurunziza sought a third term. The turmoil has left an estimated 500 people dead, according to the UN.

Source:AFP

{The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) will vie with Peru as the fastest growing major mining market in the world during the next five years, forecasts research firm BMI.

The firm states that the DRC benefits from low labour costs, high ore grades and vast untapped resources that will attract foreign investment into some of its largest gold and copper deposits, particularly from China. }

Further, the rise in global cobalt demand will further fuel potential for growth in the DRC’s mining sector owing to the country’s vast reserves of the battery-making commodity.

“Containing over 50% of the world’s cobalt reserves, the DRC will be a beneficiary of the booming cobalt industry in the coming years. Primarily used in rechargeable batteries, we project that solid future growth in global battery demand will support cobalt consumption and prices for decades to come,” BMI said.

“We forecast DRC’s cobalt production to increase from 70 100 t in 2017 to 82 000 t by 2021.”

However, BMI warned that, despite strong growth projections, recent moves aimed at reforming the mining code to increase royalties and taxes have the potential to disrupt BMI’s forecasts, while uncertainty regarding the upcoming DRC elections may lead to social unrest.

“BMI’s country risk team believes it is likely that the elections will be postponed to 2018, which could lead to a cut in foreign aid and discontent among the population,” BMI said.

Source: Mining Weekly

{A total of 9100 candidates who applied for Public Service Jobs have appeared for an aptitude test at Namboole Stadium seeking to join the central government.}

According to the commissioner human resource in charge of guidance and monitoring Mr Richard Enyomu, Public Service advertised for the jobs and received more than 10,000 applicants and that to cut down the number, they had to take the candidates through an aptitude test.

“We have had two groups sitting for aptitude tests here. The first group had 5,050 candidates and the second one has had 4,050 candidates and in total we have had 9,100 candidates appearing for the aptitude test,” said Mr Enyomu.

The chairman Public Service Commission Mr Ralph Ochan said after the aptitude test, they will select about 162 candidates who would then later appear for oral interviews for the 124 vacancies.

“We are targeting a ratio of jobs to candidates of 1:2 because we need to have the numbers reduced down wards for easy management,” he said.

Latest reports show that nearly 80 per cent of the youth in Uganda are unemployed.

Source:Daily Monitor

{Anti-corruption detectives on Thursday raided the home of National Land Commission chairman Muhammad Swazuri.}

Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission spokesman Yasin Aila said the raid was prompted by suspected graft in compensating individuals and institutions affected by the standard gauge railway project.

Also raided are the homes of vice-chairman Abigael Mbagaya Mukolwe and chief executive officer Tom Aziz Changingi.

The homes of several top managers were also raided.

Other reports indicated that the home of the valuation and Taxation Director Salome Munubi, director of finance Francis Mugo, manager Mary Ngundo were also raided by the officials.

It is alleged that over Sh 2 billion was irregularly paid between November and December.

The queries include “compensation to individuals for public land, double compensation, compensation to people who did not own land acquired for SGR project, excessive compensation as a result of over valuation, compensation in regard to Kenya Railway Reserve land,” according to EACC.

The officials are also being investigated for abuse of office.

“So far important documents helpful to the investigations have been identified and recovered,” said Mr Aila.

He added: “Upon completion of the investigation EACC will forward a report and the inquiry file to the Director of Public Prosecutions with appropriate recommendations.”

NLC is also being investigated by the National Assembly Lands Committee because of the large payments made in December last year.

The Commission’s secretariat was accused of withholding information on the matter.

Among the plots of land were at least five parcels in Embakasi valued at a combined Sh215 million.

Former journalist, Mugo Njeru filed a complaint claiming Mr Swazuri asked him for a bribe to facilitate compensation of his prime land.

Njeru and his wife Edith Wairimu accused Swazuri of demanding a bribe of Sh1.2 million to be compensated for their land which the government acquired for the Standard Gauge Railway project.

Source:Daily Nation

{The Police have completed carrying out investigations into the second file in which a total of 181 suspects including Rwenzururu king Charles Wesley Mumbere are being charged in connection with last year’s bloody clashes in Kasese.}

Briefing the Jinja Chief Magistrates’ Court on Tuesday, state prosecutor Mr James Muliro said that the committal papers are being drafted in a bid to have the suspects sent to the International Crimes Division of the High Court (ICD) at the next court session to stand trial.

To that effect, presiding Chief Magistrate John Francis Kaggwa adjourned the case to May 25 when the king and his subjects are expected to be committed to the ICD.

The Omusinga alongside his royal guards were arrested in November last year after the police and military stormed his palace looking for people they suspected to have taken refuge, a raid that left over 100 people dead including police officers.

Following the bloody clashes, the state has since slapped several charges ranging from treason and terrorism, to murder and aggravated robbery.

Speaking on the sidelines of the court, the Leader of Opposition in Parliament, Ms Winfred Kiiza tasked the state to speed up the investigations and have this case heard.

She lamented that the state has spent six months without concluding the investigations and have sent the accused on trial before the ICD.

Ms Kiiza added that the problem with the state is that they first arrest suspects before they commence carrying out investigations, a scenario she said is a bad practice.

The Rwenzururu king is currently out on bail alongside his Prime Minister Johnson Thembo Kitsumbire.

The duo despite being out on bail, have had their movements limited to the districts of Kampala, Wakiso and Jinja.

Source:Daily Monitor

{ODM was on Tuesday barred from declaring Kisumu Senator Peter Anyang’ Nyong’o its gubernatorial candidate for Kisumu.}

The Political Parties Dispute Tribunal ruled that the Orange Democratic Movement primaries had massive and glaring irregularities.

Certifying as urgent an application by Hezron J Opiyo, tribunal members Kyalo Mbobu, James Atemi and Hassan Abdi directed the applicant to serve the suit papers on the senator and ODM. It scheduled the hearing for Thursday.

The announcement that Prof Nyong’o had trounced Governor Jack Ranguma sparked protests across the county.

Meanwhile, confusion marked the sitting of the ODM Appeals Tribunal on Tuesday.

{{Rule on appeals }}

The Willis Otieno-led team declined to rule on appeals against nomination results, passing the buck to the National Elections Board.

In most cases, the tribunal directed the NEB to either withdraw provisional certificates or hold fresh primaries.

Nyatike MP Edick Anyanga claimed the tribunal had reversed the provisional certificate given to his opponent Frederick Odiso Agenga in the polls.

“The decision has been that everything has been reversed,” said Mr Anyanga. “It is now up to Nyatike people to decide whom they will take to Parliament.”

The tribunal had earlier ruled that no elections took place in the constituency, but the elections board declared Mr Agenga the winner anyway.

{{Votes not counted }}

It indicated that the votes were not counted since the returning officer had suspended counting and only issued the certificate under duress.

It declared the primaries flawed, saying it was not possible to establish the winner.

Fresh nominations were also ordered in Kasipul constituency, where former Nation Media Group reporter Isaac Ongiri challenged the declaration of Charles Ongondo Were as the winner.

The tribunal found that Mr Ongiri’s tally may have been affected as his name was not on the ballot, the tallying centre kept changing and the returning officer left prematurely.

Kisumu East MP Shakeel Shabir said his appeal was accepted and the nomination of his opponent cancelled.

Earlier in the day, chaos marred the tribunal sittings at Mash Park Hotel in Nairobi, forcing the team to move to Gracia Gardens Hotel.

Source:Daily Nation

{Around 700 soldiers from 5 South African Infantry (SAI) Battalion are in the Port St Johns area of the Eastern Cape for jungle warfare training ahead of their deployment with the United Nation’s Force Intervention Brigade in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). }

After completing their jungle warfare training in Port St Johns, the soldiers will be sent to Bloemfontein for final training before a few weeks of leave and then deployment to the DRC at the beginning of June.

The 5 SAI soldiers have been in Port St Johns since the beginning of April. Spokesperson, Captain (SAN) Jaco Theunissen, said that the South African National Defence Force (SANDF) must, in accordance with a Memorandum of Understanding with the United Nations, supply forces for deployment under the UN flag in the DRC.

“To better equip the deploying forces, the soldiers are prepared in a forest environment where it is necessary to adapt the current battle tactics to suit the circumstances that they will operate in the DRC. The only area in South Africa that allows the SANDF to achieve this objective is the Port St Johns area,” he said.

“From Port St Johns 5 SAI Bn will move to the SANDF Mobilisation Unit in Bloemfontein to receive Mission Readiness Training and to mobilise before they will start the rotation to the DRC around June 2017,” said Theunissen. “They will be deployed for a twelve month period”.

In Port St Johns they are being trained by Colonel William Dixon, who was the force commander in the Central African Republic in 2013 and who was in charge during the Battle of Bangui.

Training does not cover just jungle warfare, but also fighting in built up environments, medical evacuation and protecting civilians. Some of the training uses Saab’s Gamer Manpack live simulation training system.

5 SAI has been deployed to the DRC before, and replaced 6 SAI in mid-2014 for a year-long deployment. Although most previous UN deployments are for six months it is more economical and effective to deploy forces for a year, as less time is spent acclimatising with one deployment per year than two.

In addition to soldiers, the SANDF has aerial assets and vehicles deployed with the UN mission in the DRC, including three Rooivalk attack helicopters and five Oryx transport helicopters. The South African aviation unit is an operational tool of the UN force commander, meaning that the helicopters are under UN, not South African, control.

Source:Defence Web