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Tag: GreatLakesNews

  • Equity Bank Suspends Plan For Units Outside E Africa

    {{Equity Bank has shelved plans to open subsidiaries outside East Africa until its current foreign divisions start generating at least a quarter of its income.}}

    The bank has been keen to establish a Pan-African operations and last year mentioned plans to raise funds through a secondary public share offer to enter central, western and Southern Africa market.

    Now, the bank says it will first focus on consolidating gains in eastern Africa where it operates in Uganda, Tanzania, South Sudan and Rwanda.

    “We want to pause a bit and look at our subsidiaries to help them contribute at least 25 per cent of revenues,” Equity Bank CEO James Mwangi told the Business Daily on the sidelines of the lender’s AGM last week.

    “There is need to consolidate our presence in those markets to match Kenya.”

    Currently, the foreign subsidiaries account for 13.5 per cent of Equity Bank’s total income of 36.8 billion.

    Profits from the subsidiaries nearly doubled to Sh1.08 billion in the year to December compared to Sh552 million in 2011 and a loss of Sh330 million in 2009.

    The freeze in opening new foreign subsidiaries is in line with last year’s report by Citigroup Global Markets Inc, which advised Equity Bank to consolidate its eastern Africa operations.

    “In our opinion, Equity Bank needs to focus on delivering on its East African expansion strategy before going pan-African,” says the report.

    Regional expansion is becoming important as the East Africa Community (EAC) common market takes shape, opening way for free movement of factors of production in a market of 130 million people.

    Kenyan companies are racing to open subsidiaries in the regional countries with banks following suit. It has caught the eye of Equity Bank, KCB and DTB.

    The foreign subsidiaries of Kenyan banks had surpassed 2011 profits three months before the end last year, underlining the importance of the units to the lenders’ bottom lines.

    (Read: EAC subsidiaries drive top Kenyan firms’ earnings)

    Central Bank of Kenya (CBK) data shows that the 10 banks with subsidiaries in the region had a combined profit of Sh3.8 billion in the nine months to September — which is higher than the Sh2.3 billion they posted last year. They made Sh2.5 billion in the six months to June.

    Kenyan banks led by Equity and KCB had opened 269 branches in the region as at September up from 240 in June and 223 in December.

    The pursuit of the regional agenda is exciting investors with Equity Bank’s top shareholder Helios EB making a U-turn on pledge to exit.

    BusinessDaily

  • Malawi to Drag Tanzania to Court Over Border Dispute

    {{President Joyce Banda has said that Malawi was giving up on mediation efforts and would take to the courts to settle a long dormant border dispute with Tanzania which has been re-activated by prospects of an oil find.}}

    “Our view is that we should eventually go to court. We should not waste time on this (mediation),” Banda told reporters in Lilongwe on Monday after returning from visits to the US and Britain.

    She said the mediation bid left to Mozambique’s ex-president Joachim Chissano in his capacity as head of a forum of retired leaders from the regional bloc SADC, was “compromised because information submitted by Malawi was leaked to Tanzania”.

    She accused the executive secretary of the forum, John Tesha, a Tanzanian national, for leaking some vital information to his home country.

    “After surrendering our documents, we were told that they were leaked to Tanzania before the Tanzanians surrendered theirs,” Banda said.

    “We feel everything is compromised,” she said. In December Banda said the dispute had dragged for too long and she was considering taking it to the International Court of Justice for arbitration.

    At stake is a largely undeveloped swathe of the lake where Malawi has awarded a licence to British firm Surestream to explore for oil in the north-eastern waters near Tanzania.

    Malawi claims ownership of the entire lake under an 1890 agreement, while Tanzania disputes this validity, insisting part of the lake falls within its borders. Talks in the past ended in a deadlock.

    {wirestory}

  • SPLA Captures Rebel Bases in Jonglei

    {{South Sudan army (SPLA) on Tuesday said they captured airbases allegedly used by David Yauyau’s rebel group to receive military aid from the government of neighbouring Sudan.}}

    General Peter Gadet Yaak, who is leading the disarmament campaign in Jonglei, told journalists that his forces have “successfully accomplished their operation mission launched against loyalties of David Yauyau in Pibor county”.

    Gadet, who had previously rebelled against the government in Unity state only to rejoin the SPLA, claimed they captured at least two airfields the rebels used to receive military equipments.

    Sudan has always denied supporting rebels in South Sudan, but Juba has repeatedly raised the allegation, since its independence from Khartoum in July 2011.

    Last year, the United Nations Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) reported seeing an unidentified aircraft landing in rebel-held areas of Jonglei state’s Pibor county, but did not link it to the Sudanese military.

    “We have captured the areas of military power from the rebel forces together with their airfields in Muruoh, and Raprap. The arifields in Achwa, Lodhai and Akeli had been captured by South Sudan army forces,” Gadet told the media in Jonglei capital, Bor.

    “Yauyau has got no base, he has remained a rebel leader without a base. He will be hiding himself among civilians,” he said.

    He dismissed rumours that the rebel group had used chemical weapons against the SPLA in some areas of Pibor.

    “We have got no chemical weapons being used by forces of Yauyau on the ground. Our soldiers who sustained injuries on their bodies were as a result of bullets shots,” Gadet said.

    He said the rebels were using AK47s and Rocket Propelled Grenades (RPGs), but lacked “big artillery”.

    The senior army official accused the rebels of armed civilians without military training, whom he said are unable to challenge the SPLA, given the latter’s over two decades of civil war which resulted into South Sudan’s independence.

    “Rebel forces were dispatch to their villages because they were normal civilians”, Gadet stressed.

    Jonglei’s deputy governor and minister of information, Hussein Maar Nyuot, said he appreciated the assistance offered to the 47 wounded soldiers taken to Bor hospital for treatment, in recent days.

    Maar said the state government will continue providing the support needed by the wounded soldiers, currently admitted in the state’s main referral hospital.

    The deputy governor said he appreciated the support being offered by the South Sudan Red Cross, World Health Organization (WHO), trade unions and some other organisations, who helped in transporting the wounded soldiers from the front line.

    11 out of the 47 soldiers who sustained injuries according to Maar, are due to be transferred to Juba hospital for further treatment.

    Yauyau, who is from the minority Murle ethnic group, started his rebellion in 2010 after losing an election bid to become a member of the state parliament representing Gumruk. In response to an amnesty offer by Kiir in 2011, the rebel leader returned to Juba, only to re-launch his rebellion in April last year.

    Since then, clashes between the army (SPLA) and forces loyal to the rebel leader have gravely affected the security situation in Jonglei, with the latest peace attempt seen as key in efforts to salvage peace in the region.

    Recently, however, Yauyau said he supports a peaceful resolution to the fighting, but on condition the UN and other international mediators are involved in the proposed peace initiative.

    (ST)

  • Obama Launches Brain Mapping Initiative

    {{US President Barack Obama on Tuesday announced a $100 million project to map the intricate inner mysteries of the human brain, targeting cures for diseases like Alzheimer’s.}}

    “The most powerful computer in the world isn’t nearly as intuitive as the one we’re born with,” Obama said at the White House.

    “There’s this enormous mystery waiting to be unlocked. And the BRAIN initiative will change that by giving scientists the tools they need to get a dynamic picture of the brain in action,” Obama said.

    The research initiative, financed with $100 million of Obama’s budget that will be unveiled next week, will seek to find new ways to treat, cure and prevent brain disorders like epilepsy and Alzheimer’s.

    Researchers will try to make complex pictures of the inner brain that show how individual cells and neural circuits work and interact and examine how the brain records, uses and retrieves vast amounts of information.

    The BRAIN (Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies) initiative will be run by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency, and the National Science Foundation.

    Obama was introduced as “scientist in chief” at the White House event by NIH Director Francis Collins, and his administration makes the case that despite tough fiscal times, investments in science are vital.

    “I am glad I have been promoted to scientist in chief – given my grades in physics, I am not sure it is deserving,” the president said.

    “But I hold science in proper esteem, so maybe I get some credit.”

    AFP

  • M16 ‘Had Role in Plot to Kill Lumumba’

    {{A former British intelligence officer claimed that Britain played a role in the assassination of Congolese independence hero Patrice Lumumba, one of her friends has told the British media.}}

    Before she died three years ago, Daphne Park — who was sent as an MI6 officer to the Belgian Congo in 1959 — told a fellow member of Britain’s House of Lords that she had helped coordinate Britain’s role in Lumumba’s elimination two years later.

    The claim will spark surprise because the former colonial power Belgium concluded in 2001 that it had a “moral responsibility” in the assassination of Lumumba, Congo’s first democratically-elected prime minister.

    David Lea said in a letter to the London Review of Books that he had a conversation with Park in 2009 — a year before she died — in which they discussed the likelihood of Britain’s MI6 foreign intelligence agency being involved in Lumumba’s death.

    “It so happens that I was having a cup of tea with Daphne Park a few months before she died,” Lea said.

    “I mentioned the uproar surrounding Lumumba’s abduction and murder, and recalled the theory that MI6 might have had something to do with it. ‘We did,’ she replied. ‘I organised it’.”

    “It was a conversation-stopper. I was stunned,” Lea said, adding that he concluded from the exchange that whoever was directly culpable for Lumumba’s death, the British government was “at the centre of the spider’s web”.

    His letter was in response to a new book on the British secret services called “Empire of Secrets: British Intelligence, the Cold War and the Twilight of Empire”.

    Park is said to have had a high degree of influence in the region after she was appointed consul and first secretary in Leopoldville — now known as Kinshasa — in 1959, one year before Congo won its independence from Belgium.

    The CIA is also believed to have played a role in organising the plot to eliminate Lumumba, because of his growing alliance with the Soviet Union.

    Lumumba was killed by firing squad after a coup led by Joseph-Desire Mobutu. Mobutu renamed the country Zaire. It is now known as the Democratic Republic of Congo.

    Lumumba’s death is to be the subject of a judicial probe in Belgium after a court gave the go-ahead last year.

    AFP

  • Juba Accuses Khartoum of Launching Attack Ahead of Bashir’s Visit

    {{South Sudan on Monday accused neighbouring Sudan of “deliberately” launching a new ground attack on its border state of Northern Bahr el Ghazal, underlying the level of suspicion with which the two countries still view each other, despite a recent thawing of relations.}}

    Local authorities and security sources said in series of interviews with reporter on Sunday that the attack took place in Kiir Adem, an area that falls within the Safe Demilitarised Border Zone (SDBZ) which the two sides agreed to establish under African Union mediation in September last year, but only implemented recently.

    One policeman was killed and seven others reportedly wounded during the attack.

    The spokesperson of South Sudan’s army (SPLA), Phillip Aguer, said the attack was “quickly repulsed by the police”.

    He expressed confidence in the South Sudan’s police forces, which have remained in the area despite the military’s withdrawal, but added that the SPLA will intervene if the police feel the situation goes beyond their control.

    “The SPLA is closely monitoring this situation and will respond appropriately when police feel they can no longer handle it. At the moment we call on the UN peacekeeping forces, especially the United Nations Interim Force for Abyei (UNISFA), which are supposed to take charge in monitoring armed activities in these areas to take up their job more seriously,” Aguer said.

    They should ensure these areas are free from military activities, he added.

    Under the bilateral Cooperation Agreement, UNISFA is expected to expand its operations from the disputed oil-producing region of Abyei to the whole of the north-south border along with military officials from both North and South Sudan.

    James Monday, the spokesperson of South Sudan Police, also confirmed the attack, but said the situation was brought “under control” and that the police are ready to protect the lives and properties of the population in the area.

    The commissioner for Aweil North County, Kuol Athuai Hal, said the attack was jointly organised by the Sudan Armed Forces (SAF), armed Arab nomads and paramilitary forces.

    “This attack did not come as a surprise to us and the people of the area. We knew it would happen especially after they were defeated on 26 of March when they launched a similar attack. We also do not think that this attack will be the last,” Hal told Sudan Tribune by phone Sunday.

    He anticipates attacks could occur, given what he describes as a political scheme by the Sudan government “designed to execute in order to claim territory control and eventual annexation into territory”.

    Mel Wal Achien, an area representative in the country’s national legislative assembly strongly condemned the “barbaric and hawkish style behaviour” deployed by the Khartoum regime on the young nation.

    “This hawkish mentality, the practice of hit and run shows clearly the behaviour of the government of Sudan. This is the government which believes in violence. It does not value peace,” he said in a separate interview Sunday.

    The lawmaker urged the international community to hold Sudan responsible for the lost lives, despite the signing of the implementation matrix and the subsequent pulling out of the SPLA forces from the border area.

    The attack, he further said, was a plot to deter the civilian population from concentrating on agricultural activities in the area during rainy season.

    Sudan and South Sudan, early this month, agreed on the immediate and unconditional withdrawal of forces to their side within two weeks, to allow for establishment of a safe demilitarized border zone.

    The two neighbours, in the presence of the African Union mediators, also committed themselves to the deployment of the Joint Border Verification and Monitoring Mechanism (JBVMM) and the activation of all security related mechanisms, effective from 10 March.

    (ST)

  • Kikwete Denies Government is Taking Sides On Religious Tensions

    {{Tanzania’s President Jakaya Kikwete has dismissed allegations that the government is taking sides in dealing with religious tensions in the country, appealing for calm and wisdom to avert further escalation of the precarious situation.}}

    At least one Catholic priest in Zanzibar and a Protestant pastor in Geita Region have been killed in separate incidents, while churches were torched in recent months in Zanzibar and Dar es Salaam.

    Furthermore, in Zanzibar, another Catholic priest was shot and wounded and a Muslim leader was splashed with acid in incidents that are still under police investigations.

    A suspect on the February 17 killing of Rev Evaristus Mushi was apprehended in Zanzibar last Friday and he is due to appear in court upon completion of investigations.

    About 17 people were arrested for allegedly causing the death of Pastor Mathayo Kachila in Buseresere, Geita. Some have been charged with murder and a manhunt continues to look for other perpetrators.

    There is a growing trend of some religious leaders blaming the government and counterpart religions for these tragedies, making it appear that one religious group was plotting to persecute the other, President Kikwete observed in his end-of-the-month speech he delivered on Sunday.

    Trading blame, he cautioned, would only serve to infuriate differing faiths rather than resolving any problems the people might be having.

    “In fact we have now reached a stage where Christians accuse the government of favouring Muslims while Muslims, for their part, accuse the government of acting in favour of Christians,” Mr Kikwete said.

    “Muslims are alleging that there is too much Christian dominance in government, that the government did nothing when a boy urinated on the Quran. They also charging that I ignore Islamic functions including burials of Muslim leaders”

    At the same time, noted Mr Kikwete, Christians complain that the government is not showing concern over the killings of their leaders and burning of their churches.

    “But the government has been doing what it can, including enlisting the help of international police and investigators to pursue the killings of Fr Mushi, for example,” Mr Kikwete said in defence of his government’s performance.

    He noted that it was dangerous to suggest that some criminal acts are coordinated by groups of people or leaders of one religion against another.

    So far, noted the President, investigations have shown that most of the crimes targeting religious leaders or houses of worship are uncoordinated.

    There was no connection between the burning of churches in Mbagala last year and the violence that erupted in Geita this year as a result of a dispute on who has the right to slaughter animals that are sold in village butcheries, he said.

    “Churches were invaded in Mbagala after a group of angry Muslim fanatics marched to a police station demanding that the boy who urinated on the Quran be handled to them.

    When the police said No, the group went on a rampage,” Mr Kikwete noted, adding that a few months later a separate incident took place in Geita after a dispute on slaughtering animals.

    The only incidents that could be connected are those that took place in Zanzibar that include the burning of various churches, the killing of Fr Mushi, the shooting of Fr Ambrose Mkenda on Christmas day last year and the splashing with acid of Sheikh Fadhili Soroga, the deputy mufti of Zanzibar, he noted.

    “But we are yet to establish any connection because security organs haven’t yet concluded investigations,” Mr Kikwete said.

    He warned that there are some people using these incidents to cause further problems by inciting leaders and followers of both religions.

    “We must not listen to these people if we are to avoid plunging our country into a civil war. These people do not wish our country well,” Mr Kikwete said without giving details.

    The President’s appeal for calm on the face of religious violence seem to have partly been a response to various Easter messages issued by some Chrisitian leaders.

    Earlier last week, Polycarp Cardinal Pengo blamed the police for laxity and failing to conclude investigations on the death of Fr Mushi.

    On Good Friday, leaders of various churches read out what they called “Waraka wa Jukwaa la Makanisa” loosely translated as “Letter from the Churches Forum” which blatantly accused the government of failing to protect Christians.

    The Citizen

  • What Next For Raila Odinga, The Enigma of Kenyan Politics?

    {{He has been described as the enigma of Kenyan politics, a cunning, scheming, restless and indomitable mobiliser and campaigner.

    But no single adjective can capture the character and temperament of Raila Amolo Odinga.}}

    The outgoing prime minister has been Kenya’s most influential politician and has had tremendous influence on the country’s political discourse for more than a decade — but outside State House.

    A scion of founding Vice-President Jaramogi Oginga Odinga, Coalition for Reform and Democracy leader Raila Odinga has been the fulcrum around which Kenyan politics revolved after the exit of former President Daniel arap Moi in 2002.

    No single Kenyan politician has attracted more media headlines for the past 10 or so years than Mr Odinga.

    Barrels of ink have been used to write about the activities of a man who attracts admiration and resentment in equal measure.

    With Saturday’s Supreme Court decision upholding the election of Mr Uhuru Kenyatta as president, the major question is: What next for Mr Odinga?

    He has a number of options. First, Mr Odinga, 68, could retire from politics and take up the roles of mentor and elder statesman or international assignments mediator.

    He may also opt to stay on and strengthen his Orange Democratic Movement party by providing guidance from outside Parliament or the Senate.

    {{No hint}}

    He in his concession speech gave no hint as to his next move but said he would “soldier on to reform our institutions and politics”.

    According to lawyer Charles Kanjama, Mr Odinga’s place in Kenyan politics cannot be ignored because he “remains the second-most popular politician in Kenya after President-elect Kenyatta” after winning 5.3 million votes.

    Analyst Herbert Kerre of Kabianga University College says Mr Odinga will be useful in Africa and the world.

    “He is an elder statesman who enjoys considerable admiration in Kenya and in the world for his strong ideals and consistency in the push for good governance in Africa,” he said.

    “Raila is a strong Pan-Africanist whose politics resonate with Africans and Kenyans who wanted him to be president, but he should free himself for deployment at the continental level.”

    Having unsuccessfully vied for the presidency three times, there is doubt whether he can summon sufficient energy and enthusiasm to make another stab at the job.

    There have been suggestions that an ODM nominee to the National Assembly could be prevailed upon to step down for him.

    While a section of Kenyans see him as a champion of reforms and a force of good, others perceive him as a dictatorial, corrupt, opportunistic, anarchist, tribalist and nepotist and a Western lackey keen to acquire power at any cost — a man with a great sense of self-entitlement.

    {{Argued bravery}}

    Opponents keen to project him as a destructive force point to his participation in a failed 1982 coup plot against the Moi regime.

    He has always argued it was an act of bravery to remove a despotic regime which had closed all avenues for democratic political competition and transfer of power.

    Mr Odinga has achieved much in his political career, but the presidency has eluded him.

    In past interviews and conversations, Mr Odinga has come out as a man who felt demonised despite what he considers his many sacrifices to expand liberties in Kenya.

    He characterises his political journey as a duel with forces pushing for the status quo and says his major victory was the enactment of the 2010 Constitution.

    The son of Jaramogi has a sure grasp of history, a rare attribute amongt most Kenyan politicos.

    He reckons tribalism is a cancer that continues to destroy the fabric of nationhood, and he believes he has been a victim of tribalist, shadowy and vicious anti-reform figures who fought against the 2010 Constitution.

    In a past conversation with this writer, Mr Odinga sounded pained by what he saw as an attempt by part of the political elite to deny his reform record.

    During the presidential campaign he declared that the contest was between forces of impunity and those of change.

    {{Anti-change elite}}

    Reacting to a book critical of him by former adviser Miguna Miguna, Mr Odinga, who considers himself the “bearer of the reform dream,” said it was the work of the elite opposed to radical change.

    “I have been associated with reforms and know that if you target me, then you will kill the reform dream.”

    Mr Odinga summed up the strategy thus: “Hit at my character, pull me down and kill the reform dream.”

    He said the forces behind Mr Miguna’s sensational book were “the same people saying let us not look in the rearview mirror”.

    “Because the rearview mirror shows the dark era of political assassination, repression, ethnic discrimination, Goldenberg, Nyayo House torture chambers, suppression of the media and assassination of [politician] JM Kariuki and Pio Gama Pinto.”

    A battle-hardened soldier — and he has scars to show for it — Mr Odinga is credited with uprooting the Moi regime in 2002 when he dramatically walked out on President Moi and teamed up with Mr Mwai Kibaki, then of National Rainbow Alliance to emphatically defeat Kanu’s Uhuru Kenyatta.

    An energetic mobiliser, Mr Odinga would in 2005 rally the country to reject a proposed constitution that saw him and others kicked out of government.

    This set the stage for the 2007 presidential election, whose results he disputed, when President Kibaki was declared the winner.

    The result was post-election violence that only ended after former UN secretary-general Kofi Annan brokered a peace deal that saw him share power with President Kibaki in a forced marriage.

    {{Biggest battles}}

    The 2010 Constitution is no doubt the biggest achievement of the Kibaki-Raila coalition.

    It was during this period that he fought probably some of the most challenging battles of his political career which not only saw him lose key allies but culminated in the alliance that fought him at the polls.

    During his time as prime minister, Mr Odinga’s office was accused of involvement in a major maize scandal as well as loss of cash for the youth jobs Kazi kwa Vijana project.

    Differences with his then deputy in ODM, Mr William Ruto, now deputy president-elect, over the handling of youth protesters in the 2007 violence and conservation of the Mau Forest antagonised the Kalenjin Rift Valley.

    The post-election violence also saw Mr Kenyatta and Mr Ruto charged with crimes against humanity at the International Criminal Court, sowing the seed for the formation of a formidable alliance between the two and their communities which two years later transformed into the Jubilee coalition.

    The two turned the election into a referendum on the ICC which their supporters packaged as working in favour of Mr Odinga.

    Mr Odinga’s support for the ICC was painted as a scheme to lock out Mr Kenyatta and Mr Ruto from the presidential race.

    The 2013 presidential contest rekindled memories and a repeat of the rivalry between the families of founding President Jomo Kenyatta and first Vice-President Jaramogi Oginga Odinga.

    Their fathers were entangled in vicious ideological fights that saw Mr Odinga sacked as vice-president, a move that divided the Kikuyu and Luo power elite that persists to date.

    NMG

  • Gen. Bashir to Release All Political Prisoners

    {{Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir said on Monday that he will release all political detainees, a move welcomed by the opposition as tensions ease with South Sudan.}}

    “Today, we announce a decision to free all the political prisoners and renew our commitment to all political powers about dialogue,” Bashir said in a speech opening a new session of parliament.

    “We confirm we will continue our communication with all political and social powers without excluding anyone, including those who are armed, for a national dialogue which will bring a solution to all the issues,” the president said.

    Farouk Abu Issa, who heads the opposition alliance of more than 20 parties, said Bashir’s announcement was “a step toward genuine dialogue.”

    He said the rebel Sudan People’s Liberation Movement-North (SPLM-N), which has been fighting government forces for almost two years in South Kordofan and Blue Nile states, had been demanding a prisoner release.

    “Very good news,” said Farouk Mohammed Ibrahim, of the Sudanese Organisation for Defence of Rights and Freedoms, a group of activists.

    He said there are “a large number” of detainees in South Kordofan and Blue Nile. These include 118 SPLM-N prisoners whose cases are being handled by his organisation in southern Blue Nile alone.

    “It’s a step forward,” Ibrahim said.

    But SPLM-N chairman Malik Agar declined comment on Bashir’s announcement, saying he was “not sure which political prisoners he is referring to”.

    Bashir’s statement elaborated on an offer made last week by Vice President Ali Osman Taha, who reached out to the SPLM-N and opposition political parties, whom he invited to join a constitutional dialogue.

    Sudan needs a new constitution to replace the 2005 document based on a peace agreement which ended a 23-year civil war and led to South Sudan’s separation in July 2011.

    Bashir’s regime had long rejected negotiations with the insurgents.

    {Agencies}

  • New Agency to Run Lamu Port Project

    {{Kenya has set up an autonomous agency to manage the implementation of a mega infrastructure project targeted at improving trade with its neighbours South Sudan and Ethiopia.}}

    President Mwai Kibaki said the Lamu Port Southern Sudan Ethiopia Transport Corridor (Lapsset) Development Authority will manage the project on behalf of the government.

    “The headquarters of the authority shall be in Nairobi with field offices in Lamu, Isiolo, Lokichoggio, Marsabit and Moyale,” the President said in a special gazette notice.

    It will be run by a director-general under an 11-member board that includes five State officials, five private sector representatives and a chairman appointed by the President.

    The project entails construction of a new sea port at Manda as well as standard gauge railway lines from Lamu to South Sudan with branches to Nairobi and Ethiopia from a hub in Isiolo.

    It will entail the construction of a highway from Lamu to Isiolo with an extension to Nadapal/Nakodok in South Sudan and another link to Addis Ababa through Moyale.

    Lapsset further targets the construction of a crude oil pipeline from Lamu to South Sudan and Addis Ababa, international airports at Isiolo, Lamu and Lake Turkana and resort cities at Lamu, Isiolo and Lake Turkana, merchant oil refinery at Lamu among others.

    As well as cutting over-reliance on the Mombasa port, the project is aimed at deepening trade in east Africa and opening up northern Kenya, a vast area whose economy lags the rest of the country.

    The new agency is expected to push for public private partnerships (PPPs) to help with the implementation.

    The government last month activated a new law on PPPs, raising hope for increased funding towards the implementation of capital-intensive plans such as energy and road infrastructure development.

    Finance minister Njeru Githae said the Public Private Partnerships Act came into effect on February 8, paving the way for improved joint ventures with the private sector in key projects.

    readmore…….http://www.businessdailyafrica.com/Kibaki-sets-up-agency-to-run-Lamu-port-project/-/539546/1735498/-/3ht8pwz/-/index.html