IGIHE

Tag: GreatLakesNews

  • Tanzania:Three arrested as formal dialogue on Burundi starts

    {Police in Tanzania have arrested three suspected Burundians over their alleged attempt to thwart the ongoing Burundi peace talks under former President Benjamin Mkapa’s mediation.}

    Mr Mkapa in his capacity as facilitator of the Inter-Burundi Dialogue started the formal dialogue here yesterday after completion of the consultative talks.

    The talks are scheduled to end tomorrow.

    The identities of the three suspects had not been revealed by the time the ‘Daily News’ went to press and the mediation remained under secrecy.

    The mediation session follows rigorous consultations that the facilitator made with various stakeholders within and outside Burundi, after which he identified an eight-point agenda, addressing all the issues that the stakeholders raised and agreed as the key points to submit to the September 2016 Summit.

    Source:Daily News

  • At least 8 hurt, many held in police raid on oulawed DRC group

    {Kinshasa – Eight suspected members of an outlawed political-religious group were critically injured and 22 arrested in clashes with police in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) capital, police sources said on Tuesday.}

    Violence erupted late Monday and continued into Tuesday when police stormed a house believed to harbour members of the Bundu dia Kongo (BDK) movement.

    BDK stands for “Kingdom of the Kongo” in the Kikongo language and members, known as the Makessa, are hostile to the police as symbols of the vast central African state’s authority.

    “Twenty-two people were arrested including eight who were critically injured,” said police spokesperson Pierre Rombaut Mwanamputu.

    He said two cars were torched by BDK members and that police recovered six automatic rifles.

    The movement, concentrated in the southwest, seeks the restoration of the former Congolese kingdom inside pre-colonial boundaries, which would comprise parts of Angola, Congo and Gabon.

    Police and other witnesses told AFP shots could be heard near the residence of BDK’s spiritual leader Ne Muanda Nsemi, which was cordoned off by police.

    Nsemi, a member of parliament in Kinshasa who has never been arrested, was not found.

    In videos recently posted online, Nsemi called for an insurrection against President Joseph Kabila.

    “In two weeks, I will strike,” he says in one video posted a few days ago.

    The government has accused BDK followers of a string of violent attacks in western DRC since January.

    The government says violent clashes between the group and police killed 27 people in 2008, while UN and civilian sources put the death toll at nearer 100.

    Source:AFP

  • ‘EAC Transport corridors vital’

    {As the East Africa region grows fast in Africa, policies to promote transformation of transport to economic corridors should be put in place to facilitate more dynamic movements of people, goods, services and money.}

    Presenting the working paper on ‘Dynamism and Future prospects of Economic Corridors in the East African Region’, Chairperson for DAIMA Associates Limited, Prof Samuel Wangwe, said in the recent years new economic movements have emerged. “Growth poles which are an agglomeration of production, logistics and consumption centres have also emerged.

    Those growth poles have been connected more deeply through transport corridors and by so doing those corridors have been transformed from simple transport corridors to economic corridors,” he noted. He said planning the corridor development and its surrounding area can maximise development benefits through engagement of public-private partnership for sustainability.

    DAIMA Chairperson said prioritising economic potential available in transportation corridors should be given priority by creating friendly business and trade policies.

    Expounding further he said through absorbing energies from Indian and Arabic world across the Indian Ocean, the region has witnessed more dynamic movements of people, goods, service and money along the economic corridors. As the corridor will not grow without doing anything, he said developing master plan to study them and growth poles was important.

    The plan will assist in implementation of projects and executing the transformation of process. Japanese International Cooperation Agency (JICA), Senior Representative, Mr Amatsu Kuniaki, said they commissioned DAIMA Associates to produce the working paper with interest in looking at the new features of those transformations in the EAC region.

    “EAC regional integration would inject dynamism into the EAC economies through economies of scale and more efficient deployment of factors of production,” he noted.

    Mr Kuniaki said it was also important to develop the East Coast of the region by developing the ports of Lamu, Mombasa, Bagamoyo, Dar es Salaam and Mtwara,” he said. He added that by developing new industrial complexes as in Tanzania’s Bagamoyo and Mtwara special economic zones.

    Source:Daily News

  • Two Chinese women stabbed to death in Uganda

    {Detectives on Wednesday began investigating the deaths of two Chinese nationals in the Kampala suburb of Kikoni, west of Makerere University, and the Inspector General of Police Kale Kayihura said they are treating the cases as murder.}

    IGP Kale Kayihura addresses the Chinese officials at the scene.

    Murder is defined in the Penal Code Act as the offence of an intentional killing of a person with “malice aforethought”.

    Decomposing bodies of the yet unidentified women were discovered in a rented house on Wednesday morning. Each bore a stab wound, according to Gen Kayihura, who visited the building that investigators have tapped off as a crime scene.

    Police say it is likely the victims were killed on the weekend or earlier.

    The structure was previously used as a church until last week when another Chinese national, who detectives say they are treating as a suspect, rented it. His whereabouts are unknown.

    The landlord informed Flying Squad and Scene of Crime Officers that he does not know the name of the missing tenant.

    Residents of the slum neighbourhood huddled at the crime scene, some craning their necks over the fence, to catch a glimpse of preliminary police action. Many spoke in hushed tones.

    A Chinese official arriving at the crime scene in Kikoni - Makerere.

    Officials from the Chinese Embassy visited the scene amid expectation by detectives that his association could provide useful information to assist in the ongoing investigations and identifying the said tenant.

    Source:Daily Monitor

  • Kenya:Jubilee to splash out trillions in push for pet projects in election year budget

    {The spending plan for the financial year starting in July has the hallmarks of an election budget, in which Jubilee splashes out billions of shillings on projects to fulfil its campaign pledges.}

    The government proposes to spend Sh2.62 trillion with significant expenditure on roads and infrastructure, energy as well as security and education amid goodies for the grassroots.

    Key government pet projects — such as the standard gauge railway, the laptop for schools programmes and electricity distribution — enjoy huge allocations in the estimates released on Wednesday.

    Apart from the 5.3 per cent drop in the allocation for development compared to last year, infrastructure, transport and logistics — including ongoing road constructions, the SGR, modernisation of ports, energy and housing — got the lion’s share of the budget, at Sh284.87 billion.

    The new railway alone will take Sh75 billion with Sh9.7 billion set aside to finance the Last Mile Connectivity project. There is also a Sh3 billion for buying transformers in constituencies, Sh1.53 billion for solar lanterns and a Sh1.3 billion connectivity subsidy in a bid to deepen electricity connection in homes and public places.

    Also targeted in a big way is the education sector with the laptop programme taking Sh13.4 billion out of the Sh169.8 billion targeting recruitment of more teachers, upgrading of national schools as well as funding universities.

    {{Examination fee waiver }}

    An examination fee waiver, another popular proposal, has been allocated Sh4 billion.

    Security is expected to take up Sh57.7 billion as plans to lease more police cars as well as enhanced security operations and border security get priority in an election year. Modernisation of the police and the military will cost Sh25.6 billion.

    However, the estimates, presented by National Treasury Cabinet Secretary Henry Rotich, show that Kenya will be borrow to bridge a Sh582.5 billion deficit between the projected revenues and the planned expenditure.

    The target for tax revenues, set at Sh1.3 trillion last year, has been adjusted upwards to Sh1.5 trillion in a move that will see the taxman raid more pockets to fund the budget.

    Mr Rotich said the raising of the revenue projections was anchored on tax reforms.

    “This performance will be underpinned by ongoing reforms in tax policy and revenue administration, through automation and inter agency-collaboration and connectivity,” Mr Rotich wrote in the estimates.

    He added: “The government will also complete the review of the income tax law so as to modernise it and align it to international practice.”
    The budget also allocates Sh100 billion to a salary increment for all civil servants from July 1.

    The government also set aside Sh7.3 billion for the ongoing irrigation projects countrywide, as well as towards helping to transform agriculture from subsistence to productive commercial farming.

    The biggest allocation here will be Sh5 billion for input subsidy — including fertilisers and seeds — as well as some Sh1.6 billion for title deeds and Sh1 billion for the crop diversification for miraa (khat) farmers.

    {{Tourism recovery }}

    Kenya hopes that the economy, which experienced a drop to 5.7 per cent in the third quarter of 2016 from the 6.2 and 5.9 per cent in the second and first quarters, respectively, will grow at 5.9 per cent in 2017.

    Agriculture and tourism recovery and the completion of roads and rail projects are expected to be the key anchors.
    Increased from Sh2.48 trillion.

    According to the proposed budget, which increased from the Sh2.48 trillion in the 2016/2017 financial year, the budgetary deficit has been pushed up by a one-off allocation for the SGR, without which it would been Sh469.6 billion.

    The government will fill the gap by borrowing Sh206 billion from the external market and Sh328 billion from the local market.

    The CS defended Kenya’s debt position and said the debt load will be reduced gradually in subsequent budgets.

    The government has also allocated Sh640 million to help complete economic stimulus projects started in last year’s budget, including expansion of markets.

    Apart from Parliament getting Sh38 billion for modernisation, CDF will make a return through the National Government Constituency Fund, which has received Sh30.9 billion.

    Woman representatives have been allocated Sh 2.1 billion for affirmative action and social development.

    National Treasury Cabinet Secretary Henry Rotich (left) and his Devolution and Planning counterpart Mwangi Kiunjuri at the Treasury offices in Nairobi before he presented the budget for the 2016/17 financial year to Parliament on June 8, 2016.

    Source:Daily Nation

  • Tanzania:Top education officials face 59m/- theft charges

    {Four top officials with the Ministry of Education, Science, Technology and Vocational Training were yesterday arraigned before a Dar es Salaam court on seven counts of embezzlement and misappropriation of public money and occasioning losses amounting to over 59m/-.}

    The accused are the Director of Education, Bakari Issa, Emmanuel Mayuma (Accountant), Hellen Lihawa (Deputy Director of Education) and Mbarouk Dachi, the Assistant Accountant.

    Before Principal Resident Magistrate, Wilbard Mashauri of the Kisutu Resident Magistrates’ Court in Dar es Salaam, the accused denied the charges and were granted bail on condition of availing two reliable sureties who will have to sign a bond of 50m/-.

    Besides the sureties and bond, the court ordered the accused not to travel outside Dar es Salaam Region without the court’s permit.

    The case was prosecuted by prosecutors with the Prevention and Combatting of Corruption Bureau (PCCB), Emmanuel Jacob, Fatuma Waziri and Denis Lekayo. Earlier, Defence Attorney Majura Magafu, for the first accused, had requested that the accused be granted bail, arguing the charges were ‘bailable.’

    But the prosecution, through Mr Jacob, requested the court to grant tough conditions to the accused as an assurance that they would report to court on regular basis. But counsel Magafu said the issue of conditions of bail was at the discretion of the court which alone could do so considering the nature of the charges.

    He informed the court that the accused were under PCCB bail for a period of six months and through that time they had been attending court proceedings as directed – without default.

    “This is a sign that the accused are trustworthy persons and they will abide to the court’s conditions, considering that the charges facing them are not very serious offences to make them disappear,” he said. Mr Magafu also requested the court to consider the bail and exercise leniency.

    Source:Daily News

  • Uganda:UNRA to pull down houses in roadway

    {The government will soon start demolishing structures, including markets and institutional buildings, erected within gazatted road reserves along national roads.}

    Billed as an operation to de-congest the city, Uganda National Roads Authority (Unra) said a deadline it issued to encroachers to leave voluntarily expires today and will not be extended.

    “We anticipate that this exercise will help decongest the roads and reduce the heavy traffic pains that the users of roads have encountered,” Unra executive director Allen Kagina said in a statement yesterday.

    The Roads Authority has reportedly briefed President Museveni and police, respectively, about the upcoming exercise in order to stave off a possible political backlash and guarantee the execution is incident-free.

    Mr Frank Mwesigwa, the Kampala Metropolitan Police commander, confirmed that they had been notified and said they are awaiting a required detailed report about the demolition plan to guide police deployment.

    According to Unra’s statement, the exercise will start from Kibuye round-about on the Kampala-Entebbe highway and progress toward Entebbe town.

    Structures on road reserves are illegal and the encroachers will not be compensated, officials said.

    A road reserve, according to the colonial-era Road Act 1949, is an “area bounded by imaginary lines parallel to and distant not more than 50 feet (about 16 metres) from the centre line of any road”.

    Section 5 of the said Act mandates the Roads Authority to “remove interferences” such as unauthorised building, plants/crops, access lanes, cattle paths and bicycle tracks from the roads which technically includes the carriageway, separators (island), shoulders, drainage channels, side-walks and road reserves.

    {{Individuals addressed}}

    “This is, therefore, to advise all individuals who have structures or unauthorised activities of any form in the road reserves anywhere along the national roads to vacate before demolitions and forceful evictions commence,” Ms Kagina noted in yesterday’s statement.

    If any encroacher defies official orders to pull down illegal structures erected on road reserves, the Roads Authority can raze it or the encroacher, upon conviction by court, is liable to a fine not exceeding Shs1,000.

    Road reserves, among other things, are used for piping or conveying utilities, expanding the carriageway or planting trees to beautify the road.

    Unra says it has, through random inspections, established that many individuals have encroached on the national road reserves in contravention of the law. “In some instances the encroachment has been extended to the walkways, road shoulders and the road carriageway itself thereby posing danger to roads users especially, pedestrians,” Ms Kagina noted.

    The reaction by affected property owners has varied from compliance to consternation, anxiety and, in some cases, outright anger and protest.

    This newspaper understands that up to 55 structures will be pulled down between Kibuye Round-about and Najjanankumbi on Entebbe highway based on an ongoing inventory of affected properties.

    The next phase of the registration of such illegal developments will cover Kajjansi Trading Centre, where the under-construction Entebbe expressway intersects with the current Entebbe highway, and proceed to the airport.

    After the demolitions on Kampala-Entebbe highway, Unra plans to shift the phased exercise on outbound city routes to Jinja, Masaka, Mityana, Hoima and Bombo.

    {{Prior sensitisation}}

    Unra’s head of corporate affairs Mark Ssali said besides the two weeks’ notice served to all encroachers on January 31, 2017, “our directorate of road infrastructure has been on the roads for the past one year engaging and sensitising people”.

    “So, we think we have reached out enough and given everyone time,” he said.

    {{Illegal structures}}

    This newspaper understands that up to 55 structures will be pulled down between Kibuye round-about and Najjanankumbi on Entebbe road based on an ongoing inventory of affected properties. The next phase of the registration of such illegal developments will cover Kajjansi Trading Centre, where the under-construction Entebbe-Kampala Expressway intersects with the current Entebbe road.

    Source:Daily Monitor

  • Kenya:MPs throw out changes to sexual offences law

    {MPs have voted to throw out Sexual Offences Amendment Bill that, among others, sought to criminalise unwanted bodily contact in crowded public places like ferries.}

    The Bill sponsored by Busia Woman Rep Florence Mutua also sought to criminalise out-of-court bargains on sexual attacks involving minors,

    These and other controversial sections appear to have alarmed male MPs who held the numbers when the vote was put on Wednesday morning.

    The defeat appears to have irked Ms Mutua who walked out of the chambers in a huff.

    She waved the Bill to her male colleagues who watched in amusement.

    The sponsor of the Bill and Busia Woman Rep Florence Mutua. She was angered by the flop.

    Source:Daily Nation

  • Dar scores top ratings in global poverty reduction

    {Tanzania has featured prominently in this year’s Bill and Melinda Gates annual letter celebrating progress in global health and poverty reduction.}

    The letter is addressed to couple by mutual friend Warren Buffet, who a few months ago asked Melinda and Bill to reflect on the impact his gift has had in the world.

    Buffett, an American investor, business magnate, and philanthropist in 2006 donated the bulk of his fortune of $30 billion, to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to fight disease and reduce inequity.

    In their current letter the Gates noted that since 2006 the foundation had seen incredible stories of progress and hope in Tanzania which, relative to the rest of Sub-Saharan Africa, has a low neonatal mortality rate.

    “Over the years, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has partnered with donors, governments, the private sector and civil society to help Tanzanians live healthy and productive lives,” the letter reads, in part.

    The Gates say Tanzania has achieved vaccination rates of 96 per cent or above in five crucial vaccinations, according to reports from the Unicef. Globally, the annual letter released yesterday says the fastest progress — the world has ever witnessed — has been recorded in global health and poverty reduction.

    “Buffet donation meant that the foundation and its partners were able to invest in new technologies, solutions, and research that could save lives, help families, and reduce extreme poverty levels,” the letter further says.

    Citing an example, the Gates noted that the lives of 122 million children around the world have been saved since 1990, 86% of children worldwide receive basic vaccines, and for the first time in history more than 300 million women are using modern contraceptives.

    Across the African continent, Bill and Melinda note key improvements in the following areas of development: Mortality in children under the age of five, caused by pneumonia, diarrhoea, and malaria, has decreased by 54% across SSA.

    There is also increased access to information about reproductive health and innovative contraceptive methods, which means more women have the power to make their own family planning decisions.

    “… 27% of women now use contraception in sub-Saharan Africa, according to Unicef; meanwhile, extreme poverty in sub-Saharan Africa has decreased by 28% since 1990,” the letter adds.

  • Burundi govt again refuses crisis talks with opposition

    {Violence erupted when President Pierre Nkurunziza decided to run for a third term in office in April 2015. At least 300,000 people have fled the country.}

    Mediator Benjamin Mkapa, a former Tanzanian president, has invited “a group of 33 key figures” comprising on one side the government and its allies, and on the other side, their opponents, an African diplomat told AFP on condition of anonymity.

    The talks are scheduled to take place Thursday through Saturday in the northern Tanzanian city of Arusha.

    Mkapa is hoping to finally tackle “substantive issues” at the core of the conflict, notably Nkurunziza’s third term, and the “creation of a national unity government”, the diplomat said.

    But the government refuses to sit down with members of the umbrella opposition group the National Council for the Restoration of Arusha Agreement and Rule of Law (CNARED) and a major civil society movement.

    “The CNARED is an organisation not recognised by Burundian law and which includes individuals sought by Burundian justice,” Willy Nyamitwe, presidential spokesman and also a member of the government delegation, told AFP.

    “It is therefore clear that inviting them to take part in any process of dialogue is an insult that cannot be accepted by the government,” he said.

    Nyamitwe added that the government peace delegation would refuse to engage with CNARED or UN mediator Jamal Benomar.

    It is not clear however whether the government intends to skip the talks altogether.

    The Burundi regime has previously described CNARED as a “terrorist organisation”.

    The CNARED said it would also not participate.

    However, it added that it would “send a delegation to Arusha to see Mkapa and go over one or two details before reaching a final decision on the matter,” one of its leaders told AFP on condition of anonymity.

    The so-called inter-Burundi dialogue has repeatedly run into snags and Tuesday’s statement by the government is only the latest glitch.

    In December, the opposition accused Mkapa of siding with the government by accepting it as “legitimate”.

    “I am in no position to determine the legitimacy of the government of Burundi. Elections were held, court cases were raised … and they all said this is a legitimate process which has come to a legitimate conclusion,” he said.

    Violence erupted in Burundi when President Pierre Nkurunziza (pictured) decided to run for a third term in office in April 2015, resulting in at least 300,000 people fleeing the country.

    Source:AFP