Tag: GreatLakesNews

Kenya’s Deputy Prime Minister Uhuru Kenyatta has started a second round of shuttle diplomacy to persuade regional leaders to take a common stand on ‘foreign interference’ in Kenya’s next elections.

Mr Kenyatta flew to Burundi’s capital-Bujumbura, with ministers Eugene Wamalwa, Charity Ngilu, and MPs Najib Balala, Kiema Kilonzo and Musikari Kombo to meet President Pierre Nkurunziza.

The team also furthered their negotiations of reaching a coalition agreement between The National Alliance, New Ford-Kenya, Narc and United Republican Party ahead of the elections.

Sources at the meeting in a Bujumbura hotel said they were yet to strike a coalition deal. Mr Kombo termed the trip a serious diplomatic mission to introduce the group to other East African leaders.

“This mission has nothing to do with the ICC cases or the signing of a coalition agreement,” Mr Kombo said, revealing that they held talks with President Nkurunziza at his official residence.

The team will then head to Uganda to meet with President Yoweri Museveni before returning to the country. A similar visit is planned for Rwanda.

Sources who attended the meeting said Mr Kenyatta and President Nkurunziza discussed how the region could handle its own cases relating to people accused of international crimes.

Of the meeting, Mr Kenyatta said: “We’ve just been here to brief his Excellency that we are working together with the intention that we have a peaceful election in Kenya.”

Mr Kombo revealed that after Bujumbura, Mr Kenyatta would meet other East African presidents.

The African Mission for Somalia AMISOM has said in a statement that it regrets the smuggling of charcoal after it emerged ports have allowed ships carrying charcoal to leave Somalia violating both a UN Security Council and Presidential ban.

“AMISOM regrets reports that charcoal is being exported of Somalia in violation of United Nations Security Council resolution 2036” the statement reads in part.

AMISOM also promised to work together with the Somalia government in dealing with the issue.

“In this regard, AMISOM reaffirms its commitment to support the Federal Government of Somalia in its efforts to stamp out this illegal trade in charcoal.” The AMISOM statement added.

The Secretary General of the East African Community Amb. Dr. Richard Sezibera Monday launched the “EAC Rome Chapter” in Rome, Italy.

The Chapter comprises EAC Partner States diplomatic missions based in the Italian capital and was formed within the context of promoting and strengthening coordination of common foreign policies.

While addressing members of the diplomatic corps, businessmen and friends of East Africa, Amb. Sezibera said the launch of the EAC Rome Chapter comes at a time when the EAC was vibrant and resurgent marked by a GDP rise from US$ 20 billion in 1999 to US$ 80 billion currently.

The EAC Secretary General, himself a medical doctor, warmly welcomed a proposal by Italian doctor Luigi Gentilini to establish a mobile floating hospital on Lake Victoria.

The hospital is aimed at reaching out to needy communities living around Lake Victoria.

The Chairman of the EAC Rome Chapter and outgoing Dean of the Partner States’ ambassadors, HE Deo Rwabita, Uganda’s ambassador to Italy, said regional integration would help to boost the economies of the Partner States and speed up regional development.

“The EAC initiative is aimed at attracting investors and uplifting the economic status of East Africans and we all must support it for our common good,” said Amb. Rwabita.

HE Amb. Dr. James Msekela from the United Republic of Tanzania read out a joint declaration signed by all the Ambassadors committing the Rome missions to market the region and promote EAC’s interests.

The occasion also saw change of leadership of the EAC Rome Chapter being assumed by HE Josephine Gaita, Kenya’s ambassador to Italy as incoming Dean of the EAC Ambassadors.

Tanzania government owes road contractors a whopping Sh2 trillion, putting at risk the expansion of the road network.

If no steps are taken to clear the debt by the end of the 2013/14 financial year, this amount is likely to rise to Sh4 trillion.

The situation has set off alarm bells in donor circles. Mr Yuzuru Ozeki, the transport sector representative of the development partners group, described the financing gap as “rather daunting” at an infrastructure stakeholders meeting at the weekend.

“Also, there is no allocation for rural road development in the current budget,” he said. “These are serious issues that require urgent consideration and a response by the government.”

But government representatives immediately contested the figures and threw the ball back into the donors’ court, saying the release of aid for development projects was too slow and this had led to the pile up of “contractual obligations”.

“We will have to reconcile our figures and those of the donors,” said Dr John Nduguru, the deputy Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Works. “We are afraid they (development partners) might not have taken care of recent payment of debts.”

He was speaking at a meeting of infrastructure stakeholders. Dr Ndunguru could not say what the government debt figures come to and the Permanent Secretary, Mr Herbert Mrango, was unavailable for comment.

“Development partners must be in a better position to explain the debt and not us (government),” Mrango told The Citizen in a telephone interview.

“This is news to me, I completely know nothing. I am not in a position to comment on anything.”

The government has been grappling with the mounting debt it owes contractors for some years now. In the 2011/12 financial year, contractors staged a go-slow over the failure of the government to meet its obligations.

The latest figures, released in April, put the debt at Sh351.977 billion. The government announced in the same month that it would suspend the construction of new roads until the debt is cleared.

In the same month, the Parliamentary Committee on Infrastructure warned the government that the heavy debts to contractors would compromise the financial position of the ministry and the government.

Dr John Magufuli told reporters in June that the government had borrowed Sh330 billion from a Swiss bank to clear the debt.

Development partners said they were surprised that, despite the huge sums, the government had allocated only Sh700 billion to Tanroads.

This amount is not even in tandem with the National Strategy for Growth and Poverty Reduction, better known by its Kiswahili acronym, Mkukuta.

Worse still, the government does not seem to have a strategy to fill the large financing gap. “This poses a very serious budgetary issue that goes beyond the realm of the sector policies,” Mr Ozeki said.

Implementing the Transport Sector Investment Plan (TSIP) II required about three times of actual budgetary allocations and the Public Private Partnership (PPP) alone was unable to fill the gap.

“These are serious issues that require urgent consideration and responses from the government,” Mr Ozeki said. “As things stand now, the financial year 2011/12 approved budget is not consistent with Mkukuta priorities and sector policies.”

He now wants the government to adopt courageous policies such as increasing revenue collection from sectors with comparative advantages, such as mining and tourism.

The matter could also be tabled before the General Budget Support Annual Review meeting for intensive discussion by the government and its development partners.

Ozeki was optimistic that, by tackling enormous challenges in funding, prioritising and sequencing, the country could overcome the barriers and make progress in implementing the programmes at hand.

Mr Ozeki, who is also an adviser to the Japan International Cooperation Agency, stressed the importance of continued talks between the government and development partners at ministerial, ambassadorial and technical levels.

The ancestral village of Barack Obama celebrated Wednesday the re-election of the son of Kogelo village, who won because he knows how to “love all people”, his grandmother said.

Singing and dancing Crowds stayed up throughout the night in a small village in remote western Kenya nestled in the hills about 60 kilometres from Lake Victoria.

Sarah Obama 90 said, “The reason why he(Obama) has won is because God has given it to him.”

Sarah the third wife of the paternal grandfather of the president, who has said he regards her as a grandmother.

Speaking in Luo language, Sarah said Obama won because, “Secondly he has got the knowledge to love all people, he doesn’t have the knowledge of division, that is why he has won.”

In public lecture delivered in Kampala, Uganda, the African Development Bank President Donald Kaberuka said Africa’s demographics pointed to an explosion in the numbers of young people, though employment creation was not keeping pace.

He lamented the fact that youth unemployment, at 20% last year, remains way above the global average of 10%.

“The quality of Africa’s growth during the past decade has not been inclusive, with too few jobs created especially for the young people in the booming economies.

The events of the Arab Spring have shown us the paradox of high growth and rising inequality and unemployment (which) requires all of us to reflect seriously on the causes,” said Kaberuka.

The lecture, titled: “Economic Growth and Economic Transformation”, was moderated by the Deputy Governor of the Bank of Uganda, Dr. Louis Kasekende.

Kaberuka said Africa has to continue investing heavily in infrastructure if it is catalyze growth, adding that Africa requires US $360 billion in infrastructure investments over the next 30 years, while the energy needs will also multiply.

These kinds of investments requires innovative financing, such as issuance of infrastructure bonds, which have become important for the mobilization of infrastructure financing and the development of domestic capital markets.

Kaberuka reiterated his call for the establishment of an African infrastructure bond to be financed using a fraction of funds held overseas by Africa’s Central Banks.

“We have estimated that if only 5% of these reserves are invested with the African Development Bank, a triple-A rated institution, to invest in infrastructure, it would amount to US $22 billion,” said the President.

Kaberuka argued that economic transformation is characterized by at least three key features, starting with the structure of the economy changing to depict an increase in the share of manufacturing, coupled with a sustained decline in the share of agriculture.

This is followed by the share of agriculture employment falling, while the share of total labour force in other sectors of the economy increases, and finally, economic activity shifts from rural areas to the cities leading to an increase in the degree of urbanization.

“Therefore, economic transformation is a comprehensive change that encompasses the modernization of a country’s economy, society and institutions. In countries where economic transformation has taken place, the middle class has become larger; changes have happened in the way politics works, with emphasis on market-friendly policies; and government has become more effective,” said Kaberuka.

In all cases, where economic transformation has succeeded, the articulation of a national vision to motivate the people has been crucial.

He added that though African countries have made valiant efforts towards freeing the continent from ignorance, poverty and disease, more needed to be done.

“For while you can have growth without economic transformation, you can never have economic transformation without growth,” said Kaberuka.

He gave the examples of Brazil, China and South Korea as countries which had leap-frogged developmental stages because of putting in place policies that led to a boost in growth.

The President called for more investments in agricultural R&D as well as increasing land under irrigation.

“It is significant that only 4% of food crops in Africa are irrigated compared to 30% in Asia,” he said.

Urging for increased investment in education, Kaberuka said this is the only panacea for eradication poverty.

“There is broad agreement that the best way to end the transmission of poverty from one generation to the other is quality education to the children of the poor,” he said.

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