Tag: GreatLakesNews

{Despite the progress Kenya has made in reducing hunger, it is among 50 countries where levels of hunger remain serious or alarming, a new global report reveals.}

Kenya’s score of 22 places it at number 72 out of a list of 118 countries. The study does not include developed countries because they have extremely low hunger levels.

Even with talk about rising investment in agriculture, Kenya continues to struggle to feed its people, especially its children. One in five Kenyan is undernourished while roughly one in four children is stunted and four per cent are wasted, shows the International Food Policy Research Institute study.

A review of Kenya’s health data by Nation Newsplex confirms that the figures concur with the numbers in the 2016 Kenya Demographic and Health Survey.

{{RAVAGING DROUGHT}}

In September this year the National Drought Management Authority (NDMA) issued drought alerts for 11 counties and an alarm for one. According to the authority’s early warning bulletins, Narok, Kajiado, Taita-Taveta, Kilifi, Kwale, Tana River, Kitui, Makueni, Marsabit and Garissa counties are experiencing a decline in food and livestock production as well as water supply. The food security situation in the counties is expected to get worse in the coming weeks. The drought status of Lamu was moved up from alert to alarm.

Besides the counties that the authority listed, Devolution Cabinet Secretary Mwangi Kiunjuri on Friday added West Pokot, Tharaka-Nithi, Samburu, Wajir, Mandera and Isiolo among the worst-hit counties.
Mr Kiunjuri said 1.3 million Kenyans in 23 counties are affected by the drought, with Kilifi being the worst-hit.

A Kenyan is three times more likely to go hungry compared with a Tunisian. Kenya’s hunger level is 22 and Tunisia’s is 6.

Globally the level of hunger remains alarmingly high, with 795 million people still facing hunger, roughly one in four children affected by stunting, and eight per cent of children affected by wasting.

The countries with the highest hunger levels are the Central African Republic, with a score of 46, and Chad with 44. A Kenyan is three times more likely to go hungry compared with a Tunisian. Kenya’s hunger level is 22 and Tunisia’s is 6. The 2016 Global Hunger Index (GHI) shows that the level of hunger in developing countries as a group has fallen by a third. But this progress has been uneven and great disparities in hunger continue to exist at the regional and national levels.

A Haitian is almost three times as likely to be undernourished as a Kenyan but the two countries have the same proportion of stunted children. Haiti has the highest share of its population undernourished on the list.

The proportion of undernourishment in the countries with the best record — Argentina and Turkey — is less than one per cent while the level of stunting in each of the two countries is less than 10 per cent.

The GHI ranks countries on a 100-point scale. Zero is the best score (no hunger), and 100 is the worst, although neither of these extremes is reached in practice.

Sub-Saharan Africa’s index is double that of North Africa’s score of 12 even though the latter is situated in the Sahara desert. The Near East region’s index is the same as North Africa’s and slightly better than the East and Southeast Asia score of 13.

Most of the countries with alarming GHI scores are in sub-Saharan Africa. The IFPRI study finds that 34 (68 per cent) out of the 50 worst-performing countries are in Africa.

The current rate of reducing hunger will leave South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa with GHI scores near the divide between moderate and serious hunger — falling far short of the goal to reach Zero Hunger by 2030.

To reflect the multidimensional nature of hunger, the GHI combines four indicators into one index, including undernourishment, which refers to the proportion of undernourished people in a population.

Other indicators are child wasting, which is the share of children under the age of five who suffer from wasting (low weight for their height, reflecting acute under-nutrition), and child stunting, which is the fraction of children under the age of five who are too short for their age, reflecting chronic under-nutrition The final component is the under-five death rate.

An examination of national malnutrition statistics by Newsplex reveals that efforts to reduce malnutrition (stunting and wasting) in Kenya have had mixed results since 2000, when 35 per cent, or one in three children, were stunted. The figure dropped to 28 per cent in 2003 but went up to 30 per cent in 2008.

Malnutrition can lead to irreversible brain and body damage if it is not treated before the age of two and undernourished children are more prone to diseases.

Malnourished (stunted and underweight) children go on to earn 20 per cent less in adulthood, according to a 2008 Lancet review of cohort studies from Brazil, Guatemala, India, the Philippines and South Africa.

A cohort study follows participants through a certain period of their lives, which in this particular study was from childhood to adulthood.

ZERO HUNGER
Overall, developing countries has made substantial progress in reducing hunger since 2000. No countries have been in the “extremely alarming” category for a second year in a row. Twenty-two countries have reduced their GHI scores by half or more since 2000 and another 70 countries have reduced their scores by 25-49.9 per cent since 2000. During this period Kenya’s score has dipped by 42 per cent.

The three countries in the world that achieved the biggest percentage reductions in hunger in the serious and alarming categories are Myanmar, Rwanda, and Cambodia, with 2016 GHI scores for each country down by just over 50 per cent compared with the 2000 scores.

Each of these countries has experienced civil war and political instability in recent decades, and the improvements in part may reflect increased stability.

The countries with the lowest percentage reductions in hunger are the Central African Republic and Chad.

But to achieve Sustainable Development Goal 2 of getting to zero hunger while leaving no one behind, it is essential to identify the regions, countries, and populations that are most vulnerable to hunger and undernutrition so progress can be accelerated there.

Further, although Africa south of the Sahara has achieved the largest absolute improvement since 2000 and South Asia has also seen a sizable reduction, the decline in hunger must accelerate in these regions if the world is to achieve Zero Hunger by 2030.

Since 2015, GHI scores were calculated using a new and improved formula. The revision replaces child underweight, previously the only indicator of child undernutrition, with two indicators of child undernutrition — child wasting and child stunting.

As the drought situation in Kenya deteriorated, it prompted the NDMA to disburse Sh53 million from the Drought Contingency Fund (DCF) at the beginning of August.

The authority disbursed funds from the Sh1.1 billion kitty that is supported by the European Union, as follows:
• Kilifi County – Sh11.5m to support security, water and livestock sectors, including livestock off-take for slaughter in Kayafungo, Bamba, Mariakani.
• Kwale County – Sh6.5m for support to livestock, health and nutrition, security and water sectors.
• Tana River County – Sh3.3m to support livestock, health and nutrition, security, education and water sectors.
• Taita-Taveta County – Sh7.7m to support livestock, health and nutrition, security and water sectors.
• Kitui County – Sh7.8m to support livestock, health and nutrition, and water sectors.
• Makueni County – Sh5.1m to support livestock, health and nutrition and water sectors.

Kiunjuri said that in August the Treasury released Sh254 million for emergency food relief.

{Three people from Senta ya Maradona area at Kabange Village in the newly-established Tanganyika District, Katavi Region, died on the spot in the house of a traditional healer, Msajigwa Jaheda (55), after drinking a concoction of traditional medication meant for treating stomach diseases.}

Two of the deceased persons are daughters-in-law of the traditional healer. Katavi Regional Police Commander (RPC), Mr Damas Nyanda, named the three dead persons as Kabula Joseph (23) and Idulu Masanja (30), wives of the younger and elder sons of Jaheda.

The other one was identified as Idulu Masanja (30). The RPC said that the incident occurred on October 13 at around 10:00 pm at Senta ya Maradona at Kabange Village, Sibwesa Ward in Tanganyika District in Katavi Region.

According to the RPC, police have mounted a manhunt for the suspect who fled from the scene of incident shortly after he committed the crime. “When we searched his house, we found several government trophies and different witchcraft-related paraphernalia,” added the RPC.

Acting Mpanda Municipal Medical Officer, Dr Mohamed Mpunja, who went to the scene of the incident, said postmortem reports showed that deaths of the three people were caused by drinking a traditional medicine concoction known as ‘nyungu’. Narrating the macabre incident, Dr Mpunja said that on the material night, the trio died on the spot after drinking traditional medication given by traditional healer, Jaheda, at his house.

It was further alleged that the traditional healer gave medication to “clean-up” the stomach of his daughter-in-law, Kabula who shortly afterwards started vomiting until she died. “He gave the same medication to his other daughter-in-law, Ndalo, who experienced severe diarrhoea until she died,’’ added Dr Mpunja.

According to him, the third person, Masanja, who was suffering from hernia, died on the spot after drinking ‘nyungu’. Reports from the scene of incident had it that Masanja went to Senta ya Maradona area to mourn one of his close relatives who passed away two days ago; but before he left for his village, went to seek treatment for hernia from Jaheda.

Dr Mpunga confirmed that Jehada was treating patients without having any legal permit. He urged residents in the region to seek treatment provided by health facilities once they fall sick.

{Speaking at the launch of a hand washing campaign in Kamuli, Busoga sub-region, Mr Museveni said he prefers reserving his busy right hand to himself.}

KAMULI. For fear of catching germs from unwashed hands, President Museveni says he dreads offering his right hand in greetings.

Speaking at the launch of a hand washing campaign in Kamuli, Busoga sub-region, Mr Museveni said he prefers reserving his busy right hand to himself (his own affairs) and rather stretch out the left one to all and sundry.

“My right hand is mine and the left one is for Ugandans. I am a fighter and I want healthy people,” Mr Museveni said.

The president said the habit of washing hands should be a basic practice in every home, considering its ability to reduce germs that spread diseases. Mr Museveni asked health workers to spread this message, saying that is part of their job description.

If done well (washing hands with soap), he said the spread of disease could be cut down significantly.

And if [hand washing with soap] is not made a habit just as the theme of the event suggests, the President believes shaking of hands will be a health hazard.

“You need to wash your hands thoroughly before getting in contact with others. And with such practices you will reduce disease burden by 47 per cent,” Mr Museveni said.

The president warned against dangers of aflatoxins produced by certain moulds found in food, and can cause liver damage and cancer.

To control aflatoxins, Mr Museveni recommended proper food management, storage and handling.

Earlier, Speaker of Parliament Rebecca Kadaga also advocated hand washing and sanitation campaign, saying if they are ignored, there would be dreadful consequences.

The SNV Project Officer, Ms Sarah Rubereti Omondi, said there is need to have reputable people champion hand washing campaign. She said creative ways should be used to pass the communication to the masses.

She called for revival of health parades in schools, saying it helps promote good hygiene and sanitation, which would reduce most of the preventable and water-borne diseases.

{Troubled national carrier Kenya Airways is staring at millions of shillings in losses as the intended industrial action by its pilots inches closer, putting pressure on the airline whose contracted staff are already on strike amid reports of ticket cancellations.}

Despite a court order barring the strike, the Kenya Airline Pilots Association (Kalpa) has said its members will not work come Tuesday even as the government, which owns 29.8 per cent of the airline, stuck to its guns in opposition to the strike, paving way for what could be a financially costly standoff for the troubled airline that is trying to fly out of turbulence.

“The government stands by the statement released earlier and we demand that Kalpa withdraws the strike notice immediately especially given the court order demanding that they do so,” Transport Permanent Secretary Irungu Nyakera told the Sunday Nation.

“We have, through the Ministry of Labour, appointed a conciliation committee which will meet on Monday to help the two parties reach an amicable solution,” he said.

But unless a solution is reached in good time, the airline will on Tuesday be forced to book travellers in hotels or reimburse money already paid for tickets, further increasing operation costs while denting its image.

Just two weeks ago, several passengers on local routes were inconvenienced after several flights were either cancelled or delayed. A week earlier, a plane from Entebbe burst its tyre during landing at the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport while flight KQ570, on the Johannesburg-Nairobi route, has been in the news due to flight mishaps.

Kalpa has trashed the government claim that pilots have no role in determining the airline’s leadership insisting that, as an association, they have vested interests and a moral obligation to question the recovery and transformation.

“The attempt to paint Kenya Airways pilots in a negative light by stating that the airline lost Sh200 million as a result of the April industrial action is indeed a diversionary tactic. It must be highlighted that Kenya Airways has lost Sh52 billion in the last two years mainly through bad decision making and corruption,” said its chief executive Paul Gichinga.
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CONTRACTUAL PAYMENTS}}

“At a time when Kenya Airways management has delayed making contractual payments on KQ staff medicals, loans and mortgages, it is instructive to note that the airline’s management has been diligently making payments to McKinsey & Company to the tune of Sh2.3 billion, in the last one year alone,” he said.

However Career Directions Limited, the company that manages the outsourced 500 contracted employees who downed their tools on Friday demanding that their salaries be at par with in-house staff, accuses Kalpa of inciting them to strike, further complicating an already difficult situation.

Outsourced employees who are mainly ground staff and cabin crew work on a contractual basis and are paid significantly lower than the other 3,000 staff and were introduced in 2012 in an effort to cut down on the airline’s huge wage bill. CDL, in this case, also takes six per cent of their pay for insurance, NSSF and its own management charges.

“Like any outsourcing business we agree on who we want to hire but it is KQ which determines what it will pay them and not us,” CDL’s managing director Lucy Manyara told the Sunday Nation.

“What Kalpa has done, and that is the truth because they have their own agenda, is incite our staff to demand higher salaries at a time when KQ is not making any money. They were supposed to come to us as their principal employer and then we were to inform KQ about the issues but they did not do that,” she said.

In what has been a turbulent two weeks for the national carrier, Transport CS Macharia said the chairman, Dennis Awori, would leave. This follows months of pressure from Kalpa and several flight delays believed to have been caused by a go-slow among the airline’s staff.

The government also recently hired former Safaricom CEO to the board in a bid to inject new blood in the airline even as Transport Cabinet Secretary James Macharia insisted that they had fired up to 90 per cent of KQ’s top management.

The fate of Mr Mbuvi Nguze, its CEO, whose exit Kalpa has also been demanding, remains unknown with the government being non-committal on the matter. He is among the airline’s top management that a leaked audit report by Deloitte has recommended for disciplinary action.

The CEO, in particular, is accused of gross negligence and abuse of authority for failing to exercise due diligence by approving the opening of an account at Dubai Bank at a time when the lender was almost falling.

He is also accused of approving a bank guarantee of $7 million from the bank which was $2 million above the approved limit.

According to the audit report, the guarantee facility letter for this particular request drafted on April 23, 2015 was found to have a forged signature of the airline’s former finance director Alex Mbugua but a genuine one from Mr Ngunze. Mr Mbugua was fired in January.

{{GENUINE SIGNATURE}}

“We conducted a handwriting analysis of the signatures and confirmed that Mr Ngunze’s signature on the letter was genuine, but that the signature purported to be Mr Mbugua’s was not genuine,” says the report.

“The losses to KQ emanating from Mr Ngunze’s actions were: $350,000 being fees paid to Dubai Bank that resulted in a loss of $140,000 being excess payment; and an increase in contingent liability of Sh155,900,000 to KQ over and above the Board approved limit,” says the report.

In July, The Pride of Africa announced it had plunged deeper in the red after recording a Sh26.2 billion net loss for the year ended March 2016. This is a worse performance compared to the Sh25.7 billion net loss that the national carrier recorded a year ago.

Nevertheless, the airline insists its restructuring is on track. On Thursday, it said results for the first half of this year, which are due to be released in two weeks, will show a reduction in net losses from Sh12 billion to Sh5 billion, a 4 per cent rise in passengers and an increase in cabin load from 68 per cent to 71 per cent over the same period last year.

On Saturday, it stayed clear of the crisis and instead announced it will suspend flights to Abuja in Nigeria and Gaberone in Botswana from November 15 while increasing its frequencies in East Africa with a new mid-day flight to Kigali in Rwanda and Bujumbura in Burundi, making it 25 flights per week to these two destinations.

In what it refers to as “winter schedule”, the airline plans to increase its flight frequency to the Cape Town route, that goes via Livingstone, from the current three to four per week, and eventually to six times per week around Christmas to meet demand.

The airline will also increase its frequencies in East Africa with a new midday flight to Kigali and Bujumbura making it 25 flights per week in the wake of heightened competition from Rwandair which two weeks ago received what could be the first Airbus A330 in the region in a bid to eat into KQs market share.

According to the new plan which KQ refers to its winter schedule, the airline will be flying four times to its recently launched Cape Town route, add night flights To the Comoros and Madagascar routes and increase to five the number of flights to Dar es Salaam and Entebbe per week.

KQ has already had to deal with two separate industrial action threats by its pilots from the beginning of the year. In April the Airline claims it lost Sh200 million in just a few hours due to flight cancellations.

And with a solution not in sight and KQ inching closer to what could be its biggest industrial action by its workers yet, the Kenya Civil Aviation Authority (KCAA) has waded into the crisis urging the parties involved to seek a solution as the situation is already hurting the country’s economy and air safety record.

“A vibrant and highly competitive civil aviation industry is one where its key stakeholders operate in a healthy business environment.

We remain committed to our role and implore the aviation stakeholders involved, the Kenya Airways Management and Kalpa to resolve the grievances as provided for by the government of Kenya,” Gilbert Kibe the authority’s CEO said on Saturday.

{The East African Legislative Assembly (EALA) wants the institutionalisation of Regional Agriculture Advisory Council to advise on the harmonisation of the regional agriculture policy frameworks and programmes.}

The regional legislature proposed that the council should comprise of the Secretariat of East African Community (EAC) or EALA and representatives from Partner States, academia, regional farmer organisations and civil societies as well as consumers.

The assembly also pushed on additional budget allocation in the agricultural sector in partner states and ensuring legal and regulatory frameworks are responsive to the needs of the smallholder farmers, youth, women and other sectors.

The assembly appealed on the increase in budgetary allocations which is in line with the Malabo Declaration’s target which is pegged at least 10 per cent annually. The EALA made these recommendations in a report arising from the Agriculture Budget Summit, 2016 held in Arusha on June 4, 2016.

Themed “Increasing Public Investment in Agriculture towards Ending Hunger and Poverty by 2025 in the EAC”, the meeting was organised to support the implementation of the Malabo Declaration of 2014-2025.

The meeting, among other things, sort to increase public awareness on the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP) results framework and importance of public financing of agriculture that supports smallholders as catalyst for improved private sector investment.

A member of the EALA, Ms Maryam Ussi, called on the region to support the smalls scale farmers by implementing the 10 percent budgetary increase as per the Malabo Declaration.

Her fellow member, Mr Mike Sebalu, remarked that it was time for agriculture to be prioritised and that a value system that inculcates agriculture should be embraced. Another member, Ms Shyrose Bhanji, said agriculture if well improved could provide more employment to youth, women and other stakeholders.

“At the same time if land is well allocated and utilized then it would go a long way in eradicating poverty,” the legislator said. She challenged small- holder farmers to take advantage of the Customs Union Protocol that offers free taxes on local products.

{14 October 2016 – Expressing “deep concern” over the political situation in Burundi, the United Nations Security Council reiterated its demand that all stakeholders to refrain from any action that could threaten peace and stability in the country or undermine the East African Community-led inter-Burundian dialogue.}

In a press statement, the 15-member body also “stressed the utmost importance of respecting the Constitution as well as the letter and spirit of the Arusha Agreement, which has helped to sustain a decade of peace in Burundi.”

Security Council’s press statement comes against as the Burundian Government has decided to suspend all cooperation with the UN human rights wing, pending renegotiation of the host country agreement on the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) mandate and activities in the central African country.

Noting that OHCHR had been providing technical assistance to Burundi for more than 20 years, to strengthen its rule of law institutions, Council members expressed hope that a “swift solution can be found through dialogue between OHCHR and the government that will enable OHCHR to resume its activities.”

The Security Council also requested UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to dispatch his Special Adviser on conflict prevention, including in Burundi, Jamal Benomar, to coordinate with the Government regarding the implementation of its resolution 2303 (2016), in which the it authorized a UN police officers’ component to monitor the security situation and support the human rights monitoring by OHCHR.

After his closed-door briefing to the Council yesterday, Mr. Benomar said would consult with officials in Burundi to “find a way forward on all issues related to peace and security and UN activities in the country,” after the Government had rejected the resolution and amid reports that it will also withdraw from the International Criminal Court (ICC).

Also today, an OHCHR spokesperson told the regular media briefing in Geneva, that three independent human rights expert who had worked on the UN Independent Investigation on Burundi, established by the Geneva-based UN Human Rights Council (HRC), had been declared persona non grata by Burundian authorities.

The spokesperson further noted that UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad al Hussein “regretted [this] decision” and urged the authorities to continue to engage constructively with all UN human rights mechanisms.

At the same briefing, Rolando Gomez, an HRC spokesperson also informed the media that the HRC President called for an urgent meeting of his Bureau this afternoon to discuss the situation in Burundi.

The HRC Bureau meeting follows an earlier meeting today between the HRC President and the Permanent Representative of Burundi to the UN Offices at Geneva.

Further in their statement today, the members of the Security Council recalled the commitments expressed by other regional countries under a framework agreement for peace, security and cooperation in the region called on them to contribute to a peaceful solution to the crisis in Burundi.

{The father of Standard Group’s Kilifi correspondent Joseph Masha has died, just a month after the journalist collapsed and died in his house.}

Family members of Mzee Tondo Chiwetse, 72, said the old man committed suicide by hanging himself inside his house at Kolongoni Village in Chasimba, Kilifi County.

In a tragic turn of events, residents said the old man hanged himself after a known witchdoctor in the area implicated him in his son’s death.

According to Mzee Chiwetse’s son John Said, the deceased was found dangling on a rope inside his house after the family mounted a search for him when he went missing.

On Saturday, Mr Saidi said Mzee Tondo was living a dejected life in the village, after “he was found guilty” of practicing witchcraft, by an alleged witch buster seven days ago.

He speculated the weight of the allegations might have led him to taking his own life.

SON DIED ON SEPT 2

When Masha collapsed and died in his house in Kilifi Town on September 2, some family members suspected that he could have died as a result of a traditional ritual.

Others, including his professional colleagues, suspected foul play.

The ritual, commonly known as Kutoa wa Mvua among the Mijikenda ethnic group, is a practice where a member of the cult sacrifices one of his family member so that rain can come.

Masha’s employer, the Standard Group, insisted on a post-mortem on his body, which was conducted by five doctors led by Chief government pathologist Dr Johansen Oduor.

After the autopsy at the Kilifi County Hospital, Dr Oduor announced that the same samples had been sent for further analysis in South Africa on the company’s request.

On Saturday Kilifi County chief of health Timothy Malingi said the results are not yet out.

Soon after his death, rumours started doing the rounds in the village that he had been “bewitched”.

FAMOUS WITCH BUSTER

That prompted the family to seek the services of a renowned witch buster, commonly referred to as Beba Beba.

Last week, Mzee Chiwetse was among the eight elders in the village who were “busted” was implicated in his son’s death.

“After he was caught by Beba Beba, he came to me, looking very miserable. He said he felt ashamed that the entire Kolongoni Village including even children had branded him a wizard. Looking disturbed, he gave me his bank account details and then went missing,” said Mr Saidi.

“He went missing on Thursday and after a search we found him at 2pm inside his house with a rope on his neck,” he added.

Some of the locals claim Mzee Chiwetse could no longer withstand the torment and shame of being called a wizard and the accusation that he killed his own son, Masha.

Kilifi police boss Alexander Makau confirmed the incident and said investigations have been launched.

He asked for calm as police look into the circumstances of the death.

“We shall investigate all the claims being levelled over the death,” said Mr Makau.

An elder who spoke on condition of anonymity said the deceased’s toes had some injuries, which could have been pointed to a struggle and speculation that he may also have been killed by people who wanted it to looked like suicide.

{{RAMPANT KILLING}}

Killing of the elderly on witchcraft allegations has been rampant in Kilifi County, with more than 108 elders killed in the region last year, according to County Commissioner Joseph Keter.

While visiting Kilifi in January this year, Deputy President William Ruto called to end the reckless killing of the elderly in the region.