Category Archives: BLOGGERS

KENYAN FAMILY OF PRESIDENT BARRACK OBAMA SAYS THEY WILL NOT GO AND MEET HIM IN THE NEIGHBORING TANZANIA.

Writes Leo Odera Omolo In Kisumu City

The family of the US President Barrack Obama who is currently on an African tour from which his ancestral home Kenya is excluded, have reiterated that they will not travel across the Kenya-Tanzania border to try to meet him there.

Mama Sarah Obama the 90 year old step grandmother of the US President, when contacted at her Nyang’oma Alego Kogelo home in Siaya County said they can’t travel to the neighboring country in order to meet her grandson.

”We are not invited therefore there is no point going there. Moreover Obama is the President of the US and all the arrangements for his African itinerary are organized by the US government”, she said adding “President Obama is on official visits to specific countries as the US President.”

“Joining him in the neighboring country of Tanzania, though it is next door to Kenya may interfere with his itinerary. He has a very busy and tight schedule and as such we have decided to not to attend any of his functions there.”

Mama Sarah Obama was reacting about the rumor which went around that members of the Obama family in Alego Kogelo were making tentative arrangement to travel to Tanzania today.

There is no such arrangement, though the US President would have loved to see him stopping in Kenya, however, briefly it could be. This is the second time President Obama has skipped Kenya during is visit to the sub-Saharan Africa. The first time was when he was first elected President when he visited Ghana. Obama is very popular with the millions of Kenya people whom for along time have been looking forward to see him visit the country of his father ancestral land.

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TANZANIA AND RUSSIA WILL SOON BE EMBROILED IN MAJOR LEGAL TUSSLES THROUGH COURT OVER DISPUTED URANIUM MINING IN MKUNJU RIVER MINING FIELDS.

Writes Leo Odera Omolo

Tanzania and Russia may soon face each other in court in ne of the toughest legal battle against a Russian firm in a multimillion dollar engaged in the business of mining uranium over tax evasion.

Information emerging from Dar Es Salaam says that state is demanding nearly USD 206 million, which is equivalent to Tshs 329 billion taxes from the Russian firm ,Rosatom disputes the taxes invoices.JSC Atomredmetzoloi {ARMTZ} OF Russia in relation to its Mkunju River Uranium mines that the state owned mining arm of Russia’s nuclear watchdog

As a result the ARMZ, Uranium Holdings through its lawyer FB Attornery has filed a case before the Tax Appeal Tribunal of Tanzania to challenge the tax claim.

Gandasiosus Ishengoma also a lawyer confirmed last week that the ARMZ has challenge the state over its claim and filed a case through theTax Apeal Tribunal.

The Energy and Mineral Minister Prof. Sospeter Muhongo was quote by a source in Dar Es Salaam as saying that the Tshs 329.01 billion {205.80 million tax had originated from MkunjuRiver uranium mining.

TAnzania law was enacted in 2011 in order to close loophole in a tax holiday incentive because that allowed foreign firms to operate tax-free for first five years.

He same law stipulates that any foreign firm operating in the country must pay capital gain tax, when it changes to a third party.

Mantra Tanzania Ltd the former owners of Mkunju River uranium mine in December 2010 cedeed the project operations to AMZ after the firm had acquired the percentage. Mantra Resources of Australia For Tshs .1.667.1 billion USD.O43.8 million..

And immediately after the transactions, the state through the Tanzania Revenue Authority [TRA] issued invoices demanding that ARMTZ settles Tshs 327.7 million out of the total USD 9.8 in stamp duty.The sum is quoted as being equavalent to 43 per cent of the current Tazania’s health and social welfare budget of Tshs 753.85 billion..

Observers and watchers of Tanzania-Rusia relations have maintained that the tax battle between the two countries could create bad blood between the two business partners.

In April last year Tanzania licensed ARMTZ RANIUM Holding to establish the first uranium mines in Mkunju River which is located in the south of the country.

This licence is the first to be issued by Tanzania and the newly enacted mining laws.

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Ending the Hidden Exclusion: Learning and Equity in Post-2015

From: Yona Maro

The last decade has witnessed enormous progress in expanding access to education worldwide. The job is not yet finished: 61 million primary school aged children are still denied the opportunity to learn. But as we continue to make progress and look ahead to 2015 and beyond, it is vital to shine a light on the ‘hidden exclusion’ affecting children’s education around the world.

Our proposed focus for the goal, targets and framework post-2015 is grounded, in part, in an analysis of the social, demographic, economic and political changes that are shaping the wider world. Many of these forces are creating a very different context to that which existed in 2000 when the Millennium Development Goals were set. This report explores a number of these trends. Five of the most noteworthy have particular consequences for education post-2015.

Link:
http://www.savethechildren.org/atf/cf/%7B9def2ebe-10ae-432c-9bd0-df91d2eba74a%7D/ENDING_THE_HIDDEN_EXCLUSION_EDUCATION_POST2015_FULL_REPORT.PDF

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The EAC has commissioned a study to enhance trade ties with the US

Writes Leo Odera Omolo

The East African Community [EAC} has commissioned a study ahead of direct trade negotiations between the bloc and the United States which is keen to deepen ties with the region.

A directive by the EAC Sectoral Council on Trade, Industry, Finance and Investment, which consists of Ministers who handled the EAC docket, has directed the directors to undertake a study to determine what the negotiations should be based and how the region would benefit from any resultant agreement.

The Trade and Investment Partnership Agreement {TIPA] between the EAC and the US was initiated last year to support the economic integration of the region and enhance the EAC-US trade and investment play in economic and social development, including job creation,

Washington’s push for the clearly defined trade ties between East Africa Community and the United comes at a time when China is emerging as a dominant player in the region.

The study expected to be completed within four months will allow for shorter and more focused negotiations as opposed to the outgoing talks between the EAC a nd EU, which have dragged on for a long time.

A Mr Felix Okatch, a Kenyan multilateral trade expert, however, said the region should not expect a lot from the agreement because the distance between the two partners is a hindrance for trade when compared with the EU. Rwanda is the only country in the region that has a bilateral trade and investment agreement with the US. It was signed in December 2011.

He added that Rwanda-US deal would not affect the trade agreement to be signed by all the EAC member states and the US, as they would be bound by the most favored between nation {MEN} clause.

“In this case, what the US exports to Rwanda will also be exported to the other partners and what Rwanda exports to US can also be exported by the other partner states”, as per what the EAC treaty states.

The EAC-US trade and investment is a component of the US strategy towards Sub-Saharan Africa,which President Barrack Obama announced in June 2012.

President Obama’s objecives are to strengthen democratic institutions, promote peace ,unity and trade and investment.

The total trade volume between the EAC and the US is estimated currently at US D 1.1 billion and the trade between the US and Kenya is estimated at 656 million followed by Tanzania USD 201 million, Uganda USD 142 million, Rwanda stands at USD 81 million while trade with Burundi is USED 51 MILLION.

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Kenya: The story of the mysterioiusly huge snake which the Luos allmost worsipped in 1940 and aftermath of the reptile’s visit

WAS “NYANG’IDI THE HUGE SNAKE OF GOOD HOPE OR OF BAD OMEN, DISASTROUS AND NATURAL CATASTROPHE AND CALAMITY?.

Short Story By Leo Odera Omolo who traces a historical disastrous which occurred in Nyanza Province in 1940

It was in the early part of the year 940 when a mysterious creature visited some low-laying locations in Nyanza Province in what is today called Rarieda district.

A huge and excessively big snake visited Uyoma Peninsula. It slithered from the direction of Kunya in Kabudha a

The huge snake is believed to have slithered out of Lake Victoria in search of food, but it was of a snake species which has never been seen in the area and nothing in comparison with the known species as it was excessively huge and long

THe reptile is appeared to have traveled by night. Its presence in the village attracted thousands of people.

The big tree has previously been used as the venue of weekly administrative Baraza by the first colonial administrative chief of Uyoma, the late Chief Otumba Mbede. The place is called “Gunda Kotumba” it is situated next to the homestead of the former Chief’s son Nathan Ojungo Otumba, who had inherited his chieftainship, but was retired around 1927.

According to the account of some still surviving eye witnesses, the snake was which was baptized by the villagers as “Nyang’idi “was three time longer than the normal python and resembled the common python in color. Its body was so huge that the eye witnesses compared its size to that of the rear tyre of a tractor.

The reptile resembled the “African Rock python which is usually larger and longer than the common python, and even stronger. The serpent was not aggressive and posed no threat to anyone. Thousands of people came to Chianda villagfe,some of them travelling on bicycle or on foot as far as away as from Yimbo, Alego Usonga, Gem, Seme, Sakwa, Asembo and even across the narrow water way of the Nyanza Gulf { previously known as the Kavirondo Gulf} from Suba and other locations in Southern Nyanza just to come and have a glimpse of the mysterious snake.

It was being fed with two animals every day or half a dozen of chickens. The huge snake was never scared of disturbed by huge crowd that milled around the creature. The crowd brought the live animals which were given as sacrifice for feeding the creature.

The animals on which it feed on for a couple of weeks were sacrifices made by the elders and sub-clans in Uyoma. And because it was during the Second World War II, which had started in earnest in the previous year 1939, the colonial administration in Nyanza got the winds of the news and became alarmed, after the white missionaries had warned that the population in the region was just about to start worshiping the mysterious creature.

The white missionaries were also alarmed by the volume of people flocking to Uyoma the mysterious creature.

As the usual culture of the Luos, the musicians also composed songs of praise for “Nyangidi” sending the white missionaries into great panicking.

Acting under the pressure of the white missionaries, the then Nyanza Provincial Commissioner a Mr Hunter asked the Kisumu based colonial District Commissioner a Mr Winright to immediately dispatch the team of sharp-shooter Administration policemen to Uyoma to go and shoot, kill land destroy the huge snake.

When the three armed APs arrived at Chianda School, they were shown the tree under which Nyang’idi was resting after a mean of a sheep, the police men developed cold feet and refused to open fire on it saying it was a mysterious creature not worth killing and the policemen went back to Kisumu without firing even one single shot at the creature.

Some people who saw the creature included Hon Wilson Ndolo Ayah, the former MP for Kisumu Rural constituency. He had just joined lower primary classes at Chianda Primary School and was staying with his uncle the late Ex-Chief Nathan Ojungo Otumba.Mr Ayah on a telephone interview with this writer said he was among the smaller boys who collected grass and covered the body of the snake as it rested under a tree during warm hours of the afternoon. Ayah served in the Moi’s KANU government as Foreign Affairs Minister and at one time Minister for Water Development admitted that he had seen this mysterious creature before he physically saw any python. Mr Ayah is on his 85 years.

Another eye witness is Mrs Grace Deya Omoso, the daughter of the late Ex-Chief Nathan Ojungo Otumba who is now ageing abut 86.Contacted at her home near Wang’arot in SemeMrs Omoso said Nyang’idi was a harmless creature.Children could even move close to where it had recoiled under the tree and play around.

Mr Ayah said the creature left mysteriously and slithered at night and the next morning many people trailed its footprint which looked like a place where a D8 or D10 heavy earthmoving tractor had passed. It travelled toward the neighboring Asembo location and was later seen in Akado area of Seme west before it permanently disappearing in the horizon.

The following year 1941 the entire Luo-Nyanza was hit by acute shortage of food grain. The worse famine came about which was baptized Ke Ladhri or Ke-Aladhra which his the area like thunderstorm up to 1943. Many people died of hunger.

Two prominent colonial chiefs died. They were Chief Ahenda of Alego and Chief Onunga Amimo of Kano plains.

Two prominent medizinemen {Witchdoctors} also died. They were Katete Owuor {Rambo} of Rusinga Island and Abang’a |Oungu of Uyoma. A wealthy businessman on Rusinga Olunga Onyango also died.A unit of Luo soldiers mutinied in Madagascar laying down their armed and demanding to be told the reason and the cause on which they were fighting for.

The mutiny became so serious that the colonial administration ordered for A RAF war plane stationed in eastern Uganda to fly one influential Luo Chief to the Indian Ocean Island of Madagascar to go and persuade the soldier to continue with fighting. The late Mzee Paul Mboya from Karachuonyo was chosen for task. Mboya, however, failed and almost got assaulted by the rebellious Luo soldiers and was flown back. He was quickly replaced by the late Chef Muganda Opwapo of Ugenya. Chief Muganda succeeded.

It was one year after Nyangidi disappearance when the formidable anti-colonialist campaigner Coun.Daniel Ojijo Oteko, died mysteriously at a government hospital in Kisumu. Thedeath of Ojijo Oteko raised political temperature in the region as the population pointed accusing fingers to the chiefs and colonial administrators.

The sealed off casket containing the body of the late Ojijo Oteko was taken immediately to his home in Kanjira in West Karachuonyo and buried with only his wife allowed near the coffin which was buried under the supervision of security police and thousands mourners harshly dispersed.

The year after the appearance of Nyang’idi SNAKE IN Uyoma was the same when Chief Paul Mboya sent packing the late Hussein Onyango Obama, the grand father of the US Present Barack Obama and forced him out of his home at Kanyadhiang’ in Central Karachuyonyo to go to Nyang’oma Alego in Siaya.

The two had disagreed over Hussein Onyango Obama closeness to the politician the late Ojijo Oteko.The action came after Mboya who was the then the Chief of Karachuonyo had issued repeated warnings to Obama to steer clear of political activities in the erea. The two had disagreed on a trophy ,which Hussein Onyangoi bought while working in Nairobi and brought home and wished it be used on a football tournament involved inter-sub-clans, but the Chief retained the trophy to his own clan despite his team having been beaten.

People who were born at the time of the visit by the mysterious snake are now ageing about 62 and above. Most of them are found n Sakwa Bondo, Yimbo, Asembo and Uyoma and even in Karachuonyo.

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EU to give millions of Euros for the rehabilitation of water towers in Mt Elgon and Chrangayi regions

Reports Leo Odera Omolo

The European Union will fund the rehabilitation of the Cheranganyi and Mt Elgon water towers program in Western Kenya to the tune of 2.5 million Euros {K shs 278 million.

The two water towers are reported to have been massively depleted of the indigenous trees by illegal loggers threatening the survival of the rivers that depend on them including the world famous Nile River.

The project is to be undertaken by the Moi University, Eldoret in collaboration with the Forest Research Institute {kefri}

This was disclosed last week by the Dean of the Environmental Studies at the Eldoret based University Vinah Vindoi who disclosed that the project will be implemented over a period of six year and will benefit the local communities through the creation of jobs and rehabilitation of the much vandalized and depleted forest resources.

He said there has been discrimination in dissemination of information to the local communities leaving the room and vacuum which has turned into wanton destruction the two important water towers.

He said once the key objective of the project in sensitizing the local communities to the real need of conserving and protecting the towers, this could turn out to be the most important part of the rehabilitation objectives.

The local communities will then aide the conservation efforts by the government and other stakeholders.

Prof Sindoi said that KEFRI will conduct further research and recommend the type of tree seedling that will be suited for the area. The tree will be replanted in the area set aside as the commercial areas or zones and will be sourced from the local communities.

HE urged the local communities to take the conservation work seriously. The locals have bee accused of destroying hr forest through charcoal burning and illegal loggers.

Meanwhile another important project to get rid of Lake Victoria water hyacinth is also taking shape soon. The project is just about to take off in Homa-Bay and Kisumu Counties.

And this time around the Kisumu based Lake Victoria Environmental Program LVEMPI is determined to ensure that the dreadful weeds, which invaded the lake two decade ago, and since caused problems for the fishermen, and made navigation of small vessels well as ships difficult, is permanently eradicated.

THe weed which has been a menace to fishing expedition in the areas affected like Homa-Bay and Kisumu Counties will be removed manually and biologically.

This comes after all the previous effort to clear the lake of the weed had flopped. LVEMP is expecting to receive a machine for this purpose from the Kenya Marine and will also use the weevils to feed on the weeds.

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Kenya: Nairobi based businessman donated 10,000 pair of rubber-sporting shoes to all primary and nursery schools in Seme constituency

Reports Leo Odera Omolo

A Nairobi based businessman Mr Edward Omol has made a hefty donation of 10,000 pair of rubber-sporting shoes worth K,shs 2.6 million.

The shoes which is to be distributed to the nursery and primary schools pupils in the entire Seme constituency within Kisumu County included those small sizes fitting nursery schools children to the medium numbers that is fitting lower, medium and upper primary pupils.

Mr Omolo who contested the newly created Seme parliamentary seat in March this year, on a ODM ticket but lost to the incumbent Dr. Nyikal said children learning under a highly hygienic conditions stands a better chance of furthering their education to e higher height of success.

The distribution will be done on the basis of 360 per each school. The donor conducted the distribution of the shoes while accompanied by four Assembly representatives from the entire Seme constituency and members of the school committees, PTA chairman and opinion leaders in a colorful ceremony which started at Kirindo Primary School.

The donor handed his donations to the School’s committee chairman Kilion Otieno and another Kisumu and Mombasa based businessman, Mr George Abaja who is a director of a construction firm.

Also accompanying him were four County Assembly representatives Benter Nduta ,Ogoli, Okoth Diang’a and Makadede four local Assembly representatives. All the four thanked the businessman and asked him to maintain the same spirit of helping the unfortunate people.

Other schools which benefited from this hefty donation were Bundi, Jimo, Kayila Siala, Reru, Gumo and Kayila. THe businessman also donated 20 green houses to be used by other school’s pupils in growing vegetables, fruits and other cash crops and promised to donate more

This was the largest donation ever made for the schools in the region by an individual and it has since rekindled politics of the area a fresh with a lot of murmuring going around.

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Securing Africa’s Land for Shared Prosperity: A Program to Scale up Reforms and Investments

From: Yona Maro

This covers land administration and reform in Sub-Saharan Africa, and is highly relevant to all developing countries around the world. It provides simple practical steps to turn the hugely controversial subject of “land grabs” into a development opportunity by improving land governance to reduce the risks of dispossessing poor landholders while ensuring mutually beneficial investors’ deals.

This book shows how Sub Saharan Africa can leverage its abundant and highly valuable natural resources to eradicate poverty by improving land governance through a ten point program to scale up policy reforms and investments at a cost of USD 4.5 billion. And it`s points out formidable challenges to implementation including high vulnerability to land grabbing and expropriation with poor compensation as about 90 percent of rural lands in Sub Saharan Africa are undocumented, but also timely opportunities since high commodity prices and investor interest in large scale agriculture have increased land values and returns to investing in land administration.

It argues that success in implementation will require participation of many players including Pan-African organizations, Sub Saharan Africa governments, the private sector, civil society and development partners; but that ultimate success will depend on the political will of Sub Saharan Africa governments to move forward with comprehensive policy reforms and on concerted support by the international development community.

Link:
https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/bitstream/handle/10986/13837/780850PUB0EPI00LIC00pubdate05024013.pdf

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Kenya: Mega land scandal reported in Kericho where the DC, Chief, MPs and ex-civic leaders grabbed the land meant for the landless Talai clan

WRITES Leo Odera Omolo In Kericho Town.

A MEGA land scandal, which looked similar to the now infamous “Anglo Leasing Financial Scandal” has hit Kericho town like Tsunami. It has prompted the residents to call for the revocation of the allotment and start a fresh. This is after it has been discovered that those earmarked to be settled on the land were not given anything. But the D.C. and the Town’s chief had chosen to allocate the land for themselves.

The ex-Kericho Municipal Councilors, relatives and friends of the former MPs, and their political cronies undeservedly benefited from illegal allotment.

The residents were now up in arms appealing to the Kericho County governor Prof. Paul Kiprono Chepkwony to order for all the pieces o land which were dished out t undeserved persons revoked for fresh re-allocation.

Prof Chepkwony could not be reached for his comment as it was stated that he had travelled outside the region.

The scandal involved the peace of land parcel in the town ,which was set aside by the government to be use in settling members the landless Talai{Laibon} who returned to the region in 1962 after being force into colonial exile for 40 years by the former British Colonial rulers.

The Talai clan estimated to be numbering about 259 families have since been living in a small piece of land which belonged to the Municipal Council of Kericho in the most squalid condition.

Al l the previous KANU administration had failed to have the Talai clan settled on the land they can call their own ever since independence. But the defunct coalition government headed by he retired President Mwi Kibaki and the Prime Minister Raila Odinga had agree to have the matter solved once for all. The government negotiated with one of the multinational Tea companies operating in Kericho and Bomet Counties and secured the land which is next to the posh Tea Hotel.

The Prime Minister visited Kericho on several occasion in the company of the then Lands minister James Aggrey Orengo and it was agreed that the Talai people be settled.

Unconfirmed allegation and rumor say the DC had allocated himself five plots of 500X100 each using the names of his junior staff, mainly the local Kipsigis working in his office including Administration Policemen. The D.C.Joseph Njora has since been transferred to Makueni district in Eastern Province. All the alleged grabbed plots were sold like hot cake.

It is also being rumored that former Belgut MP Charles Keter who is now the Senator for Kericho had the lion’s share. All of his supporters and his multi-million cousin Ken Mutai were the beneficiaries. Former Kericho Mayor John Kauria, it is being alleged, to have grabbed several plots.

Most of the ex-Councilors who grabbed the plots are said to have quickly sold them and have since been seen driving sleek new cars in own.

The MP who benefited from the allocation included Magerer Lang’at [Kipkellion} and the Chief Town Duncan Bii is said to have allocate himself 12 plots.

Prior to the negotiation between he government and the Unilever Tea company, the company had already earmarked the plot toe used in establishing an aborreterum in own. The grabbers who seemed to have been in hurry moved in with the snake speed and started demarcating the land even before the el was sealed off and the land surveyed as required by the law. The grabbers went as far as breaking the beacons of the adjacent land plot and house belonging to the former director of the Brooke Bond tea Company Mzee Musa sang’.

Members of the Talai sub-clans were previously scattered in various districts whose inhabitants are the members of the larger Kalenjin ethnic groups. The had their ancestral land homes in Emngwen, Nandi County, Kericho and Bomet Counties, Baringo and Koibatek,mosty Eldama Ravine and in other regions.

But following the malicious ad falsified accusation by the colonial chiefs, white missionaries and white selrs, that they were practicing witchcraft, the Colonial administration in Kenya I the year 1934 ordered thathey be rounded up and exiled in a remote section of Gwassi Hills in South Nyanza.

Some of them were vanished in Northern Tanzania. Some of their elderly leaders were detained in Embu, Meru and Nyeri prisons where they died. Other were dispatched to Kismayu while one who was known as Arap Koilgen was detained on Mfangano island inside Lake Victoria where he died around 1956In 1961 one a diminutive Member of the Colonial Legislative Council the late Dr Taaitta Araap Toweett, who was representing the entire Kipsigis region moved a motion in the House asked the government to allow thetalai n toreturn toteir ancestral land. The motion which was supported by other MLC including Daniel T Moi, Jaramogi Oginga Odinga, Dr Julius Kiano,Tom Mboya and other nationalist was accepted by the colonial government.

And in the middle of the 1962 when it was only six months to the attainment of Kenya’s political independence

As political independence the journey of returning home.

The deal , however, was hurriedly and poorly negotiated and brokered with the British colonial administration and did not produce a tangible plan and program for the land on which the returnee could be settled on.

All the land previously owned by the Talai clan had been taken over by their neighbors and relatives during the many exile.

In Nndi the Talai oved nd settled in a place called Kaptel near the SDA University of East Africa {Barraton} and settle at Kapsisiywo, Other went to Cheranganyi,other to Trans-Nzoia and Uasin Gishu districts and found land for them in the settlement schemes. Others went Eldama Ravine Iand Baringo County.

Their population had grew from 2700 to about 7000 people.So aboiut 200 family remain stuck as squatters in Keicho Municipality for all these years.

This is the can of the famous freedom fighter Orkoiyioyot Koitalel Arap Samoei w hose rug-tug forces of the Nandi warriors fought he British for nine years and also prevented tem from building and completing the Mombasa-Kisumu Railways l ine. Samoei was shot and killed in 1905 after he was tricked to attend a peace meeting with the head of the British expedition forces who shot it point-blank.

The Talai before their expulsion were being accused by the colonial chiefs of practicing sorcery and preventing the population from becoming member of the churches and the youth from acquiring modern education in schools run by missionaries. Other allegations were that they were intimidating the white settlers and stopping from acquiring more land for tea plantation in Kericho, Sotik ,Nandi Hills and other areas.

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The Report of the High-Level Panel of Eminent Persons on the Post-2015 Development Agenda

From: Yona Maro

The Panel came together with a sense of optimism and a deep respect for the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). The 13 years since the millennium have seen the fastest reduction in poverty in human history: there are half a billion fewer people living below an international poverty line of $1.25 a day. Given this remarkable success, it would be a mistake to simply tear up the MDGs and start from scratch. As world leaders agreed at Rio in 2012, new goals and targets need to be grounded in respect for universal human rights, and finish the job that the MDGs started.

The MDGs did not focus enough on reaching the very poorest and most excluded people. They were silent on the devastating effects of conflict and violence on development. The importance to development of good governance and institutions that guarantee the rule of law, free speech and open and accountable government was not included, nor the need for inclusive growth to provide jobs. Most seriously, the MDGs fell short by not integrating the economic, social, and environmental aspects of sustainable development as envisaged in the Millennium Declaration, and by not addressing the need to promote sustainable patterns of consumption and production. The result was that environment and development were never properly brought together. People were working hard – but often separately – on interlinked problems.

Above all, there is one trend – climate change – which will determine whether or not we can deliver on our ambitions. Scientific evidence of the direct threat from climate change has mounted. The stresses of unsustainable production and consumption patterns have become clear, in areas like deforestation, water scarcity, food waste, and high carbon emissions. Losses from natural disasters–including drought, floods, and storms – have increased at an alarming rate. People living in poverty will suffer first and worst from climate change. The cost of taking action now will be much less than the cost of dealing with the consequences later.

Link:
http://www.beyond2015.org/sites/default/files/HLPReport.pdf


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A cyber security agenda for civil society: What is at stake?

From: Yona Maro

National security is being used by governments as a justification to censor, control or surveil internet use, and sometimes to shut down communications. Some cyber security specialists in the military are establishing cyber units, and an escalating arms race in cyberspace is emerging, accompanied by the growth of a “cyber-industrial complex.”

The private sector is increasingly involved in internet control. Through mechanisms of intermediary liability, telecommunication companies, internet service providers (ISPs) and other private sector actors now actively police the internet.”

While governments, militaries, intelligence agencies and the private sector are taking the lead in steering cyber security debate and policies, civil society needs to engage in cyber security on an equal footing. Robert Deibert has argued that civil society is “increasingly recognised as an important stakeholder in cyberspace governance” and needs to develop a cyber security strategy “that addresses the very real threats that plague governments and corporations, addresses national concerns in a forthright manner, while protecting and preserving open networks of information and communication.”
Link:
http://www.apc.org/en/system/files/ISSUE_Cyberseguridad_EN.pdf


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Opening New Avenues For Empowerment: ICTs For Persons With Disabilities

From: Yona Maro

Building on the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, this Global Report addresses strong recommendations to all stakeholders – from decision-makers to educators, civil society and industry – on how concretely to advance the rights of people living with disabilities. These recommendations draw on extensive research and consultations. Studies launched in five regions have allowed UNESCO to understand more clearly the conditions and challenges faced by persons with disabilities around the world.

To empower persons with disabilities is to empower societies as a whole – but this calls for the right policies and legislation to make information and knowledge more accessible through information and communication technologies. It calls also for applying accessibility standards to the development of content, product and services. The successful application of such technologies can make classrooms more inclusive, physical environments more accessible, teaching and learning content and techniques more in tune with learners’ needs.

This UNESCO publication not only makes a major contribution to the understanding of disability, but also highlights technological advancement and shares good practices that have already changed the lives of people with disabilities. It also makes concrete recommendations for action at the local, national and international levels, targeting policy and decision makers, educators, IT&T industry, civil society and certainly persons with disabilities.
Link:
http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0021/002197/219767e.pdf


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Kenya: OUR MPs deserves higher payment for a living and not a peanut

KENYA MPS DESERVES TO EARN A BETTER SALARIES AND ALLOWANCES FOR A LIVING SO THAT THEY GIVE THE TAXPAYERS GOOD SERVICES AND PERFORMANCE.

Commentary By Leo Odera Omolo In KISUMU City.

MEMBERS of Kenyan parliament deserve to be paid adequately so that they could perform their duties diligently and avoid what kind of word which some people had coined in connection with the 10th parliament, which had depicted of legislator as the “MP for Hire.”

Our legislators are tasked wit heavy responsibilities, particularly those representing remote rural constituencies who on many occasions are being called by the village to use their personal car and vehicles as ambulances while assisting the sick.

Medical services in this country collapsed many years ago. Most health centers, which are located in the interior part of the country have no standing by ambulances, at time even mothers in labor seek MPS assistance and support so that they could be rushed to the nearby, but poorly equipped medical facilities.

Poorly paid MP cannot afford to shoulder all these responsibilities, therefore the proposed basic alary of USD 10,00O per month for an MP is very much reasonable. The government has the poor record of appointing numerous but useless commission of Inquiries or other commissions whose finding have no direct benefit to the taxpayer or added value, and whose members are known to have been minting million of shillings, but performing nothing.

Members of parliament are honorable people. We expect them to be living decently as the honorable people, not like papers who could not discharge their responsibilities and deliver the goods to the electorate. The adjustment of the MP’s salary and allowances upward should not be negotiable.

I must say here in emphatically clear terms that even those members of the civil societies who last week staged violent street demonstration outside parliament and took piglets and pigs to harass and antagonizes our Muslem brothers who are not even taxpayers.

But we are driven by the desire to be heard and to make things difficult or our elected legislators to intimidate them not to perform their duties efficiently and competently. They were merely petty mischievous people and political hirelings and goons.

The time is ripe for Kenyan of good will and intention to come forward and say “a big no” to political thuggery. Such moves if left unchecked could plunge Kenya into distasteful condition and political turmoil that could make life difficult and unbearable for our children.

Madame Sarah Serem should think twice and make sure that our MPs are paid adequately, though I also concur with those who opined saying the number has increased threefold, and could definitely overburden the treasury with heavy Wage Bill.

With the present tri-cameral parliamentary system, I have a feeling that the extra 47 women representatives in parliament is a luxury, though it is contained under a cause in the ne constitutional dispensation. Te 47 Counties are adequately represented and covered by the Senators.

Kenya, however, must accept that the new set of the constitution is a very expensive one and the government will have to go extra miles in search of funds to have all its clauses implemented fully. But we can afford it through dialogue and negotiations and not through the staging violence street demonstrations by mainly goons and job seekers.

Our MPs deserves good vehicles for their safe travelling, good houses while attending their duties in the City, security details.

It is also time for the government to tell members of the Provincial Administration pack up and go home, or reassign them elsewhere as it has become obvious that their continued present in the Counties is not in the interest of taxpayers.

They could be sabotaging the operations of the devolutions and undermining as well as undercutting the work of the governors and their regional assembly teams. The undercutting could be the source of insecurity in places like Bungoma, Busia and Trans-Nzoia and elsewhere. Sooner or later such insecurity would spread like bushfire to other peaceful areas. The PCs,D.Cs,,DOs were dismissed by the High Court and told that they have no role in the evolution system, but someone somewhere choose to ignore the court judgment. It could be a cartel within the defunct coalition government had special assignment for them during the March 14 general elections. However, the elections have come and gone. They should now be relieves of their duties

If the purpose of retaining the Provincial Administration was a secret weapon used in rigging the last general election, then their role is over, they should go home now.It is all duplication of work and responsibilities with the governor and their team safely installed.

Ends

KENYA: THE TRUTH AND JUSTICE AND RECONCILIATION COMMISSION {TJRC} DID SHODDY, SHALLOW AND HOLLOW JOBS AND FAILED TO CONVINCE KENYAN OF ITS SERIOUSNESS.

COMMENTARY By Leo Odera Omolo In Kisumu City

I have sat down for a length of time perusing and scrutinizing the report released last week by the Truth and Justice Reconciliation Commission and found them to be shallow shoddy and hollow, not even worth reading any sane person.

Perhaps the Bethwell Kiplagat team just wanted to justify the millions of taxpayers money its members had consumed during the stormy period it conducted it half-baked inquiries.

The TJRC did not caste its net wide open, though it came up with some names of leaders both in the present and past it has recommended should be probed further so as to ascertain the truth about their wrong doing.

In regards to past politically motivated assassinations TRC reported is highly rubbished for merely bush-beating, which are devoid of any iota of the truth.

The TJRC chairman Kiplagat himself had long been rejected by the entire Kenyan society that he was not the right person for the job, but insisted on carrying it out and even went to court so that he could be clear to proceed on with the job. Those had loudly raised objections knew it pretty well that Kiplagat was not the right person taking it into account his covert operations and flirting with RENAMO of Mozambique and its renegade forces under the rebel leader Dr Dhlakama .

The TJRC came out with the large number of names of innocent Kenyans, which it has recommended should be probed further in connection to human right abuse of the past regimes.

Conspicuously missing from the names that the TJRC wanted to be investigated was the name of the late James Kanyottu, the former director of the security intelligence police unit, which was known as the {Special Branch}.

Kanyottu who has since died after retiring from the security intelligence service which he headed ever since 1965 after succeeding Benard Hinga might have gone into his grave with the heaps of secrets about the past political assassinations in this country, therefore any inquiry report which exclude his names is considered by Kenyans of average intelligence as shoddy and shallow and not worth its salt.

Kanyottu might have not personally participated in actual assassination exercises, but definitely knew the political enemies of the victims who might have been involved in hatching plots to eliminate those whom their perceived to be their political enemies.

During Kanyotu’s rein as the head of the security intelligence five senior Kenyan politician were gunned down or killed

The victims were Pio Gama Pinto, a specially elected member of parliament who was the first to die I a series of well hatched plots of assassination, Thomas Joseph Mboya, C.MG.Argwings-Kodhek, Ronald Gideon Ngala, Josiah Mwangi Kariuki {JM} and finally Robert John Ouko being the last one to die.

From my own intelligent guesswork Kiplagat ‘s commission job was only to rekindle the communal emotions of families and relatives of the victims while serving the interests of some evil and invisible forces still operating lie mafia groups in this country.

For Mr Kanyottu, there was no way someone of the late Tom Mboya status could be assassinated without the knowledge of the head of the national security intelligence unit unless the unit’s operations had long collapse or were on the verge of total collapse.

If it was so Kanyottu couldn’t have lasted on his job for close to 40 years after those painful events of the early and late 1960s.

We have been eagerly waiting to read from the TJRC report as to who ordered fro the closing down of all the phone communications between Nairobi an Addis Ababa as from June 29,1969 to July 4,1969 on the very day Mboya and his delegation to the UNCEA returned home to be killed the next day July 5,1969.

There were strong rumors making the round in the Kenyan capital of Nairobi ad its environs, that some of the late Mboya’s closes friend who hah heard o the assassination rumors made frantic effort to reach him in Addis Abba by phone for the purpose of alerting him about the dreadful rumor in Nairobi, but Nairobi Addis phone were severed off at the external-telecom. Surely such events if it is true they took place could not have escaped the knowledge of the head of the nation’s national security organ, and here is where the name of Kanyottu comes in hand.

Obviously someone in a very senior position in the government of the day might have been the one who ordered the phone line between Addis and Nairobi line severed of for a specific pupose.

These are some of the area which were so fertile for the TJRC team to visit an make thorough inquiries because all the records in those institutions are said to be still intact for probe.

In the case of Dr. Robert John Ouko, reports were made I courts tat his phone lines at his Koru Farm in Kisumu had also gone off during the fateful night of his mysterious disappearance and death. Obviously the head of the security intelligence cannot be exonerated for having been totally ignorance of these events.

The same could be said of the deaths by faked road accidents of Ronald Gideon Ngala and CMG Argwings-Kodhek. Like Mboya both died while serving in the cabinet as Minster for Foreign Affair and minister for Power and Communications respectively. All the four Mboya, Ngala, Argwings-Kodhek and Ouko were the possible future presidential materials during the reign of the late Jomo Kenyatta. And as such Kenyans were expecting Kiplagat’s TJRC to caste its net much more wider and come out with some truth about thee past politically motivated killings in Kenyatta instead of writing rubbish and perhaps copying some old reports from other regions.

Leo Odera Omolo

KENYA: CLAIMS ARE MADE THAT DEAD PEOPLE CAST THEIR VOTES IN KASIPUL CONSTITUENCY DESPITE SERIOUS OBJECTIONS RAISED AT TIME BY ASPIRANTS.

Writes Leo Odera Omolo

SEVERAL dead people were reported to have their votes casted and their names ticked off in the voters registration as having duly voted on March 14. 2013.

These are some of the complaints lined up as evidence of the irregularities during the violence marred election by a petitioner seeking or the nullification of the election of the MP for Kasipul Joseph Oyugi Maguwanga.

The petition which is before the Homa-Bay High Court is filed by the election loser Charles Ong’ondo Were.

According to the detailed account of the allegation contained therein the petition paper, the petitioner had submitted copies of the government issued death certificates as well as the burial certificates to confirmed that the two voters whose names are featuring prominently in the petition paper had died, but the presiding officers had allowed their names to be ticked off as if they had come back from the dead and voted on March 14, 2013.

Were said, he believed that more dead people and ghost voters could have participated in the elections on the polling day. His effort in alerting the Provincial administration of these irregularities had hit the rock. The area D.C. is reported to have instructed the Location chiefs not to co-operate with those seeking the official document about the dead people within the constituency.

The death and burial certificates are being accompanied by affidavits sworn by he petitioner and the family of the decease persons as well as the local administrators.

Maguwanga had squeezed narrow victory over Were who has since moved to court seeking the nullification of the election an also recounting o the votes cast during the process.

Ends

Africa’s Economic Boom Why the Pessimists and the Optimists Are Both Right

From: Yona Maro

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Talk to experts, academics, or businesspeople about the economies of sub-Saharan Africa and you are likely to hear one of two narratives. The first is optimistic: Africa’s moment is just around the corner, or has already arrived. Reasons for hope abound. Despite the global economic crisis, the region’s GDP has grown rapidly, averaging almost five percent a year since 2000, and is expected to rise even faster in the years ahead. Many countries, not just the resource-rich ones, have participated in the boom: indeed, 20 states in sub-Saharan Africa that do not produce oil managed average GDP growth rates of four percent or higher between 1998 and 2008. Meanwhile, the region has begun attracting serious amounts of private capital; at $50 billion a year, such flows now exceed foreign aid.

At the same time, poverty is declining. Since 1996, the average poverty rate in sub-Saharan African countries has fallen by about one percentage point a year, and between 2005 and 2008, the portion of Africans in the region living on less than $1.25 a day fell for the first time, from 52 percent to 48 percent. If the region’s stable countries continue growing at the average rates they have enjoyed for the last decade, most of them will reach a per capita gross national income of $1,000 by 2025, which the World Bank classifies as “middle income.” The region has also made great strides in education and health care. Between 2000 and 2008, secondary school enrollment increased by nearly 50 percent, and over the past decade, life expectancy has increased by about ten percent.

The second narrative is more pessimistic. It casts doubt on the durability of Africa’s growth and notes the depressing persistence of its economic troubles. Like the first view, this one is also justified by compelling evidence. For one thing, Africa’s recent growth has largely followed rising commodity prices, and commodities make up the overwhelming share of its exports — never a stable prospect. Indeed, the pessimists argue that Africa is simply riding a commodities wave that is bound to crest and fall and that the region has not yet made the kind of fundamental economic changes that would protect it when the downturn arrives. The manufacturing sector in sub-Saharan Africa, for example, currently accounts for the same small share of overall GDP that it did in the 1970s. What’s more, despite the overall decline in poverty, some rapidly growing countries, such as Burkina Faso, Mozambique, and Tanzania, have barely managed to reduce their poverty rates. And although most of Africa’s civil wars have ended, political instability remains widespread: in the past year alone, Guinea-Bissau and Mali suffered coups d’état, renewed violence rocked the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, and fighting flared on the border between South Sudan and Sudan. At present, about a third of sub-Saharan African countries are in the throes of violent conflict.

More mundane problems also take a heavy toll. Much of Africa suffers from rampant corruption, and most of its infrastructure is in poor condition. Many governments struggle to provide basic services: teachers in Tanzania’s public primary schools are absent 23 percent of the time, and government-employed doctors in Senegal spend an average of only 39 minutes a day seeing patients. Such deficiencies will become only more pronounced as Africa’s population booms.

And then there’s the fact that African countries, especially those that are rich in resources, often fall prey to what the economist Daron Acemoglu and the political scientist James Robinson have termed “extractive institutions”: policies and practices that are designed to capture the wealth and resources of a society for the benefit of a small but politically powerful elite. One result is staggering inequality, the effects of which are often masked by positive growth statistics.

What should one make of all the contradictory evidence? At first glance, these two narratives seem irreconcilable. It turns out, however, that both are right, or at least reflect aspects of a more complex reality, which neither fully captures. The skeptics focus so much on the region’s commodity exports that they fail to grasp the extent to which its recent growth is a result of economic reforms (many of which were necessitated by the misguided policies of the past). The optimists, meanwhile, underestimate the degree to which the region’s remaining problems — such as sclerotic institutions, low levels of education, and substandard health care — reflect government failures that will be very difficult to overcome because they are deeply rooted in political conflict.

However, even if both narratives are reductive, the optimists’ view of Africa’s future is ultimately closer to the mark and more likely to be borne out by developments in the coming decades. Africa will continue to face daunting obstacles on its ongoing path to prosperity, especially when it comes to improving its human capital: the education, skills, and health of its population. But the success of recent reforms and the increased openness of its societies, fueled in part by new information and communications technologies, give Africa a good chance of enjoying sustained growth and poverty reduction in the decades to come.

BOUNCING BACK

After several lost decades, during which debt, disease, famine, and war held back Africa’s development, things began to improve in the late 1990s. So far, the gains have proved durable. Despite the global financial crisis of 2008 and its lingering effects, the economies of sub-Saharan Africa grew at an average of 4.7 percent a year between 2000 and 2011. This robust performance has resulted in the first overall decline in the region’s poverty rate since the 1970s, from 58 percent in 1999 to 47.5 percent in 2008. These positive trends have been widespread, with every part of the region benefiting. And the change in fortunes has not been limited to certain kinds of economies: oil exporters such as Angola and Nigeria have boomed, but so, too, have oil importers such as Ethiopia and Rwanda. Not all states have benefited equally, of course; fragile states such as Burundi and the Central African Republic, which are still struggling to recover from violent conflicts, have experienced only modest growth.

Africa’s rebound has had many causes, including an increase in external assistance (partly from debt relief), a buoyant global economy until 2008, and high commodity prices. But the most significant has been an improvement in macroeconomic policies across all of sub-Saharan Africa, which has inspired confidence in investors and consumers. According to the World Bank’s most recent annual “Country Policy and Institutional Assessment,” the region’s overall macroeconomic performance is now on par with that of developing countries in other regions. With stronger macroeconomic policies, African countries have taken advantage of the commodities boom that peaked before the global economic crisis and avoided a collapse when commodity prices plummeted. For example, in early 2008, when the international price of oil rose above $100 a barrel, some oil exporters in the region, such as Angola, Gabon, and Nigeria, planned their budgets as if oil prices were only $65 a barrel. When the price ultimately did fall to that level, in the fall of 2008, those countries were not caught off-guard and had a cushion to fall back on.

During the crisis, most countries continued with prudent economic policies; some even accelerated their reforms. Partly as a result of such efforts, African economies kept expanding throughout the global recession, and sub-Saharan Africa has maintained an average annual growth rate of nearly five percent since then, despite continued volatility in the global economy.

THE POLITICS OF GROWTH

In large part, the vast improvement in macroeconomic policy that began in the late 1990s can be traced to two factors. First, with the end of the Cold War, politics in Africa became freer, more vibrant, and more open to previously marginalized groups. As support from the United States or the Soviet Union diminished, autocratic regimes began to lose their monopolistic grips on power. Calls for multiparty democracy spread, and countries throughout the region held competitive elections. Such openings were limited, to be sure, but they provided a voice to many segments of African societies that had previously been marginalized, such as poor farmers in rural areas. Since the mid-1990s, those groups have benefited as politics has become more competitive, media have become freer, and communications technology has rapidly spread, especially since 2000. In several countries, including Ghana, Nigeria, Tanzania, and Uganda, these political changes brought to power more competent leaders, willing to place technocrats trained in modern economics in senior positions in the government, replacing the politically connected but less well-trained bureaucrats who often held similar posts in previous regimes.

Political liberalization also had a less direct but still profound effect on macroeconomic policy. In the past, many authoritarian African regimes kept their exchange rates artificially high, benefiting the small groups of urban elites on whom the regimes relied by making it easier for them to buy food and imported luxury goods. This policy amounted to a transfer of wealth from the rural poor to the urban rich, since the high exchange rates made it harder for farmers to export their crops. With the introduction of competitive elections, governments realized that they needed the support of the rural poor, who constitute a majority in most African countries, and so they allowed their countries’ exchange rates to become more competitive. As a result, agricultural productivity and output rose as farmers received higher prices for their produce.

The second important factor that contributed to the improvement of African macroeconomic policy in the 1990s also involved the democratization of policymaking — spurred, in this case, by external intervention. When African countries were desperate for international aid in the 1980s, donors made their financial support contingent on the adoption of reform programs that African governments designed with input from the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. But beginning in 1999, potential donors began to require African governments seeking debt relief to also consult with their own citizens — civil-society groups, businesses, community organizations — as they crafted policies to help the poor. This new process increased the chances that local citizens would buy into the policies. In the early 1990s, when international donors proposed changes to Zambia’s system for pricing maize, the agriculture ministry rejected the changes, and they were never put in place, leading to periodic food shortages. A decade later, the government proposed similar reforms, but only after conducting consultations with a wide variety of Zambians whom the changes would affect. As a result, the public generally accepted the ideas; the reforms were implemented, and shortages were minimized.

Economic reforms, however, are not the only cause of Africa’s growth surge. Three other factors have started to play a major role: demographic changes, urbanization, and technological advances. Since 1960, the dawn of the postcolonial era, the population of sub-Saharan Africa has grown rapidly, from fewer than 250 million people to around 900 million today. But around 2000, fertility rates began to decline, and so did child mortality rates. Consequently, working-age adults have come to constitute the fastest-growing segment of the region’s societies. This shift has created a potential demographic dividend, since economies improve when there is a healthy ratio of working-age adults to dependents.

No country or region, meanwhile, has ever reached what the World Bank considers high-income status with low levels of urbanization. African populations have traditionally been mostly rural, but the cities of sub-Saharan Africa are growing at astonishing rates. The trend is such that by 2033, most of the region’s inhabitants will live in cities — as most of the world’s population already does. Firms have exploited this increased urban consumer base to enjoy economies of scale, benefiting themselves and consumers, who now have access to low-cost goods.

Perhaps the most visible sign of Africa’s economic reemergence is the so-called mobile revolution. Cell phones have become ubiquitous, even in the poorest places. The change can be traced back to the reforms of the late 1990s, when several countries began opening up their telecommunications sectors. At the same time, technological breakthroughs have made low-cost cell phones affordable to a large number of Africans. In many African countries, the calling rates are among the lowest in the world. The explosion in mobile technology has spurred innovations such as M-Pesa, the mobile-money system widely embraced in Kenya and Tanzania, which allows users to make purchases and send cash transfers using their cell phones. In many countries, the spread of mobile devices has also allowed the information and communications sectors to become important parts of the economy; in Kenya, these industries are growing at an average of 20 percent each year, and in 2010, they accounted for five percent of the country’s GDP.

Optimists have seized on all these trends to make the case that this African economic boom will prove sustainable. Much of the progress has resulted from political changes. But the remaining obstacles to a more lasting transformation of African economies will also depend on politics. And those problems might prove far more difficult to overcome.

MORE MONEY, MORE PROBLEMS

Africa faces a number of deep development challenges — in economic growth, poverty reduction, human development, and governance — that at the very least call into question the durability of the gains made during the last 15 years, and could even undermine them. Despite Africa’s recent growth, there are few signs of what economists refer to as structural transformation: the shift from low-productivity agriculture to higher-productivity manufacturing and services. Sub-Saharan Africa’s manufacturing sector remains dormant, and some countries, such as South Africa, have even experienced deindustrialization. And while there has been an increase in trade among the region’s countries, their connections to the world economy remain weak and concentrated in just a few sectors, especially commodities and natural resources. These development challenges are the result of government failures, which helps explain their persistence amid rapid growth — but also points to possible solutions.

Perhaps none of these problems is more troubling than the seeming inability of African countries, including the fastest-growing economies, to convert growth into progress in fighting poverty. Despite years of significant oil revenues, the governments of Angola, Gabon, and Nigeria have not used their newfound wealth to significantly improve the welfare of their poor citizens. More troubling is the fact that during the past five years, some non-oil-producing countries, such as Burkina Faso, Mozambique, and Tanzania, have managed to reduce their poverty rates by only three or four percentage points, despite enjoying annual economic growth rates of around seven percent. That growth was very clearly driven by economic reforms, not the commodities boom. The persistence of poverty in those three countries is now providing rhetorical ammunition to the political elites who benefited from the misguided policies of the past, resisted reforms, and now want to reverse the changes. It also confirms the worst suspicions of critics of economic liberalization, who can point to these poverty numbers to argue that pro-trade reforms have simply made the rich richer and the poor poorer.

A more careful look at these countries, however, shows that the problem is not too much reform but too little. Specifically, the reforms have generated growth in only some sectors, especially services, with industries such as retail and wholesale trade, telecommunications, and public administration benefiting the most. But those industries provide relatively few jobs for low-skilled workers, and the reforms did not address the sectors in which the poor actually work. For example, in Mozambique, growth has come from large investment projects in mining that were made possible by changes in the country’s foreign investment regulations. Such projects have increased aluminum exports and boosted GDP but created only 2,000 direct jobs. Most of Mozambique’s labor force, meanwhile, is employed by small farms or household enterprises — parts of the economy in which productivity is growing very slowly.

In cases where there have been reforms in industries that employ the poor, corruption has sometimes prevented the benefits from accruing to the intended recipients. Tanzania, for example, has spent heavily to support its agriculture industry, especially on fertilizer subsidies. In 2009, to better target and streamline the subsidies, the government introduced a market-like system of vouchers: farmers could use government-issued vouchers to purchase fertilizers, and sellers would be reimbursed by the government. Unfortunately, local elected officials ended up gaining control of about 60 percent of the vouchers, making it difficult for poor farmers to access the government support.

IF YOU BUILD IT, WILL THEY COME?

Even in countries that have achieved both rapid growth and poverty reduction, such as Ethiopia, Ghana, and Rwanda, there has been remarkably little structural transformation. The share of GDP represented by manufacturing, for example, is scarcely higher than it was before these countries started enjoying serious growth. There are many reasons why competitive manufacturing has not taken off in Africa, but most of them revolve around the high costs of production. Even though per capita incomes in Africa are among the lowest in the world, wages are relatively high and unit labor costs are even higher.

A major explanation for these high costs is the poor state of infrastructure. All across sub-Saharan Africa, anyone trying to do business is constantly stymied by power cuts, impassable roads, and leaky water pipes. Behind each of these infrastructure problems is a government failure that, although harmful to the economy, reflects a political equilibrium that will be difficult to undo simply by building new infrastructure.

Road transportation offers a good illustration of this problem. Exporters in the region face some of the highest transport prices in the world, especially when trying to ship goods from landlocked countries to a port. But a 2009 study published by the World Bank showed that vehicle operating costs along the four main transport corridors in sub-Saharan Africa are no higher than those in France. The difference between prices and vehicle operating costs is explained by the massive profit margins enjoyed by trucking companies in sub-Saharan Africa, some of which are close to 100 percent. The companies are able to charge a hefty premium thanks to regulations in most African countries that prohibit would-be competitors from entering the trucking industry. These regulations were introduced 40 years ago, when African governments, reflecting economic thinking at the time, viewed trucking as a natural monopoly because a single company could more easily ensure that trucks rode at full capacity. Not surprisingly, the outdated rules are now difficult to revoke because decades of high profits have provided the trucking industry with plenty of funds to pay for lobbying to maintain the status quo. This problem is especially acute in places where the trucking business is controlled by politically connected families.

The region’s water and electricity deficits also stem from political problems. Governments typically set prices for water and electricity that are below cost, with the intention of protecting the poor. As a result, the water and electrical utilities require government subsidies to operate. This relationship allows politicians to find ways to influence how the utilities are run and who receives their services. Officials often give priority treatment to neighborhoods they favor, which are not necessarily where the poor live. Furthermore, the subsidies rarely cover costs, so the utilities neglect maintenance, leading to leaky pipes and power outages. The rich opt out of the shoddy system altogether and use their own water tanks and electricity generators. The poor in underserved areas must rely on candles for lighting and buy water from private vendors, which costs multiple times the metered rates. One result of this political distortion is that since 2000, the percentage of households with access to water has declined in almost every urban area of Africa.

In addition to these deficiencies in infrastructure, a host of other factors serve to drive up the cost of doing business in the region, including the fact that African countries have some of the most complex and least transparent business regulations in the world. Like the distortions that shape transportation and infrastructure, these regulations did not come about by accident, nor is their persistence due to a lack of government capacity: they exist in order to serve specific political interests. If these interests are sufficiently powerful, they can block attempts at reform.

But simply improving the business climate will not lead to structural transformation. The reason is that business regulations mainly affect those who work in the private wage-employment sector, a group that accounts for less than ten percent of the region’s labor force. Most Africans work for small farms or household enterprises, in what is often called the informal sector. This is unlikely to change in the medium term: in Uganda, for instance, even under the most optimistic assumptions, over 70 percent of the labor force will still be in the informal sector by 2020.

For that reason, structural transformation will depend not only on creating more wage and salary jobs but also on increasing the productivity of the informal sector. Improving infrastructure and reforming regulations will help to some extent. But more important are measures that can improve the skills of workers in the informal sector, in which those with barely any education are disproportionately concentrated. By increasing the skills of such workers, African governments can increase the productivity of small farms and household enterprises — and the incomes of the people who work there.

RAISING HUMAN CAPITAL

Without a doubt, it will prove difficult to improve the skills of Africa’s labor force enough to propel structural transformation. The fact is that despite some catch-up over the last decade, the countries of sub-Saharan Africa still have the lowest levels of human capital in the world. In one sense, that is not surprising: after all, at the time they won independence, most of these countries had very few people with higher education. Africa also has been buffeted by an onslaught of public health crises, including the world’s worst manifestation of the HIV/AIDS pandemic.

The region’s lack of sufficiently educated, skilled, healthy workers is even more distressing because for decades, donors and African taxpayers alike have spent considerable resources on health and education; yet they have little to show for it. Even in places where governments and foreign donors have improved access to schools and health clinics, there has been limited improvement in quality. Postapartheid South Africa, for instance, has increased its public spending on schools to redress the inequitable allocations of the past. Enrollment rates have risen dramatically, but learning outcomes have hardly changed, and only two in five young adults complete secondary school.

At least three factors explain this phenomenon. First, resources allocated to addressing the problems of poor people do not always reach their intended recipients. A landmark 2001 World Bank study on public spending showed that in Uganda, only 13 percent of the nonwage resources allocated to public primary education actually found their way to schools. Similarly, a 2009 study on health spending in Chad showed that less than one percent of nonwage spending ever arrived at primary clinics. Second, even when resources do reach schools or clinics, there are often no teachers or doctors there to use them. A recent report by the African Economic Research Consortium found that health workers in Senegal and Tanzania were absent 20 percent and 21 percent of the time, respectively. Finally, even when providers are present, the quality of their services is exceedingly poor. According to a 2009 World Bank review of public expenditures, teachers in Uganda spend less than 20 percent of class time teaching. Teachers in Tanzania spend slightly more time on instruction, but only 11 percent of them have what education experts consider to be the minimum level of language skills required for the job. The situation in the health sector is worse: in Tanzania, the average total amount of time doctors spend seeing patients is only 29 minutes per day.

These failures to deliver services are not simply the result of unprofessional conduct; underlying them is the fact that basic public services have been stolen by or diverted to political elites. The leakage of public funds intended for education and health care is the most straightforward example. Since these are expenditures for things other than salaries, officials are easily able to alter the amount of funding that is actually distributed. As the economists Ritva Reinikka and Jakob Svensson showed in a 2004 study, the amount of funding an African school receives likely depends on the principal’s ties to a government bureaucrat or a local politician. The poor performance of service providers is similarly bound up in this form of patronage. Many teachers, for example, also serve as political operatives: relatively well-educated people who run election campaigns for local politicians and are then rewarded with teaching jobs, positions for which they are not necessarily qualified and that they do not always take very seriously.

The way political forces can thwart the delivery of services was illustrated in a recent study published by the Center for Global Development. The study analyzed the results of an experiment in Kenya that aimed to reduce teacher absenteeism by replacing salaried teachers with contract workers. In some cases, the plan was administered by a nongovernmental organization; in others, the government handled the hiring. Student learning outcomes improved when the plan was implemented by nongovernmental organizations but did not in the government-run cases. The study’s authors concluded that the difference stemmed from the ability of teachers’ unions to lobby the government to weaken the plan in various ways: for example, by delegating oversight to district officials who were not ultimately accountable to the government. The nongovernmental organizations did not succumb to the same pressure. The larger lesson is that efforts to solve problems such as teacher absenteeism with technical solutions, such as introducing contract teachers or electronic monitoring, will not succeed if the political system is not aligned with the ultimate goal.

REASONS FOR OPTIMISM

It can be hard to stay optimistic about Africa’s future when one considers the political pathologies that stand in the way of improving its human capital. But it is crucial to recall that the recent growth in sub-Saharan African economies resulted from fixing distorted macroeconomic policies that seemed irredeemable only 15 years ago. Triggered by reactions to the debt crises of the 1980s, the collapse of the Soviet Union, and the political liberalization of the 1990s, a regional consensus formed in favor of prudent macroeconomic policies. Those policies delivered growth, which created political support for further reforms, even during the global economic crisis of recent years.

The region now finds itself at another inflection point. Luckily, today, the combination of democratization, demographic change, rapid urbanization, and increasing levels of education has substantially altered policymaking processes, mostly for the better. There is now more political space to voice alternative views and challenge government policies. Even those who are opposed to reforms are less likely to resist if they feel they have been consulted. Moreover, thanks to better economic policies, foreign donors are less compelled to impose reforms from the outside, which creates even more space for homegrown reform efforts.

The almost complete connectedness of the region through cell phones will also aid reforms and structural transformation. Cell phones, by helping spread information of all kinds more quickly, enable poor people to learn about such issues as the regressive nature of government subsidies and the anti-poor bias of infrastructure spending. They also allow people to find out what their peers are thinking, greatly lowering the costs of mobilizing collective action. The spread of communications technology has also made it easier for politicians to discover what citizens are thinking — whether they want to or not — meaning that the voices of people living in marginalized areas will be heard more clearly in national capitals.

Whether one sees Africa’s glass as half-full or half-empty depends on one’s belief in the possibility of political change. The obstacles to durable growth in the region are primarily political. That hardly means that they will be easy to solve, as even a cursory glance at the troubled record of governance in postindependence Africa makes clear. But it does mean that they are not intractable. Sub-Saharan Africa’s recent history of political change and reform leading to growth justifies a positive outlook. Believing in a more prosperous African future requires a healthy dose of optimism, but not a leap of faith.

http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/139109/shantayanan-devarajan-and-wolfgang-fengler/africas-economic-boom?page=show

I was luck to be in attendance at the birth of the OAU 50 years ago

A KENYAN VETERAN JOURNALIST WHO WITNESSED THE BIRTH OF THE OAU 50 YEARS AGO RECALS HOW THE LATE GAMAL ABDUL NASSER OF EGYPT AND AHMED BEN-BELL OF ALGERIA WERE RECEIVED WITH ULULATION AND STANDING OVATION IN ADDIS ABABA

By Leo Odera Omolo In Kisumu City,Saturday 25th May 2013

I was lucky to have been among the youthful budding journalists who were privileged to witness the birth of the Organization of African Unity {OAU} on May 25,1963.

This was the second largest Pan-African political gathering to be held in an African independent country. The first such major pan-African political gathering was held in Accra ,Ghana in December 1958.

Thomas Joseph Mboya, then twenty year-old Kenya member of the colonial Legislative Council for Nairobi and a leading Pan-Africanist trade unionist was elected unanimously to chair the Accra meeting beating the host Ghanaian President Dr Kwame Nkrumah {Osyageffo} with the largest number of votes.

In Addis Ababa the summit of the OAU was initial attended by 21 heads of states of the African governments. 15 other joined later in the process brining the initial number of founding fathers to 36.

Today the OAU which later transformed itself into African Union has 54 member countries including the hotly disputed Saharawi Republic.

It was during the cold war, and there were evidence of covrt operations between members of the intelligence communities from ther East and West. The two blocs were scrambling for the control of Africa’s political and economies at the time.

The man who stole the show and looked the most popular head of state was the Egyptian President Gamal Abdul Nasser, his popularity emanating from his firm stand and beating off the Allied Invasion of the Suez Canal in 1956.Thius was after the British and France combined forces had invaded Suez Canal and Alexandria, which sparked off the middle East Crisis of 1957.

President Ahmed Ben-Bell was just smarting from the .Both Nasser and Ben-Bella had become an house hold across the African continent.

Other heads of states in attendance at the initial stage were Hompught Boigny of Ivory Coast, Leon Mba of Gabon, the poet-writer Leopold Senghor of Senegal. Olympio of Togo,Ahmed Sekou Toure of Guinea,Jomo Kenyatt of Kenya, the Prime Minister of Uganda Dr Apollo Milton Obote, Julius \Kambasrage \Nyerere of Tanganyika. AlI Muhsin of Zanzibar,Dr Sharmake of Somalia,.Chiuef Leabue Jonathan of Lesotho

THe meeting took place before the formation of the United Republic of Tanganyika and Zanzibar which was later christened Tanzania a year later after the rug-tug soldiers led by a Ugandan carpenter John Okello overthrew the Sultante of Zanzibar in 1964 paving the way for the formation of the Union between the mainland Tanganyika and the Isles of Zanzibar and Pemba, which became Tanzania.

The African countries which were still struggling to free themselves from the Yolk of colonialism were given the observers status between the mainland Tanganyika and the Isles of Zanzibar and Pemba.

Notable present at the Africa Hall, which also houses the UN Economic Commission for Africa {ECA}

President Jomo Kenyatta a personal friend of the Emperor Haile Selassie was accommodated in a suit located inside Gion Hotel, a walking distance to Africa Hall and also a short distance to the Menelik Palace,the official residence of Emperor Haile Selassie.

Other prominent Pan-Africanists who attended the inception of the OAU included the late George Padmore of Trinidad and Tobago, Dubois. Padmore was the adviser of Dr.Nkrumah on Pan-African affairs.Dr Namdi Azikiwe of Naigeria, Sir Abubakas Tafawa Balewa the Federal Prime Minister of Nigeria,Kenneth David Kaunda nf Zambia and Dr Hasting Kamuzu Banda oif Malawi.

The radical camp which was led by Dr.Nkrumah and Nasser had an agenda of wanted the founding fathers to work out on the charter and agenda of for the creation of the United States of Africa the model of the USA, but this was found to be impracticable due to the fact that almost close to half of the African continent was still under the occupation and colonialists and racists white South Africans.

The meeting began after the official opening ceremony in an electrifying speech by the Emperor Haile Salassie on May 22nd.But it encountered problem in the afternoon of the same day when the government ofCongo Leopoldville presented two sets of delegations. One delegation had come from the ceciuonist leader Moise Tshombe of Katanga and was led by one Godfroid Munongo, while the Leopoldville delegation was led by its then Minister for Foreign Affairs Justin Bomboko.

There werealso several splinter delegation like those of the Srahawi Republic and Morocco.But our gounding father used their political magnanimity and cooled down the situation. The Francophone Anglophone differences also emerged during the meeting. but was shot down and watered with anti-colonialism sentiments.

Kenya’s Minister for Foreign Affairs Joseph Murumbi was busy shuttling between Africa Hall and Gion Hotrel whenever he was required for consultations by President Kenyatta. The other Kenyan minister who looked busy was Dr. Mungai Njoroge, who was also acting as the personal physician of President Kenyatta.Tom Mboya was another Minister assigned a lot of work by the President. He was the Minister for Justice and Constitutional Affairs..

President Julius Kambarage Nyerere had brought along his Minister for External Affairs and Defense, the flamboyant Oscar Kambona who was then the Secretary-General of the ruling TANU party.Dr Hasting Kamuzu Banda had Kanyama Chiume a journalist as his country Minister for Foreign Affairs, whileDr. Obote had Sam Odaka and Adoko Nekyon as his principal advisers.

Dr Nkurumah the Ghanaian president had Alexei quesedion as his Foreign Affairs Minister.Things were so cheap in Addis Ababa, especially in the Mariketo area, one could buy an autoimatic pistal with full ammunition loaded in its magazine or a hunting rifles in the street provided you handed the gun to the captain or pilots of the plane while boarding it for home.Vials of drugs were sold in the open area and dd not require any doctor’s prescription.

Batteries of local and international journalists were herded into Ras Hotel ,for their accommodation.The hotel is located right in the middle if he City, but it is also a walking to the Africa Hall.Accreditation was noi very cumbersome as it is today.

It came at a time when I had already worked for the Uganda Argues in Kampala,and also edited PINY OWACHO,I had also served as s tringer for the East African Standardand later joined the staff of the BARAZA the weekly Kiswahili as its sports editor. and a regular contributor to the drum MAGAZINE East African edition

In 1963 each and every bar and restaurant in Addis Ababa had a compartment with well prepared bed for the revelers who wished to go inside for a rest with their girl-friends

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About the author LEO OIDERA OMOLO is a veteran KENYAN JOURNALIST NOW AGED 76 AND STILL WRITING AND COMMENTING ON TOPOIC ARTICLES. HE OPERTATES IN KISUMUCITY.

President Obama is to bypass Kenya once again in his next month’s African tour

Writes Leo Odera Omolo In Kisumu City

WHEN it became obvious that the US President Barrack Obama has excluded Kenya during his African tour next month, local leaders have reacted angrily, though putting up brave faces to conceal their disappointment.

Government leaders in Kenya, however, put up brave faces saying they were not worried President Obama would not be visiting due to some unforeseen complications and due to impending crime cases against humanity cases against its leaders.

This would the second time when the US President Obama snubbed Kenya, the birth place of his biological father.

The US President is schedule to start his first African tour since he was re-elected the US President for the second five year term. The planned itinerary would take President Obama to Senegal South Africa and Tanzania, but the itinerary will bypass Kenya, the country where his biological father the late Barrack Hussein Obama Snr was born.

The US President has a sizeable number of his family and relatives living in Western Kenya County of Siaya in Nyanza Province.

The Obama planned latest African tour has elicited a lot of controversies among the Kenyan political class and also among the senior African diplomats in Nairobi.

Among those who commented over the matter included President barrack Obama elder half brother Malik Abong’o Obama who is still smarting from a devastative election defeat of March 14 general-election in which he had contested for the plum elective position of the Siaya governor and came the second to last. Abong’o contested the election as an independent candidate.

Malik Obama told newsmen in Siaya ‘As a family including our grand mother Mama Sarah Obama we do not want to comment on the matter.He {the President} has not informed us of his visit to other African counties, a strong indication that the forthcoming visit is not family affair.”

President Uuru Kenyatta and his deputy William Ruto who were voted in on March 14, 2013 this year both face trial at the International Criminal Court [ICC} at he Hague for their alleged role in orchestrating deadly post-election violence in 2007/2008.

The US administration officials have unofficially stated on condition of total anonymity that President Uhuru Kenyatta election had been the complicating factor in setting President Obama’s schedule in Africa. But the government spokesman in Nairobi dismissed the reports.

There has been a strong rumor that President Obama is avoiding Kenya because of the on-going ICC cases at the Hague said the government spokesman Machai Kariuki adding that these are all unfounded rumors.

President Obama visited Kenya in 2006 shortly after he was elected to the US Senate.He was elected the US President in 2008.

HE VISITED Ghana and South Africa after his election for the first term of five years, but did not come anywhere near Kenya during the tour.But this time around the US would be visiting Tanzania, which is next door to Kenya. Bloggers writing in the social media and websites have written a lot of controversial comments over the visit.

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KENYA: KISUMU AND HOMA-BAY COUNTIES STANDS BETTER CHANCE OF TURNING THE FACE OF LUO-NYANA INTO A VIBRANT ECONOMIC HUB FOR WESTERN KENYA.

Writes Leo Odera Omolo In Kisumu City.

TWO regions in Western Kenya stands a better chance of setting up fast and vibrant development, if the two County governance could pull up socks and redouble efforts in the real task of development.

Both Kisumu and Homa-Bay Counties are rich in natural resources which include fisheries, minerals while endowed with fertile arable land for the production of nearly al cash crops such as sugar cane, coffee tea, and vegetable horticulture.

The two counties are sharing the Nyanza Gulf {formerly Kavirondo Gulf, a narrow and shallow waterway that winds up at the eastern shoreline of Lake Victoria.

However, the two regional assemblies, will have to look for urgent sources of funds with which could be used to eradicate the water hyacinth weeds which has chalked the lake for the last ten years and so.

The fishing industry is arguably the main economic stay of the resident of the two counties. The dreadful water hyacinth weeds has become an impediment to further development of fishing activities, and means and ways must be found for its immediate removal either manually or mechanically.

Ships, steamers an fishing boats are finding it difficult to navigate their way through the water hyacinth weeds, which at time even blockades the narrow waterway into Kisumu Pier and thereby blocking ships plying the narrow water way while ferrying cargoes and goods to the neighboring land-locked counties of Tanzania, Uganda ,Rwanda, Burundi, Central African Republic and the Dr Congo, republic and Southern Sudan.

Recent government statistics showed that Kenya has done well in exporting its fish to the,Israel,Japan and US,though the country owns only small fraction of Lake Victoria waters at only 20 per cent, while its two other partners in the East African Community {EAC} have the Lion’s share with Tanzania 50 per cent, Uganda 46 per cent.

Judging from the type of personnel recently appointed to serve in the two regional cabinets by the two governors o Kisumu and Homa-bay, the resident have a goods reason to smile ,expecting the assembly cabinet and representatives to deliver the goods to the electorate within the quickest period of time possible to deliver.

Both governors Cyprian Otieno Awiti [Homa-Bay}, Jack Ranguma {Kisumu}The two men boost vast and wealth experience in the management of pubic affairs. Rumors making the round that Oil and natural gas were recently discovered in Nyakach area with the potential commercial could boost the two counties economically value could give the region a boost.

The two counties are sharing the Nyanza Gulf with the Homa-Bay have the largest area covering Nyakach Rachuonyo North,Rangwe, Homa-bay and Mbita districts.

Kisumu Countyhas the advantage of hosting five sugar manufacturing companies, namely Chemelil, Miwani, Kibos and Muhoroni, though the ailing industry has permanently on its death bed.These factories need to be resuscitation in order to improve the circulation o cash money in the two regions.

During the recent long rains which had caused the massive flood of many parts of Nyanza, there were the sighs of relief on the faces f the fishermen and those involved inn the fish trade. They woke up in the morning only to find the dreaded water hyacinth weeds blown away by strong wind during the night leaving many parts of the lake clean and clear. However, this did not offer the permanent solution and this is the main reason why the two counties must sources for the funds in order to combat the menace of water hyacinth.

Another value added project, which would soon pace Kiumu city ino theglobal map is the rent expansion o the Kisumu Airport in which the Kenya government has so far sunk billion of shillings into.It is increasingly becoming incentive to the famers I Kisumu, Kisii and Homa-Bay Counties to go for more lucrative earning cash-crops like horticultural, which could be airlifted directly from kisumu Airport to any destination globally

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KENYA AND TANZANIAN LOCKED THEIR HORNS N BIG LEGAL TUSSLE OVER CROSS BORDER TOURISTS BETWEEN THE FAMOUS SERENGETI AND THE MASAI MARA

Writes Leo Odera Omolo

REPORTS EMERGING from the Northern Tanzanian town of Arusha say that tourism stakeholders in both Kenya and Tanzania wants the border between the two countries two world famous tourists attraction sites be opened in line with the principles and spirits of the East African Community.

The two world famous tourist sites are the Maasai Mara in Kenya and the Serengeti National game Park in Tanzania.

According to the latest newsletter of the East African Tourism Platform {EATP}, the opening of the Bukologonja border which was closed by Tanzania unilaterally following the collapse of the first East African Community in 1977, would save tourists the five hour drive through the nearest border crossing point and encourage regional tourism.

The border at the Sand River is on the route used by wild bests during their spectacular annual migration that attracts thousands of tourists to both countries. Besides its closure, it was a convenient route for tourist visiting the Serengeti National Game Park-Maasai Mara ecosystem.

Following the collapse of the first EAC in 1977, Tanzania closed all border crossing points with Kenya for nearly seven years.

In the mid 1980, it reopened the main highway border points, but left the Bukologonja one closed.

According to EATP coordinator Wafart Matu, visitor to the Maasai Mara wishing to cross into Serengeti sometimes have to drive to Nairobi for an overnight stopover before proceeding to Arusha via Namanga border post and on to Serengeti.

Some tour operator firms based in the Kenya capital Nairobi have complained of extra distance owing to the closed border ,increased the cost of the Serengeti-Maasai Mara package.

Tanzania National Parks spokesman Pascal Sheleti, was widely quoted last week as having said hat Tanzania would not open the border because the differences between the two countries tourism polices.

“Kenya encourages mass tourism while Tanzania prefers quality tourism for a low volume of tourists, but with higher revenue so we feel that once we open Bukologonja border posts, tourist traffic from Kenya can be extremely high at the expense of the fragile Serengeti ecology.”

On his part Mr. Adrian Akiyo an official of the Natural Resources and Tourism Ministry in Tanzania said his Ministry would not bow to any pressure on the matter.” At the Bukulugonja border notwithstanding the East African Community Common Market Protocol that provides for the free movement of goods, persons, labor, services and capital within the EAC region.

“The EAC arrangement is not everything, Tanzania like other partners states is still a sovereign country. We are only obliged to implement those policies we agree with and not everything. Our orders must be respected,” he said.

In addition to the closed border, the stakeholders have also complained about the requirement for tourists to change vehicles at the border of Namanga, Sirari and Taveta, which they said was not only humiliating for the visitor but veiled bid by Tanzania to keep business competition away from its border crossings.

The stakeholders have called upon the two countries to resolve their differences bilaterally

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