'KUWA SHUJAA' ANTIVANDALISM AWARENESS CAMPAIGN

Kenya Power incurs a cost of Sh3 billion per year replacing vandalized transformers and cables, occasioned by rising demand for copper wires in the market whose price is quite attractive. Orange Kenya loses up to 500 million every year through damage of its overheads, underground copper cables, and the newly installed fiber optic cables. These are just a few of the companies affected by vandalism in Kenya with others being Safaricom, Ministry of Information, Communication and Technology, Ministry of Transport and Infrastructure, KETRACO, Kenya National Highways Authority, Kenya Airports Authority among others.

BrandMasters Agency, has launched the ‘Kuwa Shujaa’ Campaign in a response to the problem of vandalism that has affected a range of infrastructure developments across various economic sectors. The campaign brings together stakeholders from among those sectors worst affected by vandalism to co-ordinate their efforts to combat it.

‘Kuwa Shujaa’ is a public awareness campaign, seeking to change the public’s attitude to vandalism by making consumers aware of the impact of vandalism on their communities and exposing and isolating vandals for their anti-social behavior.

World Bank Approves Sh13Bln for Water Projects

World Bank has issued a 13 billion-shilling ($155 million) loan to Kenya in order to support the development of water infrastructure, including water storage, irrigation and water management initiatives in the country.

With Kenya being considered as a water scarce nation having over 80 percent of it’s land arid or semi-arid, World Bank Country Director Diarel tou Gaye said the funds will help the government in its plans to manage water resources, and develop a pipeline of water investments that will help improve the country’s water security as well as climate resiliency.

Uhuru Unveils 26 Principal Secretaries

President Uhuru Kenyatta has today named 26 principal secretaries that will serve in his government.

Below is the full list:

Mutea Iringo - Interior and Coordination of National Government
Karanja Kibicho -Foreign Affairs
J. Ntiba - Ministry of Fisheries
Richard Lesiyampe - Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources
Joseph Njoroge - Ministry of Energy and Petroleum
Ibrahim Mohamed  - Ministry of Commerce and Tourism
John Konchellah –Ministry of Devolution
Dr.Kamau Thuuge  - Treasury
James Tekoo Lopoyetum - Ministry of WaterNduva Muli  - Ministry of Transport
Monica Juma -Ministry of Defence
Fred Sigor - Ministry of Health 
Khadija Kassachoon - Ministry of Livestock

African Development Bank launches USD1.26B Kenya-Ethiopia Electricity Highway

Press Release

Nairobi, Tuesday May 7th 2013: The African Development bank today launched the 1,068 kilometer high-voltage electricity highway to be built between Kenya and Ethiopia.

The project which is expected to be completed in less than five years, involves the construction of transmission lines of about 437 km in Ethiopia and about 631 km in Kenya and associated AC/DC converter stations at Wolayta-Sodo (Ethiopia) and Suswa (Kenya) substations with a transfer capacity of up to 2,000 MW in either direction.

Speaking at the launch, organized to brief on the project’s technical resources, African Development Bank’s Regional Director for East Africa Resource Centre (EARC), Mr. Gabriel Negatu reiterated the importance of the project to the East Africa’s cross-border trading.

Kenya to Export Titanium by September 2013

'Titanium exportation to earn Kenya 28 Billion-shillings annually'  

Construction undergoing in Msambweni District, Kwale County

After 15 years of exploration of titanium, Kenya is ready for the mining and exportation of titanium.
According to Base Titanium Limited (a subsidiary of Australian Stock Exchange-listed Base Resources Limited), the company mining titanium in Kwale County, Kenya is set to commence the mining and export of titanium minerals from September 2013.

Thika Superhighway Officially Opened

The first of the many in the Vision 2030 Flagship

The Nairobi - Thika Superhighway
Image Courtesy of megaprojects.co.ke

President Mwai Kibaki officially commissioned the opening of the 31 billion-shilling Nairobi – Thika Superhighway on Friday.

Construction of the 50km superhighway kicked off in January 2009 in a move geared at decongesting traffic to Nairobi City by expanding Thika Road from a four-lane carriageway to an eight-lane highway. The superhighway also saw the construction of underpasses, footbridges, and provision of interchanges at roundabouts.

Turbi – Moyale Road Upgrade launched

The construction of the 15 billion-shilling Turbi – Moyale Road, was on Wednesday launched by President Mwai Kibaki in Moyale County.  

The 122km road, which is the last section of the Trans-Africa Highway Corridor (section passing through Kenya), will be upgraded to bitumen standards by the government with the support of the African Development Bank.

Kuwait serves Kenya a Sh1.4 billion loan

President Kibaki held bilateral talks with Kuwait’s Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Sheikh Sabah Al-Khaled Al-Ahmad Al-Sabah at the ongoing 19^th African Union Summit where the two signed a Sh1.4 billion loan pact.

The loan, which is channeled from the Kuwait Fund for Arab Economic Development (KFAED) will be used to develop schools in Nyamira and Borabu. The Fund, finances various projects in the country including the Katumani – Wote road, Bura Irrigation Scheme, construction of the new Wajir District hospital and the Nuno – Modagashe road.

Kuwait’s government established Kuwait Fund for Arab Economic Development (KFAED) to promote its development and cooperation with other states. The Fund activities spread to 48 nations out of the 52 countries in Africa.

In 1996, KFAED joined the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to ease Africa’s debt burden, and was able to reduce for 24 African nations.

Other African nations that have recently benefited from the Fund’s loans are Ethiopia, Uganda, Senegal, and Lesotho.

In other news: Bank of Africa (BOA) has announced its plans of listing at the Nairobi Securities Exchange (NSE) in order to expand local ownership.

Civicon wins $38.2 million Turkana Road Deal

Kenya’s civil and mechanical engineering company, Civicon has been awarded a 3.2 billion-shilling ($38.2 million) contract to rehabilitate 313 kilometres of access roads for the Lake Turkana Wind Power Project (LTWP).

The road network is to be upgraded to gravel standard in order to facilitate delivery of the 365 Vestas Wind Turbines and the Siemens Transformers to the site.

Work on the road is expected to take 15 months and will facilitate access to Lake Turkana’s 300-mega watts wind power project, considered Africa’s largest. The 300 Megawatts the wind station will provide to the national grid is approximately 20% of the current electricity generation capacity.

The road has been approved by Kenya National Highway Authority (KeNHa), the National Environment Management Authority (NEMA), Kenya Rural Roads Authority (KeRRa) and the County Council of Marsabit.  

Civicon is a unit of Kenya’s investment company Trans-Century Limited (TCL), which has primary focus on investing in infrastructure across the African Continent.  

World Bank earmarks $750 million to finance Kenya projects

(Xinhua English correspondents Ronald Njoroge & David Musyoka)

The World Bank has allocated 750 million US dollars to finance various projects in Kenya for the current financial year, a senior Bank official said on Saturday.

Visiting World Bank Vice President for Africa Region Makhtar Diop told journalist in Nairobi that the figure is in addition to the current World Bank’s portfolio of 3.3 billion dollars.

"The World Bank board has approved 750 million dollars for Kenya mostly for infrastructure projects for the next financial year," Diop told journalists in Nairobi.

According to the Bank, approximately 7.4 billion dollars has been allocated to the entire Africa region for the next financial year, which represents over 50 per cent of funds under the International Development Assistance (IDA) window.

He said that the main challenges for Africa are lack of access to cheap energy and low agricultural productivity.

That is why it was supporting the establishment of a regional power pool in the continent in order to ensure that electricity moves from areasof surplus to those with deficits, Diop, the Bank’sformer Kenya Country Director said.

The World Bank said it will focus on key reformsin energy sector, roads construction and implementation of the new constitution as well asreforms in the justice system as it deepens its relations with Kenya.

In May, Diop said he will concentrate on key reforms in the East African nation, noting that concerns on governance issues around past projects were the reason for the extra scrutiny on the East African nation’s current donor requests.

He however promised during a meeting with Vice-president Kalonzo Musyoka in Washington on May 22 to ensure that Kenya gets support to aid the implementation of the new constitution, strengthening of institutions road and the energy sectors.

On Saturday, he said that given the fact that Kenya is the largest economy in the East African Community bloc, its economic growth will spill over to the rest of the member states.

Diop added that Kenya is on a right economic trajectory and the bank has put in place plans to accelerate the country’s efforts to transit from a low to middle-income nation.

"Our prediction is that Kenya will achieve middle income status by the year 2016," he said. World Bank statistics indicate that middle-income status represents an income per capita of 1,000 dollars.

The VP said that good macro-economic policies and high commodities prices have led the Africa region to average 5 percent economic growth inpast four years.

He noted that World Bank will not only provide financial assistance but also technical support.

"As a result over the past few years the bank’s specialists have developed over 200 analytical pieces on the economy of Africa," he said.

He praised the continent’s move to diversify its sources of foreign direct investment.

"Apart from the traditional investors in Europe and the U.S., other emerging nations such as China and Brazil are also showing great interest in Africa which will make the continent more resilient to external shocks," he said.

He said that the bank is also working in some parts of Somalia where peace and security conditions have been stabilized but it hopes to scale up interventions once the nations returns to normalcy.

World Bank Kenya Country Director Johannes Zutt said the country is still vulnerable to drought conditions, which will impact food insecurity.

He blamed that the low level of agricultural productivity is linked to poor infrastructure.

Zutt said that the country’s energy mix is one of the cleanest in the region due to reliance on hydro generated power and use of geothermal sources.

Kenya decisions to maintain prudent tax policies, he said, has resulted in tax collections equivalent to 22 percent of the gross domestic product (GDP).

"This is one of the reasons the country has maintained a sustainable debt level of under 46 percent of GDP but the funds should be targeted towards reducing the level of poverty in the country," Zutt said.

He said that so far there are no indications that the level of private sector investment is slowing down due upcoming elections.

"The leadership has shown political will to ensure peaceful elections in order to avoid disruption of economic growth," he said.

Zutt added that the current Euro zone crisis, which could reduce demand for African commodities, is an opportunity for the continent to increase intra-Africa trade.

"Africa should take this opportunity to reduce bottlenecks such as non tariff barriers in order to allow movements of goods and boost trade amongst themselves," he said.

He said that the rest of Africa could borrow lessons from Kenya constitution, which contains elements, aimed at strengthening institutions critical to good governance.