Environment Principal Secretary Charles Sunkuli has said collaboration between East African Community members would help eliminate plastic bags. "During a meeting of Environment ministers in Arusha last week, we agreed that cooperation is needed if we are to eliminate the menace," Mr Sunkuli told the Nation on the side-lines of the Greater Horn of Africa Climate Outlook forum at Whitesands Hotel in Mombasa that ended Tuesday. The PS said the ban in Kenya had seen an 80 per cent drop in the use of the bags. "The environment is no longer filled with the pollutants," he added. Mr Sunkuli said ministry officials would appear in Parliament to explain the ban, adding that jobs had been created since August 2017 when the law came into effect. PETITION AT HIGH COURT "Jobs for women and youth involved in manufacturing of non-plastic materials like sisal and papyrus have been created. Others are making gunny bags and biodegradable and fibre bags," he said. Asked about companies still manufacturing plastic bags, Mr Sunkuli said he was not aware of any. In Mombasa, County National Environment Management Authority director Stephen Wambua and inspectorate chief Mohammed Amir have been conducting crackdowns on businesses flouting the law, particularly at Kongowea market. They said since the ban on plastic bags took effect, the tourism city had become "aesthetically clean". "We are working with Nema to identify sources of the flat bags," Mr Amir said. But the ban is yet to take effect in grocery markets. In August 2017, the...

JOHANNESBURG - The African Growth and Opportunity Act (Agoa) has boosted US trade with Africa, which rose 15.8percent to $338.5billion (R4.04trillion) in the past year. Briefing the media from Washington DC yesterday, Harry Sullivan, the US Department of State’s Bureau of African Affairs acting director for economic and regional affairs, said the exponential growth was as a result of trade conducted under Agoa, a legislation allowing qualifying sub-Saharan African countries to export certain products to the US duty free. Sullivan said African exports to the US rose 24percent to more than $24bn, with agricultural products accounting for $2.7bn in 2017. Madagascar’s garments exports to the US rose 57percent to $152bn and Ethiopia’s total exports accounted for $92bn. The US government, which was forced into a PR exercise recently, when Trump characterised African states as “shithole countries”, said it would continue to work with Africa to reduce impediments to trade and investment - and encourage intra-trading among the continent. Sullivan identified the East Africa community as needing more focus in terms of reducing time and costs associated with transporting goods. “These are really important,” he said, adding that many of the barriers keeping African countries from doing business with each other would be dealt with. He noted that Africa lagged behind the rest of the world in terms of intra-trading, and added: “We are supporting regional immigration. (The US will) help African economies to develop regional value chain to spike global markets.” They wanted to catapult Africa into the lucrative global...

Firms eyeing water transportation services on Lake Victoria may have to make do with undeveloped landing sites, which could eat into their starting costs. It is a lesson starters like Globology have learnt the hard way, even though there are plenty of opportunities and great need for the infrastructure. The firm recently launched ferry services from Asembo Bay (Kamito) to Homa Bay, in an effort to revive the collapsed Lake Victoria transport system. But the excitement among locals did not match the reality on the ground  as it sought to navigate the Winam Gulf. Globology general manager Seth Onyango said the vessel landing sites are wanting and need to be constructed for the viability of the water transport. “During the launch the landing sites were a challenge, we had to suspend the operations. We are now improving on the landing sites in Asembo Bay and Homa Bay by building jetties,” said Mr Onyango. Now the company has to dig deeper into its pocket to put up Sh 700million jetties at the landing site for the new route. “For us it is a new route, we are still not sure we will meet our target to ferry at least 132 passengers per trip. It a matter of wait-and-see,” he said. The challenge is not exclusive to this firm. Experts say inland water transport is viable, given the increasing road network. But challenges remain. Kenya Maritime Authority branch Inspector Jeremiah Onyango said if properly developed, water transport could play a vital role...

This comes after the completion of the standard gauge railway by the Kenyan government from Mombasa to Nairobi. Kenya ports authority has opened its doors to Ugandan businessmen to begin picking their goods from Nairobi instead of Mombasa. This comes after the completion of the standard gauge railway by the Kenyan government from Mombasa to Nairobi. This was revealed by The Managing Director of Kenya Ports Authority Catherine Mthuri during a meeting with lawmakers of the East African legislative assembely at the port of Mombasa. Source: NTV

Zanzibar — MEMBER states within the East African Community now wish to establish National Kiswahili Councils within their respective countries to show commitment in promoting the language in the region. The call was made here yesterday by Prof Kenneth Inyani Simala, Executive Secretary, East African Kiswahili Commission (EAKC) during a meeting with team of the East African Legislatives Assembly (EALA) delegation on 'the on-spot assessment of institutions, installations and facilities of the EAC on the central corridor.' "Despite financial challenges facing the Commission, we have been playing our part well, advising the governments on how we should move on. It is unfortunate that there is slowness in implementation," Prof Simala said here yesterday at the Commission offices. "It is only Tanzania which has the Kiswahili Council. I urge other member states to do the same and implement other agreed plans," the Executive Secretary said as he also listed some challenges facing the commission. The team of EALA delegation led by Hon Wanjiku Muhia from Kenya heard Prof talk about weakness in legislation, insufficient budget allocation, under staffing, and last year's attempted theft of the commission's funds from its account (he did not release details at the open meeting). He said that after raising voice including reporting to the police about the missing money from the Commission's account, the amount was returned, "But we need to know who had taken the money and why?" Prof Simala said he has visited Burundi, Rwanda, Uganda, and Kenya to see the pace of building...

In 2016, the African Union (AU) announced plans to introduce a new African Union passport that would travel across the continent much easier. “The scene seems to be set to realize the dream of visa-free travel for African citizens within their own continent by 2020,” the AU said in a statement announcing the launch. However, in 2018, crossing borders remains a difficult process for the vast majority of Africans. Even now, African citizens on average need a visa to travel to more than 50% of nations across the continent. This makes travelling in Africa significantly easier for Americans, Brits and various other nationalities than it does for the majority of Africans. It’s not only African citizens that feel the constraints of travel difficulties either. Business travel is a painful process between African countries and the impact on trade between the continent’s nations is undeniable. So why are Africans still waiting for visa-free travel? Progress is being made The visa-free travel dream in Africa is taking longer than some African union optimists might have hoped but true progress is being made. In November last year, six nations – Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon and the Republic of Congo – announced visa-free movement for citizens among their nations under the Central African Economic and Monetary Community (CEMAC). Meanwhile, Kenya became the latest country to relax visa requirements from citizens from African nations, who no longer need to get a visa prior to their arrival. According to the African Development Bank, which monitors visa openness...

Arusha — Performance of the recently established one stop border posts (OSBPs) in East Africa will come under scrutiny during an on the spot assessment by the regional lawmakers. Fresh from the recent session in Kampala, the East African Legislative Assembly (Eala) members this week began a mission to assess the progress of the regional institutions including OSBPs. The jointly operated and shared facilities on the visit schedule include the famous Namanga and Holili on the Tanzania/Kenya border as well as Malaba on the border between Kenya and Uganda. Others are Katuna/Gatuna on the Uganda/Rwanda borderline, Kabanga/Kobero (Tanzania and Burundi) and the Rusumo OSBP along River Kagera that separates Tanzania and Rwanda. "The on-spot assessment commenced yesterday (Monday) and runs up to February 23rd", said Bobi Odiko, the spokesperson for Eala, adding that the visit will cover other infrastructure projects. One of the two groups will inspect projects along the northern corridor; Mombasa through Nairobi and Kampala to Kigali while another will do the same on the central corridor; Dar es Salaam to Bujumbura. OSBPs which are being established along the key routes at the borders of the East African Community (EAC) member states to lessen time in exiting one country and entering another have come under scrutiny for some time especially from the regional MPs. For instance, an on the spot assessment carried out in 2015 by Eala members found out that some of them can turn into 'white elephants' due to unwarranted delays to complete the basic structures...

The East African Business Council (EABC) board met in Kigali, last week, to discuss strategies that will help encourage the implementation of key projects by East African Community (EAC) states that seek to improve the business environment. This comes on the back of a lot of frustration among the business community because of the slow pace by partner states in the implementation process despite Heads of State directives for the projects to be prioritised. Lilian Awinja, the EABC chief executive officer, says the fact that some partner states are backtracking on some of these projects when others are undertaking the projects is very discouraging and unfortunate. Speaking in an exclusive interview with Business Times’ Peterson Tumwebaze after the meeting, Awinja said the delay is costing the region in terms of trade, investments, jobs and economic prosperity. Excerpts: You held an EABC board meeting in Kigali last Friday. Briefly tell us what it was about We mainly wanted to discuss issues affecting regional businesses and how we can address them as a region. Some of these issues are policy challenges, while others are financial in nature. For example, the directives that were issued by Heads of State for immediate implementation across the region are yet to be enforced. This is very discouraging for us as a business community. Awinja says delay in implementation of some EAC projects by states is hurting the business community. / Net. We still have a long list of pending projects aimed at improving doing business in...

Although appetite for energy infrastructure remains high in East Africa, financiers are wary about the region's political, economic and environmental risk factors. These issues were highlighted at the recently held East Africa Energy and Infrastructure Summit held in Kampala, Uganda. Lungile Mashele, energy specialist at the Development Bank of Southern Africa (DBSA), told the EastAfrican that development banks also consider the perceived risks in the region when looking at projects to finance. Mashele revealed that after having successfully funded 21 projects, contributing a total of 2,512MW to South Africa's national grid, the bank is now looking at projects in Rwanda and Ethiopia. Read more... The two countries are said to be “politically stable,” and have also been posting impressive growth figures for the past 10 years. "As a bank we have the mandate to go where no one wants to go, but there is a risk to that. We may pay the price for political risk if elections are not held on time. Then there is economic risk, like unstable currencies, which means there is the possibility that we may not get our money out," Mashele said. Also speaking at the event, Attilio Pacifici, head of the European Union Delegation to Uganda, announced that the union has financing instruments under its External Investment Plan (EIP) which targets Africa, with sustainable energy being one of its five priority sectors. "Despite the rapidly rising cost-competitiveness of renewable energy technologies, financing of projects is still difficult in many parts of the world. Transformation of...

The International Trade Centre (ITC), a joint agency of the United Nations and World Trade Organization (WTO), will open a centre in Dubai on Tuesday to foster female entrepreneurship across the Middle East and North Africa (Mena), in partnership with Dubai Exports, a unit of the Department for Economic Development. “Our main aim globally is to connect more women to the economy because we know there is a specific market failure there: women are having more difficulty in business than men,” said Arancha Gonzalez, executive director of the ITC. “In the world there are 1 billion women disconnected from the economy [according to McKinsey & Company], which is an economy the size of the US and China. This tells us we have a big source of growth countries are not tapping,” said Ms Gonzalez in an interview with The National at the World Government Summit in Dubai. Despite impressive higher education rates among women, the region has lower rates of female labour force participation than the rest of the world. Women make up 49 per cent of the Mena population and, in some countries, up to 63 per cent of university students. Yet they represent 28 per cent of the labour force compared to over 50 per cent in the US, according to the World Bank. A 2017 study by UN Women and Promundo, a Brazilian lobby group to promote gender equality among boys, claimed more than two-thirds of Mena men support the notion that a woman’s most important role...