The 2016/2017 annual budget of the cash-strapped EAC will be tabled here on Thursday before the regional Assembly which starts its budget session here today. Mr Mfumukeko warned when the baton was handed over to him by Dr Richard Sezibera, a Rwanda national, of impending stringent measures to salvage the regional organization from the current financial crisis. He stated that EAC, now made of six member states after the recent admission of South Sudan, has never experienced such financial instability and that he as a chief executive of the regional body would propose stern measures geared at cost-cutting and accountability on the part of its officials. During the current 2015/2016 financial year which is coming to an end, the East African Legislative Assembly (Eala) approved a budget of $ 110,660,098 but by last month the Arusha-based Secretariat complained that the development partners, who contribute 70 per cent of the budget, had not disbursed about 30 per cent fo the expected funds. During the fiscal year coming to an end, EAC was compelled to phase out some projects funded by development partners due to declining support from donors. The $ 110.6m that was approved for expenditure was $14 million less than the 2014/2015 financial year budget which totalled $124 million. The next financial year budget will be read by Tanzania’s minister for Foreign Affairs, International and EAC Affairs Dr. Augustine Mahiga, in his capacity as the Chairperson of the EAC Council of Ministers, the policy organ of the Community. The unprecedented...

Uganda has played down any suggestions that the Kenyan government plans to construct its route of the Standard Gauge Railway (SGR) that will be terminated at Kisumu, which is about 139 kilometres from the Kenya-Uganda border town of Malaba. According to The East African newspaper, Kenya’s transport cabinet secretary James Macharia acknowledged that extension of the line to Malaba may no longer be necessary if landlocked states opted out. “The decision has not been reached but we have a number of options at our disposal. We can decide to end the SGR at Naivasha or Kisumu but it will still be a viable venture due to the presence of Lake Victoria,” said Mr Macharia. The SGR Uganda project coordinator, Mr Kasingye Kyamugambi has refuted the claims and said the three countries – Uganda, Kenya, and Rwanda – were still committed to the route. “I think the protocol is clear between the countries and anything that’s outside the protocol must also come through the Northern Corridor Integration Project (NCIP) summit that we use as a fall back arm to know if we are together or not and that is really the presidents’ forum,” he told Daily Monitor during a tour to assess land acquisition in Tororo District on Wednesday. The ping-pong Rwanda last week, announced plans to build a railway through Tanzania to the Indian Ocean noting that the route is cheaper and would take a shorter time to complete. This is according to The East African. The Northern Corridor Infrastructure...

Kampala. The African Development Bank Group (AfDB) is set to unveil strategies of creating 25 million jobs for young people over the 10 years in its member states. The strategies are contained in the group’s new agenda for the continent’s economic transformation that are to be revealed at this year’s annual meetings scheduled to take place from May 23 to 27 in Lusaka, Zambia. Unemployment in sub Saharan/African continent as a whole has an estimated 11 million young Africans expected to join the labour market every year for the next decade (World Bank data). Therefore, creating millions of productive, well-paying jobs will be vital to boost economic growth to significantly cut poverty, and create shared prosperity in Africa. In an annual meetings preview video message, the president AfDB, Dr Akinwumi Adesina, said participants will examine burning issues in Africa and focus on the bank’s five new priority areas, (High 5s), designed to scale up its operations for the continent’s transformation. These High 5s are: Light up and power Africa, Feed Africa, Industrialise Africa, Integrate Africa, and Improve the quality of life for the people of Africa. “Each of those is high on the agenda in Lusaka,” Dr Adesina said, noting that three of them will take a major leap forward as the bank unveils new strategies, and a programme to create 25 million jobs for young people over the next decade. “All of them need to be debated and owned, as much by governments, as by business, as by civil...

There was much excitement in Rwanda’s capital, Kigali, in the week leading up to the convening of the World Economic Forum for Africa recently. As with past meetings of this magnitude, the government of Rwanda left nothing to chance. Its remarkable mobilisation capacity was deployed to get everyone with a role to play during the preparations to do their bit and do it well. Under normal circumstances officials and public servants here work like there is no tomorrow. It gets worse when big events that require special attention are in the offing. Contacts I was running after for bits of information about this and that and who from one to the next pleaded inability to see me, summed up what was going on. The most common response to appointment requests were, “I really can’t do anything this week.” A friend working for a major government agency wasn’t exaggerating when he said it was no use trying to set up a coffee appointment before the WEF was over, “because I am not able to think about anything else right now”. It mattered not whether I was talking to a public servant, a politician, or a member of the local business community. They were all “busy with WEF.” What on earth were they doing, I wondered. In public, there was not much activity in evidence. And there were no reports in the media about this or that critically important aspect of the preparations lagging hopelessly behind schedule. Everything seemed to be in...

Come July, exporters in East Africa will pay more, when a new requirement on weighing and verifying containers is implemented globally. The International Maritime Organisation (IMO) is making verification of weights a condition for loading packed export containers aboard ships to conform to amended changes to Safety of Life at Sea (SOLAS) convention. Safety is a driver of change as each year over 135 million containers enter the global supply chain, but many lack accurate weight estimates, contributing to costly shipping accidents. The Kenya Maritime Authority (KMA) said SOLAS changes aim to curb under-declaring weight of cargo that can lead to shipwrecks, destruction of goods and pollution if hazardous cargo spills into the sea. The global rule for shippers to provide verified gross mass (VGM) for every packed container complete with correct documentation targeting enhanced safety is expected to increase cost of operations with consumers bearing the brunt. A container without VGM will not be loaded on a ship from July 1. A shipper sending goods will be responsible for proper verified weighing of packed container and documentation for cargo to be loaded on a vessel. Any container exceeding maximum gross mass will not be loaded to a ship. KMA acting director-general Cosmas Cherop said a container leaving a port will have a document signed either electronically or in hard copy by the shipper on bill of lading. Shippers will make the information available in advance to the port and the shipping line. The first method of obtaining VGM entails...

Regional inflation rates could spike in the medium term following the sustained rebound of the price of crude oil in the international market, where it has risen from a low of $29 early this year to the current $47 per barrel. Rwanda recorded a rise in its April inflation rate to 4.6 per cent, up from 4.1 per cent a month earlier, which it blamed on rising energy and transport costs. Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda have also recorded an increase in fuel prices in the past month. The three countries saw their inflation drop in April, with Kenya’s year-on-year inflation dropping to 5.27 per cent in April, from 6.45 per cent a month earlier. Uganda’s inflation dropped to 5.1 per cent in April from 6.2 per cent in March, while Tanzania saw its April inflation decrease to 5.1 per cent from 5.4 per cent a month earlier. Rwanda’s central bank (BNR) said the country’s inflation levels experienced pressure as a result of increased transport prices after the recovery in global oil prices. Rwanda’s monthly inflation rate rose by 0.8 per cent in April, while its food prices rose by 5.6 per cent. The annual inflation rate for housing, water, electricity, gas and other fuels increased by 3.9 per cent while that for transport rose by 7.6 per cent. Last week, Rwanda’s Ministry of Trade and Industry announced an increase in the petrol pump price from Rwf826 ($1.05) to Rwf860 ($1.09) per litre, making it the highest in the region. “The...

Innovators and entrepreneurs in the logistics and transport sector across the East African Community have a chance to acquire part of $16 million grant-based fund under the second phase of the logistics Innovation for Trade (LIFT) Challenge Fund. The TradeMark Africa initiative will provide grants ranging from $150,000 to $1 million to winning proposals from innovators across the world, whose project ideas will be implemented in East Africa. The organisation has already called for entries from qualifying sector player. The LIFT initiative is managed by Nathan Associates through a fund management team based in Nairobi, and is funded by the UK Department for International Development (DFID). It seeks to trigger and introduce innovative approaches to tackling freight and transport costs in the East African Community (EAC). TradeMark Africa chief executive Officer Frank Matsaert urged innovators to apply for funding, saying the challenge had enabled stakeholders to test new ideas that should reduce the cost and transport time in the EAC. "It is our hope that the entrepreneurs and innovators of the East African Community in partnership with their counterparts internationally will drive forward development through the adoption or introduction of 'best practice' technologies in the transport and logistics sector, enabling local businesses to compete favourably in the increasingly global economy," said Matsaert. Businesses in the transport and logistics sector, or those that provide services to actors within it, are now being invited to submit their innovative concepts to LIFT for possible funding. The LIFT Challenge Fund is open to businesses...

Proper investments will also be used as a key driver of structural transformation through creating backward and forward linkages between agriculture production, industrialization and growth in services trade. The call was made by Ambassador Nathan Irumba from SEATIN Uganda, ahead of the regional investment climate meeting that takes place this Thursday and Friday at Lake Victoria hotel in Entebbe. The meeting is organized by SEATINI Uganda in partnership with Diakonia under the theme "Making investment work for the people of East African Community (EAC)". It's aimed at kick starting efforts towards "Promoting Investment policies and Agreements that support sustainable development and improved livelihoods within the region". The multi-stakeholder meeting will involve adoption of a multi-disciplinary approach to enhance stakeholders' awareness and capacity to understand and appreciate the imperative for investment policies and practices that are gender sensitive, protect human rights, promote environment sustainability and address the development needs of the EAC region. At the meeting, stakeholders will be able to appreciate the need for investment policies and practices that are gender sensitive; protect human rights; promote environment sustainability among others. Irumba added that investment can facilitate rural economic transformation through increased production and productivity as well as value addition. The East African Community region is characterized by mostly Foreign Direct Investments (FDIs) due to the fact that deliberate effort has been made by governments to attract FDIs into their countries. Currently, the region has registered world FDI flows of up to US$ 7 billion in 2014. Besides this, the EAC...

Innovators and entrepreneurs in the logistics and transport sector across the East African Community have a chance to acquire part of $16 million grant-based fund under the second phase of the logistics Innovation for Trade (LIFT) Challenge Fund. The TradeMark Africa initiative will provide grants ranging from $150,000 to $1 million to winning proposals from innovators across the world, whose project ideas will be implemented in East Africa. The organisation has already called for entries from qualifying sector player. The LIFT initiative is managed by Nathan Associates through a fund management team based in Nairobi, and is funded by the UK Department for International Development (DFID). It seeks to trigger and introduce innovative approaches to tackling freight and transport costs in the East African Community (EAC). TradeMark Africa chief executive Officer Frank Matsaert urged innovators to apply for funding, saying the challenge had enabled stakeholders to test new ideas that should reduce the cost and transport time in the EAC. “It is our hope that the entrepreneurs and innovators of the East African Community in partnership with their counterparts internationally will drive forward development through the adoption or introduction of ‘best practice’ technologies in the transport and logistics sector, enabling local businesses to compete favourably in the increasingly global economy,” said Matsaert. Businesses in the transport and logistics sector, or those that provide services to actors within it, are now being invited to submit their innovative concepts to LIFT for possible funding. The LIFT Challenge Fund is open to businesses...

Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania, and Uganda consider ending imports of used garments by 2019 in order to increase domestic production. Five East African countries may ban sales of second-hand clothing from abroad – a staple of many residents’ wardrobes – in order to bolster domestic garment making. Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania, and Uganda make up the East Africa Community (EAC), which directed its member countries to phase out textile and shoe imports by 2019. The heads of state of all five countries must agree before the limits could take effect. The proposal comes as many African countries seek to increase manufacturing and other industries to fuel economic growth. Charitable donations resold Second-hand clothing, mostly from Europe and North America, are a mainstay of local clothing markets in Africa, according to Dr. Andrew Brooks, author of Clothing Poverty: The Hidden World of Fast Fashion and Second-hand Clothes. In Uganda, for example, second-hand garments account for 81 percent of all clothing purchases, Brooks said. East Africa imported more than $150 million worth of second-hand clothing in 2015. Brooks noted that the used clothing is less expensive than locally produced garments or even inexpensive new imports. U.S., U.K. are largest exporters Most of the second-hand clothing sold around the world comes from charitable donations by European and North American residents who are unaware the clothing will be sold, Brooks said. The United States and the United Kingdom are by far the largest exporters of used clothing. The United States exported used garments worth more than...