Kenyan lawyers will start practising in other East African countries if an agreement between member states is approved. The government, through the Ministry of East African Community (EAC) and the department of Labour and Social Protection, has announced elaborate plans that will enable lawyers to work freely within the bloc. Barack Ndegwa, the secretary in charge of integration in the State department responsible for the EAC, said there is a mutual-recognition agreement being drafted to facilitate the move. “We are working on the mutual-recognition agreement that will see lawyers from the neighbouring EAC partner states such as Uganda and Tanzania come to work in Kenya while ours also work in their countries,” said Mr Ndegwa. He was speaking in Nakuru during a two-day workshop organised for Law Society of Kenya lawyers. Mr Ndegwa noted that the establishment of the EAC court in Tanzania will require lawyers from member states to handle matters and represent their clients at the court. He said lawyers from member states need exposure on the East African Treaty laws that are being drafted to understand how the East African Court of Justice operates. He said the court has already opened registries in the capitals of member states. Mr Ndegwa was accompanied by East African Court of Justice Registrar Yufnalis Okubo and David Njoka, the director of political affairs in the State department of the EAC and integration. Source: Daily Nation

Prevalence of trade barriers in the region is a contributor to food shortage especially hampering movement of grains. East Africa Grain Council (EAGC) says trade barriers have pushed business of grains from formal, well-regulated channels to informal, unregulated and inefficient mediums. Grain experts say informal trade translates to higher food safety risks, lower quality, high post-harvest losses, higher transaction costs and ultimately higher consumer prices. “Today, 70 per cent of maize, 63 per cent of dry beans, 57 per cent of rice and 89 per cent of millet are traded informally across national borders. This scenario has exposed more than 10 million East Africans to hunger,” Eagc Board Chairman Bernard Otim told People Daily during the council’s Annual Members’ meeting in Nairobi. Despite importance of regional food trade in availing markets for producers and affordable food for consumers, export bans, import bans or both, are active in a number of countries in Eastern and Southern Africa region. Otim said there are close to 20 countries affected by such a scenario in the region. “It is an irony that our governments have been quick to sign regional and continental commitments to support agriculture but have been slow to back such commitments with concrete action and resources,” he said. A few of these countries have committed 10 per cent of their national budgets to the agricultural sector as per the AU Malabo Declaration. Regrettably, development of the grain sector in the region is inhibited by a restrictive policy environment, characterised by ad...

As the country prepares to commission the Standard Gauge Railway (SGR) at the end of this month, it is important to understand that its economic benefits will be fully realized only if we put the necessary supporting infrastructure and policies in place. This is especially true for the freight component of the business that the SGR is expected to handle. The ongoing expansion and modernization of the Inland Container Depot (ICD) at Embakasi is, therefore, critical. The ongoing works, estimated to cost a total of Sh21 billion, and on which China Road and Bridge Construction (CRBC) is the Engineering, Procurement and Construction (EPC) contractor, will not only provide a solution for some of the capacity constraints facing the Port of Mombasa but will also improve the overall efficiency of cargo transport within the Northern Corridor and optimize the utilisation of the SGR. With the expected improvement in capacity, cargo aggregation points like the port of Mombasa and the ICD will need to expand in tandem. This way, they can keep up with the heightened evacuation capacity of the new track, both for the containerized and bulk cargo. The numbers tell the story of a massive rise in transportation capacity that we must be prepared for. Each freight train will, for instance, pack a haulage volume of 216 Twenty Foot Equivalent Unit or a trailing load of 40,000 tons, moving at 80km per hour. Annually, the SGR is designed to move a significant 22 million tonnes. Ongoing works at the Embakasi...

A newly designed Short Messaging Service for reporting trade barriers within the tripartite regional economic blocs has been launched. The SMS will supplement the current web based online system for reporting, monitoring and elimination of Non-Tariff Barriers (NTBs) used by the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (Comesa), the East African Community (EAC) and the Southern African Development Community (Sadc). The Tripartite online reporting system is a real-time, mechanism for reporting, processing, monitoring and resolving NTBs and is available on www.tradebarriers.org. It was operationalised in November 2010. The SMS tool was first launched in 2013 in Zambia to facilitate a diverse spectrum of economic operators, especially the informal and small scale traders who may not have access to the internet. “At the time the design of the SMS reporting too, there was a central number to which the economic operators in different countries could send the SMS messages to report the trade obstacles that they could have encountered,” Mr Tasara Muzorori, senior trade officer in Comesa said. This was expensive for the economic operators as it involved incurring roaming charges. “It was also a challenge to publicise that central number to the relevant players in each of the countries as the foreign numbers did not identify with local users,” Mr Muzorori said. “Further, the system was faced with sustainability challenges as it was operated outside the National NTBs structures thereby requiring continued donor support to cater for administration costs.” This led to the re-design of the SMS system whereby each...

The six member States of the East African Community (EAC) are set to meet this week in Rwanda to push for the implementation of the One Area Mobile Network, officials said on Monday. Kenya's Communication Authority Director General Francis Wangusi told Xinhua that Kenya, Rwanda, Uganda and South Sudan are already part of the single network. "Later this week EAC ministers in charge of telecommunications will discuss ways to fast track operationalization of the single network," Wangusi said on the sidelines of the opening ceremony of the 36th Ordinary Session of the Administrative Council of the pan-African postal union. Once the single area network is effective, all intra-EAC mobile tariffs will be harmonized so that the calls within the trading bloc will be treated as local calls. Wangusi said that the overall objective is to reduce the cost of communication in the region. "It is unfortunate that it is cheaper to call Europe, Asia and the US from EAC partner states than it is to call other member states," said Wangusi. While South Sudan has joined the single network, it is yet to implement the network, and Tanzania will have to amend its telecom laws before it becomes part of the network. Wangusi said that due to civil strife in Burundi, it may take the country longer than expected to join the single mobile network. The one area network will be a building block to the Smart Africa Initiative that aims to make Africa a single mobile area network. Wangusi...

East Africa still seems relatively unloved as a petroleum province and yet it has a number of positive aspects: There is a regional entity, the East African Community, which draws together Kenya, Uganda, and Tanzania (but not Mocambique). There is a declared ambition to bring energy to the combined population of 150+ million but little yet in the way of actual development or actionable plans. Post Brexit, the UK Department of International Trade (DIT) has declared an Oil & Gas High Value Campaign for East Africa, the aim being to deliver opportunities for UK companies in the region. DIT has representatives in-country and an officer in Whitehall who carries the regional responsibility: DIT's current early focus seems to be on the big gas (LNG) developments offshore Tanzania and Mocambique (see 3.). There is no shortage of resources and reserves. Significant oil has been found onshore in the rift plays of Uganda and Kenya; there is commercial gas under production in Tanzania, and at least one further discovery; there are world class (??100 Tcf) gas discoveries offshore Tanzania and Mocambique; there is the potential for a significant oil play in the coastal region from northern Mocambique, through Tanzania, potentially into Kenya, first evidence of which may be provided by recent wells drilled by Aminex in Tanzania and Sasol in Mocambique, There is current production of gas in Tanzania at Songo Songo, Kiliwani-North and Mnazi Bay. There is an under-utilised pipeline from the producing fields up to Dar-es- Salaam. A possible starting...

The soaring cost of living in the country has forced scores of Busia residents to cross into Uganda to shop for basic commodities. A spot check by The Standard showed locals crossing the border to buy essential items like sugar, milk, maize and wheat flour, which are more affordable there. Retail shops in Uganda are selling a kilo of sugar at Sh150 compared to local supermarkets in Busia, where the cost has reached Sh200. Meanwhile, unscrupulous business people have taken advantage of the unavailability of basic goods in local markets to smuggle them into the country. Ugandan sugar and milk are finding their way through the porous borders of Busia and Malaba before being sold exorbitantly in Kenyan shops. The manager of a mini-supermarket located less than two kilometres on the Ugandan side confirmed that for the last one week, Kenyans have been swarming to the chain store to shop. "Most of our customers for the last one week have been coming from Kenya. They don't buy in bulk but in small quantities, certainly for family use," he confirmed. Busia Traders Association chairman Stephen Obala blamed the devolved units for doing little to safeguard Kenyans from the high cost of living. "The problem we are experiencing now cannot be blamed on the national government alone but the county governments as well because the essence of devolution was to bring resources nearer to the people," said Mr Obala. Mary Anyango, one of the Kenyans who cross into Uganda to shop, the...

Passengers on the up-coming Nairobi-Mombasa railway will pay a concessional fee priced at half the fare being charged by buses, says Transport and Infrastructure Cabinet Secretary James Macharia. He said passengers will enjoy a six-month offer during which there will be two train services plying the standard gauge railway – one to Nairobi and another to Mombasa – to help gauge the demand for passengers. The new train launches on May 31. A final report on the passenger and cargo tariffs will be out in a week, the minister said. This means economy travellers on the high-speed train will pay between Sh500 and Sh800; being half what buses charge for the journey between the capital and the seaside port of Mombasa. “The cost will be half of what the buses are currently charging,” Mr Macharia told the Sunday Nation. “Various teams are working on the details,” he added. President Uhuru Kenyatta will take a symbolic ride on May 31 aboard the high-speed train ahead of celebrations to mark Madaraka Day on June 1, when Kenya attained self-internal rule from Britain. Kenya has already procured 40 passenger coaches, each with a capacity of 118 travellers, for the economy class, 72 people in the business class, and 44 in the first-class section. The Transport minister said the government is banking on speed, reliability and pricing of the new railcars to attract passengers who use buses and budget airlines. The SGR passenger trains will run at an average speed of 120km per hour, cutting...

The 2017/18 East African Community budget will be relatively smaller compared to the current closing financial year owing to the current economic situation, regional ministers have decided. During the recent meeting of the Council of Ministers in Arusha, Tanzania, the bloc’s Secretary General, Amb. Libérat Mfumukeko, submitted a budget proposal for financial year 2017/18 amounting to $113.8 million compared to the current budget of $101.4 million. “Owing to the current economic situation, all partner states are experiencing rationalisation of their national budgets and, therefore, it would be difficult to increase contributions to the EAC Budget,” reads a report of the central decision-making organ of the Community. “The meeting, therefore, agreed to a zero per cent increase in partner states contributions to the 2017/18 Budget.” The Council observed that although there is no increase in the individual partner states’ contribution, countries’ total contribution will increase after including contribution from the Community’s new member, South Sudan. From May 22 to June 3, the final sitting of the third East African Legislative Assembly (EALA), in Arusha, Tanzania, will mainly debate the budget estimates as adopted by the Council. MP Patricia Hajabakiga, chairperson of EALA Rwanda Chapter, told The New Times that nothing much is likely to change. “Of course the budget voted by EALA cannot go beyond the ceiling provided by the partner states. It is only rationalising within what is already available,” Hajabakiga said. “In case some institution needs something and maybe some other institution has excess then they will rationalise within...

The Kenya Bureau of Standards (Kebs) is setting up a laboratory in Mombasa at a cost of more than Sh300 million. Managing Director Charles Ongwae said the lab will save business owners the time and cost of sending samples to Nairobi, besides facilitating trade. “There are a number of tests that cannot be done in Mombasa and importers have been sending samples to Nairobi but this will be a thing of the past,” he said at the Bandari College while addressing a forum for business owners in the region. The laboratory will be located in Mombasa’s central business district along Nkrumah Road in a seven-storey building Kebs acquired at Sh700 million, where two floors will be reserved for the facility, he said. Expensive venture “Setting up a lab is very expensive and the European Union is partly funding the project to the tune of Sh300 million with the funding being channelled through the Standards and Market Access Programme (SMAP) but we are also going to invest more funds in the project,” he said. “About Sh250 million has already been spent on buying equipment that will be shared between this facility and the one in Nairobi. "The equipment is already in the high seas expected to be delivered any time from now,” Mr Ongwae said. In order to conform to standards, imports and exports are subjected to quality assurance tests that are carried out by Kebs and other private laboratories. He noted that the lab is being set up at the...