Regional and international partnerships will be crucial in ensuring that East African countries leave no one behind with respect to access to clean energy, a senior East African Community official said Monday. Speaking at the opening of the first Sustainable Energy Forum for East Africa 2018, in Kigali, Christophe Bazivamo, the EAC deputy secretary-general in charge of productive and social sectors, called for collaborations among sector players, including between governments, private sector and developing partners. Nearly 80 per cent of east Africans, he said, live in rural areas and their main source of energy is traditional biomass consisting of fuel wood, charcoal and agricultural waste. According to the East African Industrialisation Strategy (2012-2032), the EAC seeks to diversify the manufacturing base and raise local value-added content of resource-based exports to at least 40 percent by 2032. “To achieve our industrialisation targets, we need to accelerate access to sustainable energy and promote energy production for productive uses. We realise that we cannot do this single-handedly. We need to revitalise our regional cooperation and partnership with development partners around the globe,” Bazivamo said at the opening of the three-day forum. Energy is a key priority for the six-nation bloc, he said, adding that ensuring availability of sufficient, reliable, cost effective and environmentally friendly energy sources in the region would facilitate achievement of broader EAC objectives, including attracting investments and promoting regional competitiveness. In 2013, EAC government ministries in charge of energy directed the bloc’s secretariat to seek support from the United Nations...

East African governments are under pressure to resolve longstanding trade disputes and remove non-tariff barriers that have slowed economic integration. As the East African Business Council celebrates its 20th anniversary on March 22 and 23 in Nairobi with a series of high-level events, the spotlight is on the gains and hindrances to integration. Lilian Awinja, the EABC executive director, said the council seeks to address integration and industrialisation challenges. Regional businesses will convene at the Kenyatta International Convention Centre to showcase domestic value-added products that are set to transform the bloc into an upper-middle income economy by 2050. “The exhibition will feature products and services grown, developed or manufactured in East Africa,” Ms Awinja said. “Promotion of local industries to manufacture and offer more products and services is critical for the realisation of the Buy and Build East Africa campaign.” At the EAC Heads of State Summit in Kampala last month, regional leaders directed the secretariat to ensure that the Customs Union Protocol, the Common Market Protocol and the EAC Elimination of NTB Act, 2017 are implemented. Non-tariff barriers According to a report by the EAC Council of Ministers to the presidents, by August 30, last year there were 18 longstanding NTBs. Among them is Uganda’s restriction on imports of beef and beef products from Kenya. Although Uganda should have lifted the ban in accordance with the recommendations of the bilateral meeting held between Uganda and Kenya in October 2015 in Nairobi, Uganda says it is still in the process...

Tanzania is banking on the development of its vast gas find into electricity to increase its capacity and provide a dedicated electric line for the SGR network, once completed. Currently, the country’s available power generation capacity stands at about 1,500MW, against a demand of 1,352 MW. “Jointly with Ethiopia, Tanzania re-opened the bids in August last year for the Rufiji hydropower project at the Stiglers Gorge which we will inject more than 2200MW to the national grid once completed over the next two years. We will soon announce the tendering. We are also in the last stages of the Kinyerezi plant from our natural gas, which should now inject 240MW next month and reach a peak of 3,000MW by 2022. We expect these power projects to be used to power the railway line,” a senior government official told The EastAfrican in an earlier interview. The region has turned to electric powered rails in a bid to increase efficiency, but questions abound on how these lines will be powered given the energy deficits individual countries face. Kenya dropped plans for electrification of the SGR line between Mombasa and Nairobi, citing its high costs and irregular power supply. Kenya Railways managing director Atanas Maina said that the preliminary research had shown inadequate demand for electric trains in Kenya coupled by higher cost and intermittent electric supply. “Electrifying this line also depends on our ability as a country to finance that kind of infrastructure. It was something that we would love to have,...

When Eritrea gained its independence from Ethiopia in 1993, Ethiopia became landlocked and therefore dependent on its neighbours – especially Djibouti – for access to international markets. This dependency has hampered Ethiopia's aspiration to emerge as the uncontested regional power in the Horn of Africa. Recently, however, the ground has been shifting. As we point out in a recent article , Ethiopia has attempted to take advantage of the recent involvement of various Arab Gulf States in the Horn of Africa's coastal zone to reduce its dependency on Djibouti's port. The port currently accounts for 95% of Ethiopia's imports and exports. It has done so by actively trying to interest partners in the refurbishment and development of other ports in the region: Port Sudan in Sudan, Berbera in the Somaliland region of Somalia, and Mombasa in Kenya. But it is Berbera, in particular, that will prove the most radical in terms of challenging regional power dynamics as well as international law. This is because a port deal involving Somaliland will challenge Djibouti's virtual monopoly over maritime trade. In addition, it may entrench the de-facto Balkanization of Somalia and increase the prospects of Ethiopia becoming the regional hegemon. Ethiopia's regional policy Ethiopia's interest in Berbera certainly makes sense from a strategic perspective. It is closest to Ethiopia and will connect the eastern, primarily Somali region of Ethiopia to Addis Ababa. It will also provide a much needed outlet for trade, particularly the export of livestock and agriculture. The development and expansion...

After months of uncertainty, Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta and his rival Raila Odinga agreed to put aside their differences on 9th of March, for the good of the country, but also the economy. Their dispute has cost Kenya around €800,000 and seen some of its trade re-routed to Tanzania. "When Kenya sneezes, East Africa catches a cold." The saying, which is widely known in the region and was often quoted by commentators at the height of Kenya's 2007-08 violence to explain the impact of the fallout for Nairobi's neighbours. Fast forward ten years later and Kenya's latest crisis has instead sparked feverish activity in countries like Tanzania. "There’s talk of a railway connecting Rwanda with Tanzania, and President [John] Magufuli for all that people criticize him for, pried away the prized Total oil pipeline away from us that should have been coming through Kenya," Aly Khan Satchu, a financial and political analyst in Nairobi said. He is a very potent adversary Satchu said, in reference to Magafuli's ability to spot the opportunity created by Kenya's political crisis. "I think we’ve been caught napping," he said. The political crisis rattled investors and Kenya's business community, with the KEPSA Private Sector alliance warning that trade from Uganda and Rwanda was being diverted towards Tanzania. "That’s been damaging for Kenya," acknowledges Piers Dawson, a consultant with the London-based risk firm Africa Matters Limited, told RFI. Nontheless he said it is too soon for Dar Es Salam to overtake Nairobi as the economic capital...

Arusha — Fears of shaky financial status of the East African Community (EAC) were allayed on Tuesday evening when a Kenyan cabinet secretary declared it cannot run bankrupt. "The Community cannot run bankrupt due to delayed contributions by the member states", the newly appointed cabinet secretary for EAC and Northern Corridor Peter Munya affirmed. He told the East African Legislative Assembly (Eala) that the financial woes facing the regional organization were being addressed by relevant authorities. "There are challenges with some countries delaying payments but we have talked on how to tackle this", he said as the House debated the 'State of EAC' speech by current Chair President Museveni of Uganda recently. However, he said the long term solution to the crisis lay with the often touted sustainable financing mechanism which was also discussed during the recent Heads of State Summit in Kampala. He noted discussions were on advanced stage on how to sustainably raise funds through slapping tax on imports, slicing the GDP "or a combination of these". According to him, the Community was also weighing on the current system where each of the six partner states made equal contribution to its annual budget and equity option. Mr. Munya's remarks came only weeks after the Arusha-based secretariat announced that only 40 per cent of the 2017/2018 expenditure budget by the partner states had been remitted to Arusha. The EAC and its organs and institutions had budgeted to spend a total of $ 110 million during the 2017/2018 financial year...

Cargo owners were allowed to clear their goods from the Internal Container Depot (ICD) in Nairobi across the weekend as the government moved to entice more business on the newly built standard gauge railway. Officers from the Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA) cleared cargo at the facility on Saturday and Sunday—handing traders more flexibility. “You  are  advised  to  make  use  of  the  extended working  hours  to  ensure  the  goods  are  cleared and delivered to the customers” the taxman said in a statement announcing the offer. The increased activity at the ICD has been due to a series of efforts by the government, including a directive by Kenya Railways for importers based in Nairobi and beyond to start collecting their cargo from Nairobi’s ICD in Embakasi instead of the Mombasa port. This has pushed up the activity at the depot that was recently upgraded to the tune of Sh23 billion— to handle 450,000 twenty-foot containers annually. The Kenya Ports Authority (KPA) less than a fortnight ago slashed container handling charges for a 20-foot local container at the inland container depot (ICD) in Embakasi to Sh8,160 ($80) from Sh10,506 ($103). Shipping firms including Maersk Line East Africa have also notified its customers that their cargo will henceforth be rerouted to the ICD. “Please note that all an-nominated containers for Nairobi and beyond will have their delivery changed to ICD via the SGR freight service in reference to the attached circular from Kenya Railways and Kenya Ports Authority,” Maersk Line East Africa said in...

During my lifetime, the pendulum has moved away from an era when governments ran our utility services, infrastructure, and much of our business too. Nowadays, states are smaller set-ups, and more focused on enabling citizens in driving their own success. That shift towards enablement is a core philosophy – the idea being, for business, that a government should no longer run businesses, but be responsible for the legislation and information that enables everyone else to run businesses: mobilising millions of people, versus only hundreds of thousands. In Kenya, the principle has driven rounds of legislative reform, but our enablement has been slow. Last year, I set up two new companies, one in Kenya, and one in the UK. The Kenyan company took me some weeks to set up, and cost over Sh50.000. The UK company took less than an hour - I did it online – and cost less than Sh10,000. Being in business in the UK is easier in almost every way than being in business in Kenya, and that doesn’t help any of us in Kenya, or our economic growth, or our tax base. Yet, last month, after sitting with farmers trying to launch a seeds business, I wrote bemoaning the impossibility of discovering the cost of seed certification. And now I have found the cost. That cost may be why our farmers were travelling from office to office to get the right quote: because it’s free. I’m still a bit surprised at this. Not many public services...

Ongoing efforts to have more cargo on the standard gauge railway (SGR) – though necessary – does betray serious flaws in the planning of the whole project. This is because recent chain of government actions do paint a picture of an operation that is straining to meet its objectives despite the massive investments that have been onjected into it. Tell-tale signs of this struggle first became public last month when the government ordered that all imports through the Mombasa port be carried on the SGR to Nairobi’s inland container depot (ICD). The latest is Head of Public Service Joseph Kinyua’s directive that government departments and agencies must transport all import and export cargo, including cargo for projects undertaken by third parties, on the SGR. This is wrong and will certainly bring distortions in the market with the consumer as the biggest loser. In a liberal economy, consumers are always best left to pick what best works for them. Transport forms a critical cost element in infrastructure projects or product value-chains and open bidding helps to attain the most competitive rates. Locking all cargo on the SGR kills competition. SGR was principally built to offer cargo shippers an option to the existing means of transport and should not now be made a killer of competitors. What the government needs to focus on at this point in time is to give the SGR a competitive edge instead of frustrating rival service providers. This is because ultimately in transport and logistics, efficiency and...

A visiting Republic of Congo minister has commended Kenya for completing the modern Standard Gauge Railway (SGR). Territorial Development and Large Public Works minister Jean-Jacques Bouya rode on the SGR passenger train from Nairobi to Mombasa, arriving at the Mombasa Terminal at 1.45pm on Sunday. "We are delighted at the new service and hope that it will help join Kenya and the neighbouring countries in the region as we seek to bolster trade," he said. On hand to receive and show him around the SGR installations were Transport Principal Secretary Paul Maringa, Kenya Railways Managing Director Athanas Maina and senior officials from the China Road & Bridges Corporation (CRBC). "The visiting minister and his delegation are keen to see the Kenyan SGR, whose first phase is complete, connect East Africa through Mombasa Port under the one belt road initiative," said Mr Maina. In Mombasa, the visiting minister toured the Port of Mombasa where he was met by Kenya Ports Authority (KPA) Managing Director Catherine Mturi-Wairi. While the SGR passenger train has been recording impressive passenger loads since its inception on June 1, 2017, the freight service is struggling to break even with cargo transporters still opting for road transportation. Source: Standard Digital