The Opus Dei Central Banker Shaking Up Kenya

Heads of central banks seldom achieve celebrity status, but residents of the Kenyan capital regularly stop Patrick Njoroge on the street to talk interest rates and the state of the economy, even to snap selfies.

The tall, slim governor of Kenya’s central bank is a far cry from many of the continent’s top officials. He evinces no interest in amassing personal wealth, and he’s a numerary in the Roman Catholic group Opus Dei. That means he has taken a vow of celibacy and lives with others of his religious rank in a group home, after declining to live in the regal Nairobi residence reserved for the country’s central bank governor. read more: www.wsj.com

The new world of business

Another region showing great promise is sub-Saharan Africa, now home to the world’s fastest-growing middle class. Investors continue to think of Africa almost entirely as an exporter of oil, gas, metals, and minerals, but services are playing an ever larger role across the continent. And governance in many countries has improved sharply. The World Bank’s 2013–14 “Doing Business” report asserted that sub-Saharan Africa has benefited more than other regions from regulatory improvement. Few countries offer greater promise than Kenya. READ MORE fortune.com

Notes of Special Cabinet Meeting 2014

Cabinet today [April 27, 2014] approved the Budget Estimates for Financial year 2014/2015 ahead of the 30.04.14 deadline. This is the 2nd Government Budget comprising comprehensive priorities and transformation Agenda for Jubilee Government.

Key among the Prioritized projects include:-
Issuance of over 3 Million Title Deeds;

Digitalization of the Lands and Company Registries to improve efficiency including creation of National Digital Register and Digital migration in KBC;

Completion of Mavoko Housing and Konza projects targeting low cost housing and slum upgrading;

Robust transformation and empowerment of the National Youth Service (NYS) and creation of youth employment initiatives at estimated cost of over Kshs.10 billion;

Huduma Centres in all Counties;

Food Security strategies including fertilizer production, Restructuring of Kenya Meat Commission (KMC), Revival of pyrethrum sector, Agriculture Development Corporation (ADC) and Milk Coolers;

Energy transformation programmes in power generation, transmission, supply including drastic reduction in cost of power and new connections all estimated at Kshs. 8 billion;

Robust strategies to support Leather and Textile sectors; development of Special Economic Zones; support to new emerging industries; and reduction in cost of doing business all budgeted at over Kshs.5.5 billion;

Prioritized Roads, Airports, Ports and other Infrastructure projects and decongestion of Nairobi junctions; Lapsett and more rural access roads all estimated at over Kshs. 51 billion,
Leasing of Medical equipment/facilities, Malaria control and vector borne and other diseases, and restructuring of NHIF at approximately over Kshs.5 billion;

Innovative strategies to enhance total full Primary Education and full Secondary Education; Laptops; TIVET; employment and phased promotion of Teachers; and increased sanitary towels and improved disposal;


Increase of cash transfer to older persons to cover over 1 million persons up from 500,000 elders;

P.P.P framework to develop numerous programmes within Lapsett; new Bomas of Kenya; KICC and COMESA Grounds Complex; ASK Show, Infrastructure in all sectors (List available to investors);


Innovative and robust strategic framework to rejuvenate tourism and market Kenya as a choice destination;


Motorcycles for all Chiefs, 1200 vehicles for National Government Coordinators County Commissioners/Deputy County Commissioners/Assistant County Commissioners and Chiefs; vehicle and aircraft leasing for security officers; forensic laboratory; Command and Control Communication, support and modernization of security and defence capabilities;


Cabinet called for an immediate decisive end to incidents of insecurity that has dented image and confidence ;

Development of 5 Sports Stadia to improve, Sports Arts and talents development. A National Lottery to be operational by July, 2014 replacing all others with proceeds in support of socio-dimensional programmes;


These measures among other strategies adopted by Cabinet ultimately seek to reduce overall cost of living, improve incomes by all Kenyans, and drastically reduce poverty and unemployment, improve security and transform Kenya’s economy, competitiveness, image and standing in the Community of Nations.

Cabinet also adopted the austerity measures following its recent Retreat that have generated over Kshs.27 billion into the Development Budget.

Cabinet called for further identification and rationalization in other areas of wastage, duplication, ambiguities and inconsistencies down to the Counties.

Source: www.facebook.com/myuhurukenyatta/posts/

Economy is on the runway, waiting to take off

By Wolfgang Fengler, World Bank’s Lead Economist for Kenya, Rwanda and Eritrea. 

Twenty three years later, my family and I are happily living in Kenya, but the country is very different today. Like the rest of the continent, it has experienced tremendous change. Not all of it was positive: traffic is now unbearable, security is a major concern and the poor are exposed to new hazards, especially in the cities’ rapidly growing slums. Nairobi, the city under the sun, is known worldwide for “crime and grime”.

At the same time, I have come to experience Kenya as a country of incredible beauty, dynamism and hope. There is a silent revolution under way, which is transforming Kenya for the better. Hardly a week goes by in Nairobi without an African investors’ conference or a growth summit.
Read more: www.nation.co.ke/oped/Opinion/

Homa Bay County Governor Signs Sh595b Grant with Donors

Homa Bay County has entered into a mega partnership with two international organisations that would see it benefit from Sh595 billion project. The money is given in form of grant.The new partnership aims at turning the agriculturally rich and fish endowed county into an Agri-City with a vibrant mix of businesses, infrastructure and standard urban amenities.The project is a joint venture between Good Earth Power, Urban Green Energy and the county, and will be rolled out in phases for a period of 30 years. The UK’s Good Earth Power is the major partner. Read more: www.mwakilishi.com/.../homa-bay-county-strikes-gold-as-governor-signs-sh595b-grant-with-donors

County data: opendata.go.ke/facet/counties/Homa+Bay

Image source: hotelgraceyhomabay.blogspot.com

Obama's Message to the People of Kenya

Published on Feb 5, 2013
In a video message, President Barack Obama tells the people of Kenya that the upcoming elections are a historic opportunity for Kenyans to stand together, as a nation, for peace and progress, and for the rule of law.

Kenya Rising

Can an award-winning Kenyan photojournalist set his camera aside and build a movement to fight political corruption? MORE: aljazeera.com/programmes

The Making of the Nation-State: Kenya at Fifty

Panel Discussion every Wednesday, 25th April to 11th July 2012, 6.30 pm at the Goethe-Institut Auditorium, Nairobi. Free Entrance.


This series of 12 lectures, convened by Professor Karega Munene, on a weekly basis, takes stock of Kenya’s cultural, social, economic, political and intellectual growth in relation to governance and treatment of human rights since independence in 1963. During this period Kenya has had three presidents – the late Jomo Kenyatta, Daniel arap Moi, and currently H.E. Mwai Kibaki – whose styles of leadership have impacted on the lives of Kenyans differently, thus providing us with invaluable lessons that require documentation if they are to serve the country as she faces the future. more info at: www.goethe.de/ins/ke/nai/

Counties with the best chances to become economic giants

The beauty of a devolved system of government is that it hands the reigns of socio-economic development to the masses, who, in turn, show more motivation to perform than the technocrats in air-conditioned offices in the world’s capitals.

Many economic analysts expect the new Kenyan Constitution to be the catalyst that this country has, for decades, needed to bring sleeping economic giants to life.

Different parts of the country possess different economic strengths that can benefit from a more focused and closer leadership, which governors and representative councils sitting in each of the 47 counties will be expected to offer. Here are some of the counties which could thrive under the new system and go on to become dominant economic regions:

1.Turkana, 2.Narok, 3.Kitui, 4.Taita Taveta, 5.Laikipia, 6.Machakos, 7.Uasin Gishu, 8.Trans Nzoia, 9.Isiolo, 10.Nakuru, 11.Lamu,12.Siaya, 12.Homa Bay, 14.Kisii, 15.Kisumu.
read more: Daily Nation, March 13, 2012

Village uses Twitter as tool for improving life

Twitter is enjoying big growth across Africa, with Kenya second in usage on the continent

LANET UMOJA, Kenya — When the administrative chief of this western Kenyan village received an urgent 4 a.m. call that thieves were invading a school teacher's home, he sent a message on Twitter. Within minutes residents in this village of stone houses gathered outside the home, and the thugs fled.

"My wife and I were terrified," said teacher Michael Kimotho. "But the alarm raised by the chief helped."

The tweet from Francis Kariuki was only his latest attempt to improve village life by using the micro-blogging site Twitter. Kariuki regularly sends out tweets about missing children and farm animals, showing that the power of social media has reached even into a dusty African village. Lanet Umoja is 100 miles west of the capital, Nairobi.

"There is a brown and white sheep which has gone missing with a nylon rope around its neck and it belongs to Mwangi's father," he tweeted recently in the Swahili language. The sheep was soon recovered.  Read more: NYDailyNews.com

Chief Kariuki Tweets His Way to Reducing Crime

Using 140 characters or less, Chief Francis Kariuki in Kenya, has tweeted his way to reducing crime in his and surrounding villages.

"I have brought crime and illicit brewing under control in my location," Kariuki told IPS, "until May 2011, this place was very dangerous. Incidents of carjacking, mugging and burglaries occurred daily, but they are no more."

Kariuki, who is from Lanet Umoja Location, a semi-urban area in Nakuru County, Rift Valley Province, first began tweeting in May 2011 when local IT expert, Njoha Gathua, created a Twitter account for him. It was an innovative idea because to date, Lanet Umoja is the only semi-urban area in this East African country that uses this social media site to fight crime.

Gathua told IPS that he wanted to help the community reduce crime, so he gave the chief and his assistants training on how to use the free instant messaging tool that limits users to post or tweet messages that are a maximum of 140 characters.

"Twitter is good to broadcast messages to the mass. It is good for the chief and his assistants to pass messages to their people," Gathua explains. But while worldwide people and companies mostly use it to keep in touch with friends, market products, and to broadcast breaking news, Kariuki uses it to alert his villagers to crimes.

Using the Twitter name "@chiefkariuki", Kariuki sends messages to over 15,000 of the 28,000 people who live in Lanet Umoja. They include village elders, community and church leaders, the police, youth and women’s groups, and school principals.  Read more: IPS News

Crowdsource to combat corruption

A few years ago paying a bribe in Nairobi was a silent indignity. Kenya’s growing tech sector has moved to change that. Read more at source: Smart Planet


Websites allow Kenyans to report bribes and battle corruption
Social media and crowdmapping sites are giving Kenyans the tools to combat corruption by reporting when a policeman or government official asks for a bribe.

Ask a Nairobi resident to name the most frustrating part of living in Nairobi, and they’re likely to answer: bribing a cop. Well, now Kenyans have a way to combat corruption, by text messaging, emailing, or even tweeting an incident to a website called hatari.co.ke. Hatari (which means danger in Swahili), is just one of several private anticorruption initiatives aimed at fighting corrupt practices that cost Kenya as much as $1 billion a year. Read on at source: The Christian Science Monitor

Kenya finds cleaner government is just a keystroke away

Kenya is promoting cleaner government by computerizing many of the tasks that used to be handled by bureaucrats – who might seek bribes to expedite requests. Kenya is an economic engine for East Africa, but its rise on the global stage has long been stunted by corruption. Now, though, it's making progress against the old-fashioned scourge through new-fangled IT. The solution is simple, but powerful: Remove bureaucrats through "e-government." Read on at source

Poll Chief Vows to Conduct Credible Elections

VOA, November 14, 2011
Officials of Kenya’s Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) are scheduled to meet Tuesday, to begin drawing constituencies ahead of next year’s general elections.
Commission chairman Ahmed Isaack Hassan, who together with his team was officially installed Monday, vowed to ensure that next year’s vote will be credible, free and fair.
Kenya’s new constitution gives the electoral body until February to create new constituencies, whose boundaries can later be challenged by the public. read on at source: http://www.voanews.com/english/news/africa/Kenya-Poll-Chief-Vows-to-Conduct-Credible-Elections--133846963.html

How to turn crisis into triumph: a Special Report

 

African Business, The 2005 Diageo Africa Business Reporting Awards best magazine,
November 2011 issue no. 380
Cover story: Astonishing Kenya! How to turn crisis into triumph
The editors of African Business spent two weeks in Kenya in October preparing a Special Report. What they discovered was the largely under reported story of perhaps the most extraordinary transformation in the history of modern Africa.

These are the stories carried in the issue:
Astonishing Kenya!
Kenya, a country of stunning physical and cultural beauty, continues to astonish. Barely three years after emerging from what Professor Michael Chege, UNDP advisor on international Development Policy, describes as "our worst political crisis since the Mau Mau era" (the 2007-08 post-election violence), the country appears to have made not only a full recovery, it has carried out roof and branch reforms of virtually every aspect of public life.
Interview: President Mwai Kibaki
 "Together we've made our country a better plae"
Interview: PM Raila Odinga
"Kenya has a major role to play in Africa"
Vision 2030
Roadmap for a bright future
ICT
Silicon Savanna ready to take on the world
Tourism
Welcome to paradise
Banking
A robust and profitable banking sector
Agribusiness
Kenya's economic backbone
TributeNobel laureate Wangari Maathai

 

The Africa Report
November 2011, issue no. 35
Has its cover story on an interview with the Prime Minister Raila Odinga.
Raila Odinga: "We are taking nothing for granted"

Both magazines are available at newstands at KSh300/- and KSh350/- respectively.