Browsing: Coronavirus

The East African region lays plans of opening-up

The effects of Covid-19 have continued being felt in the East African region despite governments developing various interventions to counter them.  Interventions have included the provision of healthcare remedies as well as stimulus plans to bail out communities who have been ravaged by the pandemic. The highlight of the inter-East African relations has been a diplomatic tiff between Kenya and Tanzania that had threatened the livelihoods of the region who depend on the two strongest economies.

The markets in the region have remained slow with the economies expected to get a hit for months to come. Various entities including the World Bank have revised their projections of the growth of the region’s economy. The triple effects of Covid-19, floods and locusts have made the economies of this region suffer greatly. Kenya has also received a negative rating by Moody based on her rising debt.

In this edition, we highlight how …

Umaizi

Tanzania’s President John Magufuli has confidently provided directives to his government regarding the reopening of the economy, including tourism, sports, and education.

“The trend shows that coronavirus infections are declining,” said the head of state

President Magufuli who is also the Southern African Development Community (SADC) chairman, gave various directives during a swearing-in event of Tanzania’s ambassadors to Kenya, Algeria and Mozambique and the deputy health minister, at the State House in Dodoma.

Education

Since March, schools, colleagues and universities were shut down as part of the government of Tanzania measures to curb the virus. Hence, due to the less-threatening trend of COVID-19 patients in Tanzania, as argued by Magufuli last Sunday, universities are slated to open by June 1 2020.

“With the fall in Covid-19 cases, we have decided that universities should reopen on June 1, 2020. The relevant ministry should make all necessary arrangements within these nine days …

sugar

There is no sugar in Tanzania. The little that there is, is very hard to come by and when you do find it, its many times more expensive than you would have bought it last month. It is barely a fortnight since the government confidently said the country has enough sugar and went ahead and placed a cap on sugar prices.

To bring things under control, nationwide crackdowns were carried out and several warehouses were found with allegedly hoarded sugar, fines were issued and arrest made in shops and other outlets where the sellers were price above the government cap, even awhile consignment was seized been smuggled out of the country.

Yet still, two weeks later, there is no sugar. Been the Holy Month of Ramadhan, lack of sugar severely affects the day to day social well being. Most of the staples and beverages need sugar, the tea needs sugar …

Did you know, last year (2019) Africa spent more money servicing debts than the amount it spent on health issues of its public? This obviously a general statement, it does not mean that each and every country in Africa spent more on debt servicing that the money it allocated to its health center, but the fact holds true for most of Africa’s 53 countries.

It is not that Africa does not care about the health of its people, on the contrary, its just that, according to World Bank stats, Africa is home to the World’s highest number of heavily indebted poor countries owing a total of USD 493.6 billion in long term debts.

As the World Bank and International Monetary Fund issue funding aid to help support Africa respond to the effects of the COVID-19 global pandemic, many African countries including Tanzania and Rwanda have asked that the international community …

green corona

The battle against the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) in Tanzania is gaining a new face, as the country anticipates to fight the virus with over 45 strategies underway, following the nationwide agenda to curb the spread of the virus.

45 Strategies

According to information from The Citizen, the government chief spokesperson, Dr Hassan Abbasi who was one of the main speakers during the virtual leadership forum hosted by Mwananchi Communications (a media-company in Tanzania) on May 14, said that the strategies will be rolled out from the national to the community stage.

Hence the handful virus fight strategies will be driven by an executive secretariat committee of seven to nine members, according to the spokesperson.

He said, “We have three special committees, one which deals with both Mainland Tanzania and Zanzibar is headed by the Prime Minister”.  As the plans are intended to touch both bases (National and community level) Dr.Abbasi …

border related

Over the past few days, the East African corridor witnessed a border closure that had serious impacts to Tanzania, Zambia, and Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

According to information from The Citizen, the border saga has a new ground as Kenya allowed Tanzanian truck drivers to cross the Namanga entry point, prior clarifying their COVID-19 test results.

Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, Tanzania, and Zambia make up over 2,000 cases of the coronavirus. The pandemic forced the Tunduma-Nakonde border vicinity to be monitored closely as the Nakonde district recorded 76 new cases on Saturday.

Kenyan border

However, government authorities in Tanzania said yesterday of the 300 trucks that were denied entry into Kenya until their drivers had undergone Covid-19 tests, had been allowed to proceed.

This is a consequent measure brought to curb the virus, as on Tuesday two truck drivers tested positive compelling Kenyan health authorities requiring truck drivers to undergo …

farmer

The Impact of COVID-19 on agriculture value chains especially transportation logistics is immense. Economies must adopt, industries and sectors must find their own solutions to the bottlenecks in the agri-food supply chain.

Now that it is no longer business as usual, what makes up for robust food supply chains when borders are shut down? Will air travel cut prizes and yet break even in cross border food supply routes? What technological advances must we embrace in food production to bridge the growing supply gap? How can digital systems help speed up logistics integration in the transportation sector?

These are the questions that must be answered to charter the way forward for Africa’s food security and maybe even the World’s.

https://theexchange.africa/industry-and-trade/agribusiness/how-africas-122-million-mobile-banking-accounts-can-fund-agriculture/

While the COVID-19 crisis has brought to our door steps the largest challenge for food security of modern times; with lock downs, quarantines and logistics disruptions not to mention the …

cows

No continent suffers worse food security issues than Africa, yet despite the high productivity coupled with disease and drought resistant capabilities of genetic modified organisms (GMOs), Africa has long been resistant to genetically modified food, be they crop or animal embryos.

While the average beef cattle in Africa, say the local Zebu weighs an average weight of a mere 250kg market weight, hybrid beef cattle like the Aryshire, weighs an average of 400kg, almost double the local African breed.

Instead of settling for 1 to 3 litres of milk per day from your local Zebu, you could get in excess of 10 litres of milk everyday from a hybrid Fresian, almost four times more milk.

Not only does the Aryshire beef bull and the Fresian cow produce more, they grow faster and when crossbred, they are even resistant to disease and bad weather. So why would food troubled Africa resist …

tobacco

While all other agricultural exports are suffering reduced demand owing to the Covid-19 global pandemic, that is not the case for tobacco which has recorded remarkable increase in sales at the beginning of the marketing season.

Reports from Zimbabwe say export of flue-cured tobacco is stable and prices are firm, with tobacco sales having increased more than quadrupled over the cause of the last and the present season. Last season closed with sales of USD232 008 but this season has opened with sales of USD1 598 230 that is a 588 percent increase!

As market season opened at the start of the month, an impressive USD1.6 million was sold. With attractive prices that begun above USD 5 per kilogramme, farmers were more than willing to sell. Only three days after the marketing season opened, farmers had sold almost 700 000 kilogrammes of tobacco.

The country’s Tobacco Industry and Marketing Board …

bank

The private sector is not responsive to the government’s stimulus package as banks report less than desired activities in borrowing. Even though huge fiscal and monetary measures have been taken by the Central Bank, still commercial banks are facing reduced demand on borrowing.

This is evident in weekly turnovers for Interbank trading which is down 92 per cent, the lowest it has ever been over the last decade. Money market analysis for the month of May reported that the Interbank Money Market (IMM) suffered its lowest activities since 2010.

You will recall that 2010 is just two years into the global economic recession that was triggered by among other things, poor lending habits by banks in the US that led to a collapse of the real estate industry.

Numerous banks had to be bailed out just to keep people in their homes as foreclosures were rampant across the country. The …