Browsing: Coronavirus

The African Development Bank Group has got a new member, Ireland, bringing its total number of international members to 27. Ireland’s membership goes along way to boosting the banks financial muscle and with it, the ability to fund development projects across the continent.

Ireland officially joined the Group last month after a declaration of its membership was issued in late April, a little less than an year after the country submitted its application to join the Group mid last year.

Following the declaration, Ireland’s top ranking government official the Minister for Finance Mr. Paschal Donohoe explained that its membership will serve to create investment opportunities for Irish businesses.

Short of detailing what business sectors will be targeted, the minister said the membership will help to advance shared development priorities, a view shared by the Bank’s President, Mr. Akinwumi Adesina,

The Bank’s president maintained that joining of its newest international member …

The globe is at a stand-still position and Africa is hurting and expected to also sustain serious repercussions from the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, which has already claimed nearly 2,000 lives, infected over 60,000 people and around 21,000 managed to recover According to the latest data by the John Hopkins University and Africa Center for Disease Control on COVID-19 in Africa.

The pandemic has brought rather crucial ideas from South Africa’s President and African Union chairperson Cyril Ramaphosa on Africa requesting a two-year debt standstill to provide governments with the fiscal space to fight the coronavirus pandemic.

As the world strives to attain a balance between staying safe and breathing life back to the economy, Africa is taking the entire perspective of the pandemic on its axis, while other nations move around several measures, some African nations have managed to somewhat contain the virus to a certain extent.

The

M-TIBA, the health financing technology platform based in Kenya and the Kenya Healthcare Federation (KHF) have announced a new SMS-based service to help the security agencies identify essential healthcare service workers in the country. This is in response to these workers facing travel restrictions during curfew hours and movements into or out of counties with restricted movements. Security personnel is also increasingly concerned about the authenticity of paper-based passes being used to identify essential service providers.

M-TIBA has developed a verification platform for security officers to check that people are healthcare workers providing essential services. They can do this by sending a free SMS with an ID number of the healthcare worker to 20253. They will receive a confirmation message from M-TIBA authenticating the ID – and vehicle registration details, when available.

This will help KHF members, who are providers of gazetted essential services, to carry on with their official …

Tanzania is one of East Africa’s nation battling the spread of coronavirus on a daily basis.

The country has now taken measures to curb the spread of the deadly virus, including acknowledging the role of traditional medicine and even reshuffling the health sector to bring new energy in winning against the virus.

Traditional Medicine

The novel coronavirus that has taken 16 lives and infected nearly 480 people in Tanzania, could be dealt with new support from the traditional medical landscape.

According to information from The Citizen, the Tanzanian National Institute for Medical Research (NIMR) has joined forces with the ministry of health to develop guidelines on how and what type of traditional medicines should be used for the treatment of the coronavirus (COVID-19).

The incorporation of traditional medicine came with critical support from the President John Magufuli and other influential legislators who argued for the right use of the traditional …

Even as share values for US futures on crude oil prices hit rock bottom, spotting a worrisome negative figure (-4.0 USD) there are still several functions that claim the crush of oil prices in the US and around the World will have no effect on stock shares in Tanzania, the numbers are giving a different story. Lets start with the optimistic side.

As US futures for oil price continue to free fall some are of the view that it will have no effect on Tanzania’s sole bourse, the Dar es Salaam Stock Exchange (DSE). Why? Well, simple, most African countries, Tanzania included, are oil importers so, the fall of oil prices will mean positive balance of payments.

In turn, favourable balance of payment means good exchange rates of the shilling for the dollar, again another plus for the shilling. Good exchange rates translates to higher value of the shilling and …

The East African economies were looking forward to 2020 with a lot of optimism. While there were issues with inflation and money circulation in Kenya, projections still showed the country would comfortably manage a growth range of above 5 percent. All the other eastern African countries were projected to do even much better with Rwanda leading in terms of growth averaging 7 percent. Then, Coronavirus happened. This has reversed the projections with fear that the region with the highest growth rate in Africa will stagnate. This has already been felt with stock markets across the region registering massive capital loss and foreign investors shying away from the market. The region is also looking at ways of sustaining their economies amid lockdowns in Uganda and Rwanda, partial lockdown in Kenya and a non-restrained movement approach in Tanzania.

The International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) latest World Economic Outlook projections for 2020 pegs Kenya …

At the height of Kenya’s former president Daniel arap Moi’s rule, an idea was conceived that Kenya would stop over-reliance on foreign imports especially motor vehicles and instead develop local capacity to the manufacturing of cars. In the idea, Moi set up Nyayo Motor Corporation, a state-backed entity that was granted the task of developing Kenya’s first made car. As fate would have it, the development of Nyayo Pioneer car flopped and the idea was abandoned.

A state-backed ego and poor planning, disregard of engineering, poor funding and poor workmanship are some of the reasons that are blamed for the collapse of President Moi’s pet project.  What has followed over the decades is a dramatic collapse of almost all industries in the country especially those that had state backing. These included the clothing and apparel industries, food and beverage processing companies, as well as engineering projects and left everything into …

Members of Parliament in Tanzania are urging the government to consider giving tax breaks to businesses in a bid to help them stay afloat.

Alternatively, the government is encouraged, through the Central Bank, to scrap interest on loans so that borrowers do not fall into default.

At the moment, despite the global slowdown, businesses are still operational but they are operating way below their year revenue projections. Already, at the start of the second quarter, the country is facing potentially huge loan defaults by both large corporations as well as small and medium sized companies.

Big businesses are now turning to the government to intervene. While the Central Bank, the Bank of Tanzania (BoT) has already issued a stimulus package for commercial banks, the Tanzania Private Sector Foundation (TPSF) is working on an arrangement to save large borrowers from mega defaults that would in effect ripple throughout the economy.

Commercial …

The falling price of crude oil spells good favour for importers in Africa. The price of crude has been on a steady drop despite attempts by producers to cut output. As a result, many African countries are taking advantage of the situation and stock piling their reserves.

Take for instance the case of East Africa, crude oil represents more than 20 percent of Tanzania’s annual imports. So a drop in price of crude means the country can afford to buy more and reserve for future use. However no official report has been issued as to the government policy on the matter.

The issue that arises here is the matter of crude versus refined oil. Africa, Tanzania included, imports refined oil which is more costly than crude but with falling prices of crude then follows that  even the price of refined oil has taken a dive

As such, the country is …

Countries neighbouring Tanzania including Uganda, Rwanda and Zambia have barred truck drivers from the country to cross their borders. The development comes as cases of the COVID-19 in Tanzania now reach 480 with 196 new cases reported both on the mainland and on the island of Zanzibar.

Of these, 174 are from Tanzania Mainland and the other 22 are from spice isles of Zanzibar. The grim news gets only worse with the announcement of six more deaths bringing the total number of deaths to 16.

Not all is doom and gloom, there are reports of 167 people recovering from the virus and of these, 36 are from Zanzibar and 83 are from the Mainland.

Meanwhile, truck drivers are protesting the strict border measures placed on transit vehicles. For example, at the Mutukula border with Uganda, it is reported that several drivers have tested positive for the coronavirus and been denied …