Browsing: East Africa

The higher your salary, the higher your taxes, that is why it is called P.A.Y.E that is Pay-As-You-Earn. You earn more, you pay more, its that simple, or is it.

Apparently it is not that simple. Companies are giving the top management and expatriates leeway to weasel out of the earning tax. You see, PAYE is a function of your earning that is, it is tax deducted from your monthly salary.

The way it works is that you earn a gross amount from which taxes are deducted and your pension contribution is also deducted as well. What remains after these deductions is your take home salary otherwise called net salary.

Legal consultant for corporate law in Tanzania Mr. Peter Makinda told a press conference that to keep their salaries up, top management in many companies under report their gross earnings for themselves on the one hand and to attract expatriates …

The East African Community (EAC) has put off what would have been the bloc’s first attempt to develop a regional response to the coronavirus pandemic.

This emergency meeting falls under the jurisdiction of the regional charter that allows for convening of what is referred to as an ‘extraordinary’ meeting. It is extraordinary because it occurs outside the scheduled ‘Ordinary’ meetings.

Well, speaking of putting off meetings, even the scheduled Ordinary meeting that was due to be held at the end of February was also postponed.

Back to the coronavirus response extraordinary meeting, the sitting East African Community (EAC) Chairman, Rwanda’s President Paul Kagame called the meeting.

If or rather, when it is held, this will be the first time the whole region comes together to formulate a response plan. Other than two or more member states reaching their own consensus, usually on border trade agreements; there has not been a …

As the number of new coronavirus infections reaches 53, the government of Tanzania has ordered schools to stay closed indefinitely, evidence of the uncertainty that haunts these murky coronavirus times.

It is the crowded commercial port city of Dar es Salaam that is most affected, in fact all the  53 new Covid-19 reported cases are in the city of 6 million plus people.

There are 4 new cases since the last new infection was reported on Monday making it 4 new cases in just 3 days, that is a rate of almost one new infection per day this week.

The development comes inspight of all precautionary measures that the city has taken including having hand sanitizers in every store, government office, market place and even public transport vehicles.

Union & Labour Day cancelled days from annual celebrations

With the exponential increase in rate of infections, and the spicy Islands …

Tanzania has eventually allowed teenage mothers to return to school after the World Bank approved a USD500 million loan as support for the improvement of Tanzania’s education system.

Tanzania had until now denied pregnant girls to return to school after delivery and to push it to change its mind, for over the last two years, the World Bank withheld the requested loan in a bid to push Tanzania to ease the law.

Tanzania’s President John Magufuli is known to hold a hard stance against pregnant teenagers returning to school after delivery. As a result, activists in the country and abroad signed petitions against the World Bank funding the country’s education programs.

Now two years down the road, the World Bank’s board has reversed its stance and approved the loan. While the International Development Association is in support of the loan approval, other international donors like the US cautioned strongly against …

Tanzania has released reprinted versions of several denominations of the country’s banknotes. The new banknotes are meant to be more secure against duplication and forgery.

The new security features include the removal of the classic thin stripe in the old banknote, called the motion thread and replacing it with a rolling star.

The former security feature (the motion thread) used a motion image that had special colour effects when the note is moved side to side.

The new feature now, the rolling star, also has a movement and color change trait, but makes wavy motions when the note is tilted.

The central bank, the Bank of Tanzania (BoT) announced early April that the change affects denominations of TZS 2000, 5000 and 10000.

The last time the BoT changed the country’s banknotes was in 2010. The central bank’s Governor Professor Florens Luoga explained in a press statement that the re-printed banknotes …

The economic impact of fake and substandard oil on the global economy is valued in the billions of dollars. The business is tempting, it has cheap overhead and high profits and so the black market for fake goods is growing .

The counterfeits black market affects all types of good, from food products to toys, to cosmetics to jet fuels, you name it, it has a counterfeit.

In Kenya, millions of litres of crude oil has been barred from entering the country via an oil tanker on April Fools. News of the cargo ship, No. K07/2020 has just been released to local media saying was the oil tanker, MT Ocean Tiara belongs to a subsidiary company of a Nigerian oil giant and was seized after it berthed at Mombasa port waiting to moor and dump the fuel.

The tanker and its cargo have several discrepancies and the long arm of …

Trade among East African Community (EAC) member has suffered a catastrophic blow losing USD380 million in the span of just a single week.

There is not an economy that has not taken a hit from the coronavirus pandemic and the EAC trade bloc is no exception. While no official order has been issued to close their borders, each of the EAC member countries has limited all manner of movement, goods included.

Trucks are still going through to deliver goods but as Tanzania and Burundi agreed last week, the truck drivers would stay quarantined for 14 days. While for Kenya on the other hand, the country has chosen to escort the drivers and their tracks to their points of drop off and back, no detours allowed.

While cargo on transit has been forced to slow down to almost a snail pace, movement of people has come to a complete stop, if …