Browsing: East African Community

Based in Ethiopia’s capital of Addis Ababa, Coop Bank is growing by leaps and bounds, with profits up 29 percent in the 2018/19 financial year closing the year with USD 20.4 million under lock and key.

More than profit, the Bank also enjoyed huge growth if it’s total assets which shot up by 40 percent, a sector high for Ethiopia’s banking industry. Likewise, its loans and advances also went up an impressive 56 percent representing more than double its performance in the previous year.

The bank has credited the asset growth to deposit mobilisation which pushed up loans and advances. The bank had yet an impressive growth this time in deposits which increased 40 percent.

Coop Bank mustered its investment in NBE bonds which it increased to more than double (53%) of what it had in the previous financial year. Further still, this immense investment represents 20 percent of its …

In the backdrop of Tanzania’s Central Bank announcing a stimulus package for commercial banks, loans advanced by banks have shot up significantly over the last year and the stimulus package is expected to sustain if not increase lending.

The Central Bank, the Bank of Tanzania (BoT) has this week released its Consolidated Zonal Economic Performance Report which shows lending by commercial banks have increased considerably in the last year.

The report shows that the highest amount of growth in bank loans was parallel to ongoing national infrastructure development works. The highest increase in loans was to companies operating in the central and south eastern zones owing to increased construction projects and to trading activities, respectively.

This would explain reduced lending in the commercial capital of Dar es Salaam. Lending in the bustling port city actually fell 1.6 percent compared to the same period last year.  However, despite the percentage decrease, …

Tanzania’s Controller and Auditor General (CAG) has unveiled the country’s Local Government Authorities (LGA) have been involved in the embezzlement of millions of dollars issued to fund nonexistent projects.

Reporting to the country’s President John Magufuli, the CAG’s report indicated that LGA’s across the country have been corruptly siphoning tax payers money for individual gain. The 2018/19 report shows what can only be described as gross mismanagement of public funds.

In the report, Tanzania’s CAG Mr Charles Kichere also reported the gross misuse of funds in excess of USD 342.2 million by the country’s Local Government Authorities (LGA).

Worse still, while the LGAs collected more than USD 46.5 million in the said financial year, only 26.37bn/ was allocated to the rightfully designated development projects while the remaining 17.41bn/- was, according to the CAG report, misused.

Further still, another 10.39bn/- in local revenue that was collected by some 84 Local Government …

Barely a week after Tanzania’s President John Magufuli ordered engineers to be sacked should a bridge (or any infrastructure) under their jurisdiction fails, the heavy toll of rains on infrastructure in the country has been estimated at 40bn/-

Its only the beginning of the first heavy rains season but infrastructures across the country are taken a heavy beating and succumbed. The damage caused is not only destroying bridges, rails and roads, it is also destroying careers as well.

The country’s President Dr. John Magufuli ordered sacking of any engineer where bridges and other infrastructures collapse, should they fail to respond accordingly. The president gave the order when visiting a damaged bridge that had rendered transportation null for over a fortnight on the outskirts of Dar es Salaam.

Responding to the ongoing rains and the resulting damage to infrastructure, Mr. Isack Kamwelwe, the country’s Minister for Works, Transport and Communication, told …

In a bid to keep the sector going, the Tanzanian government has announced plans to significantly lower hunting permit fees.

The relief comes shrouded by coronavirus threat which is the push behind the announced review of annual hunting blocks license fees.

Local media quoted the Deputy Minister for Natural Resources and Tourism, Mr Constantine Kanyasu, announcing the fee slash plans. According to the high government official, the planned fee cut is in response to requests by hunting companies who are complaining of reduced bookings owing to the global coronavirus threat.

“The Ministry of Natural Resources and Tourism will meet hunters again before the end of this month to inform them on the government’s action to rescue the subsector,” the Deputy Minister told media.

On behalf of the hunting companies, the Tanzania Hunting Operators Association (Tahoa) pointed out that there is still room to review the fees ahead of the hunting …

As the rest of the country shuts down all entry ports, heavily reliant on tourism, the spice Isles of Zanzibar are allowing charter flights to land but with strict conditions.

Isles authorities have permitted charter flights bringing tourists to the island to land but on condition that all persons on board enter a 14 days quarantine stay, at their own expense.

This surprising turn of events happens in the backdrop of ongoing global threat of the spread of coronavirus. Even leading sports leagues have been cancelled and regional high profile meetings are been held on conference calls.

Across Africa, the tourism industry has come to an almost complete shutdown. It is time immemorial since a disease stopped people from touring and going for holidays, at least not since the deadly World War I and II power viruses.

With most all African countries eventually succumbing to the threat and finally closing …

There are now more than 100,000 mini-grid stations across Africa, these little power generation stations are serving to bridge Africa’s rural power gap and Tanzania is no exception.

While the country leads Africa in rural electrification efforts, there is still huge gap between demand and supply and the solution to cover it lays in mini-grids, small power stations that generate power at localized remote points.

To date, Tanzania has well over 100 mini-grids that provide electrical power to over 250,000 people in remote corners of the country. These mini-grids provide close to 200 MW using biomass, fossil fuel and solar systems as well as hybrids of these energy sources.

Tanzania’s national policies also support adoption of renewable energy technologies. Off-grid electrification using renewable energy technologies can offer a power solution to rural and remote areas. These efforts are inline with the global Sustainable Development Goals.

SDG number 7 calls for …

More than ever before, Tanzania and the rest of Africa need to employ rain harvesting technology. Global climate changing is drastically affecting weather patterns, rains are heavier or missing completely, droughts in otherwise tropical areas, cyclones and tornadoes ravaging through coastlines. Weather is now less predictable than ever before.

For both economic and social reasons, Tanzania needs to make the best of the rains when they come, Tanzania needs to harvest rain water.

While at national or even city levels, there are some sophisticated equations involved in rain harvesting, like building reservoirs and purification sites, but all in all, the science of rain harvesting technology is not all that complicated at all. It’s a simple three step investment, collect, store and purify.

Since economies rely on water for production and households depend on clean and safe water for daily survivor, harvesting rain water should not even be optional, it should …

When it comes to extractive industries, Tanzania is one of Africa’s richest countries. From minerals to marine resources, Tanzania has it all. It is the World’s only source of Tanzanite, a blue gem said to be 1000 times rarer than diamond. It is home to the highest mountain on the continent and Lake Tanganyika, the World’s deepest lake.

How to manage the extractive industries is an insurmountable task that has seen many countries plunge into endless civil wars. At the center of this strife is a matter of much deliberation but one word can describe the complex mechanisms that are required to efficiently manage the extractive industries, transparency.

Transparency in this case is a very touchy subject after all, who wants to let the world know the details of the 100 years renewable contract that they have signed with a multi-national corporation?

However, that is exactly what transparency demands, stifle …

When President Uhuru Kenyatta stepped out on his Harambee house offices to announce the measures to curb the spread of Novel Coronavirus, no one knew the effect it would have on the East African citizens. In his announcement, the President gave an allowance of 48 hours for non-Kenyans to arrive and be quarantined after which none will be allowed.

While the rules of engagement for a trade block like East African Community has been to allow the free movement of people, goods, and services, Coronavirus has stepped to challenge this notion, with most countries viciously guarding their borders against foreign entry.

In regional bodies like the European Union, the movement of people and goods across the region is becoming more difficult with border chaos being witnessed in countries traditionally with the easiest border crossing exercises.

In East Africa, crossing the boundary is even harder. After Kenya announced the crossing of …