Category: East Africa
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Uganda to spend $2 bn on power in next five years
Uganda plans to spend at least $2 billion in the next five years to connect more people to its electricity grid and raise connection rates, a senior executive at sole power distributor Umeme Ltd said on Thursday. Ugandan officials say they want to boost electricity supply rapidly to power an industrialisation drive. In recent years…
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Gold refinery to open in Uganda by end of 2016
A Ugandan company backed by a Belgian investor is due to open the East African country’s first gold refinery by the end of this year to process raw gold produced mainly from the region, a senior company official told Reuters. Uganda’s mineral reserves are generally viewed as under exploited. Although there are gold deposits, it…
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State invites bids for expansion of Nairobi-Mombasa highway
Planned expansion of the Nairobi-Mombasa road into a six-lane super-highway is expected to begin in the next couple of months with the invitation of bids for the project. Transport and Infrastructure secretary James Macharia said the government planned to build the road through a Public Private Partnership (PPP), but fell short of indicating whether it…
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Kenya’s top three oil marketers lose 20 per cent market share
Kenya’s top three oil marketers lost a combined 20.6 per cent share of local petroleum market sales in the second quarter of the year, eroding gains reported the year before. Data from the Petroleum Institute of East Africa (PIEA) shows that Total Kenya, Vivo (Shell) and KenolKobil had a market share of 51.3 per cent…
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CBK warns banks against charging borrowers new fees
The Central Bank of Kenya yesterday warned commercial banks against introducing new or increasing existing transaction fees without its approval even as it refused to bring clarity to grey areas of the law capping interest rates, whose interpretation continues to roil the market. atrick Njoroge, the Central Bank of Kenya (CBK) governor, said no bank…
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Kenya:Uhuru hands low-cost housing firms 15pc tax break in new law
Developers who put up at least 400 low-cost residential houses will now enjoy a lower corporate tax rate of 15 per cent, down from the normal 30 per cent, as the government looks to boost housing for low-income earners. President Uhuru Kenyatta last week signed into law the Finance Bill 2016 handing developers the terms…
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Kenya:MPC meets as confusion over interest rates cap law mounts
Central Bank of Kenya governor Patrick Njoroge is Tuesday morning expected to chair the first monetary policy committee (MPC) meeting since the introduction of interest rate caps. The meeting comes as confusion persisted in the market over interpretation of key aspects of the new law. On Monday, many consumers of financial services reported that their…
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Kenyan fishermen under pressure as Chinese fish imports hit Sh1bn
China’s fish exports to Kenya hit the Sh1 billion mark for the first time last year, adding impetus to concerns that the Asian nation is flooding the local market with sea food to the detriment of local fishermen. Kenya’s appetite for Chinese fish imports grew 60.2 per cent to Sh1.02 billion in 2015 compared to…
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Kenya:MPC meets for the first time tomorrow in era of rates cap
Central Bank of Kenya’s (CBK) Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) Tuesday meets for the first time in the shadow of a controlled interest rate regime that some say will impede its ability to make decisions. The banking sector regulator last operated in such an environment in July 1991, just four months before Kenya reverted to a…
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Kenya:Sugar imports rise 67pc on low output from local factories
Sugar imports are set to rise by 67 per cent this month as Kenya moves to plug a deficit caused by underperforming millers, the industry regulator has said. The sugar directorate said it will import up to 15,000 tonnes this month up from 9,000 tonnes in August to boost market supply after the local millers…