As Kenyans bid goodbye to the holiday season and welcome the new year, there is still little to smile about with the Kenya’s economy still biting. The low-income households in particular are feeling the pinch of surge of prices of basic commodities. This group, which spends about 60% of their income on food is constantly lamenting on how life in urban areas is becoming unbearable.
Erick Okutoyi, a boda boda rider at Kibera divulged that the transport sector had also taken a hit of the ripple effect of the high cost of living. “My business has been affected a lot. When fuel prices were going up every month, I was forced to up my prices so as to meet the skyrocketing costs. A distance that used cost Ksh.50 went up to Ksh.100. I lost regular customers who sought alternative means,” said the soft speaking boda boda rider.
Like any other Kenyan, Erick is struggling just to make ends meet. “This boda boda is not mine. I have hired it and I have to pay Ksh.500 per day. I have a family and they are all depending on me. Children are going back to school. The Ksh.1000 I make in a day is not sufficient enough to pay the boda boda owner, pay rent, feed my family and take my children to school. Books are expensive, uniforms and school fees are still high,” said Erick.
“I don’t even take lunch so as minimize on my expenditures. Most times I have to work past midnight just to get some extra cash to settle the overwhelming bills,” added Erick.
Despite the array of challenges, he is going through, Erick believes that there is light at the end of the tunnel.
“Through the Kibra Boda boda Sacco, I was registered and trained on electric motorcycle. I am happy by the end of January I will be receiving an electric bike,” reiterated Erick. “These bikes are affordable and cost friendly. With a small deposit and daily pay of Ksh.450, I will be able to fully own a motorcycle in 3 months,” he added.
“The advantage of these bikes is that with only Ksh.200, I will be able to get a battery swap that can last me all day. When I compare this to fuel, it is cheaper and it will increase my profit margins. I believe things will get better. The government should also do something,” added Erick.
Erick is one of many Kenyans grappling with the cost of living. The consumption habits of many people have been altered. Times are hard. And as the government is emphasizing on the importance of robust revenue collection for self-sustainability and economic development through taxation, it ought to be reminded that it is the common Mwananchi that bears the weight of all this.
President William Ruto and President Samia Suluhu of Tanzania at the EAC Heads of State meeting in Arusha.
Tanzanian Foreign Affairs Minister January Makamba says the trade woes with Kenya which necessitated his country to ban Kenyan passenger flights will be addressed in due course.
In a statement, Makamba noted that he had spoken to his Kenyan counterpart, Musalia Mudavadi, with talks still ongoing to resolve the stalemate. According to the Minister, the matter should be addressed within the coming two to three days.
Makamba's statement followed the Tanzania Civil Aviation Authority's (TCAA) announcement that it would not renew the licence of Kenyan passenger flights after Kenya failed to issue its national carrier with a cargo licence.
"I spoke to my Kenyan colleague Musalia Mudavadi. We agree that restrictions on air travel between our countries and from any of our countries to a third country shouldn’t stand.
"With relevant authorities, we’ve resolved to settle this issue, per existing agreements, within three days," the Minister stated.
On his part, Mudavadi confirmed the talks adding that Tanzania was a key trade partner of Kenya hence the decision to resolve the statement fast enough.
The Prime Cabinet Secretary divulged that the respective aviation authorities were tasked with addressing the licensing issues.
According to TCAA, the Kenyan carrier was to halt its passenger flight operations on January 22.
The announcement was an indicator of Kenya's frosty relationship with Tanzania and its neighbours in the East African Community (EAC).
Meanwhile, Uganda also sued Kenya after the latter filed a suit with the East African Court of Justice (EACJ) over an oil deal.
Kenya was accused of denying its neighbour a licence to operate as an Oil Marketing Company (OMC) after President Yoweri Museveni's administration started importing oils on its own. Uganda initially used Kenyan middlemen to import oil via the Mombasa Port. By Washington Mito, Kenyans.co.ke
Auditor General Nancy Gathungu during a previous event. PHOTO/Print
The continuous increase in counterfeit and unlicensed products like alcoholic and illicit brews in circulation in Kenya is denying the country over Sh30 billion in annual revenue, a report by the Office of the Auditor General has revealed.
The auditor also says that the country has been losing over Sh40 billion in taxes annually due to the prevalence of counterfeit goods in the country.
Illicit brews
The auditor blames the practice on corruption and inefficiencies at the Anti-Counterfeit Authority (ACA).
The sale of illicit brews has been a menace which has been blamed for the deaths of hundreds of youths in many parts of the country.
Research by the ACA names China as the lead exporter of counterfeits to Kenya involving fast-moving goods such as phones, sound equipment, cables, clothing and automobile spare parts.
“Most of the goods are of inferior quality and are a threat to the health of the people and the environment,” states the report which is currently before parliament.
Local manufacturers and Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) owners, states the report, lose over Sh6.5 billion due to weak enforcement of the law and regulations by ACA, its staff integrity issues and the authority’s lack of physical verification of destroyed goods.
“Counterfeit trade causes economic sabotage as the government and IPR owners lose revenue, unfair competition from counterfeit products, tax avoidance, illicit imports and dumping that leads to a reduction in market share,” the audit says.
The audit covered Nairobi headquarters, Mombasa, Kisumu and Eldoret Regional Offices as well as Namanga and Busia border points.
A report on the economic impact of counterfeiting by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the audit says, shows that counterfeit products are made to closely imitate the appearance of the original product to mislead consumers.
This includes the unauthorised production and distribution of products that are protected by IPRs such as copyrights, trademarks and trade names.
The audit named software, music recordings, motion pictures, luxury goods, fashion clothes, sportswear, perfumes, toys, motor vehicle spare parts and accessories, and pharmaceuticals as the most hit industries. By Anthony Mwangi, People Daily
First Vice President, Dr. Riek Machar speaks at the 5th governor’s forum held in Juba on Monday 22 November [Photo by Awan Achiek/Sudans Post]
Machar revealed this during his meeting with the Special Representative of the Secretary-General for South Sudan and head of the United Nations Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS), Mr. Nicholas Haysom in Juba on Thursday, according to his office.
JUBA – The leader of the main opposition group, Sudan People’s Liberation Movement in Opposition (SPLM-IO) and the country’s First Vice President Riek Machar said on Thursday that the country is not yet prepared to hold the December 2023 elections.
Machar revealed this during his meeting with the Special Representative of the Secretary-General for South Sudan and head of the United Nations Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS), Mr. Nicholas Haysom in Juba on Thursday, according to his office.
“Dr. Machar also expressed the readiness of the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement-In Opposition (SPLM-IO) for elections. However, he pointed out that the country is not yet ready for it and that the prerequisites must be met for the elections to be successful,” Machar’s office said in a statement following the meeting.
Machar, according to the statement, said elections cannot be held until a series of conditions are met, including the full implementation of the security arrangement provided for in the revitalized peace agreement.
“These prerequisites include the full implementation of security arrangements, the repatriation of refugees and IDPs to their places of origin, conducting censuses, establishing a permanent constitution, and availing of funds for activities leading to the elections, among others,” it said.
He said for elections to be democratic and peaceful, the prerequisites must be met to enable the country to conduct fair, free, credible, and transparent polls.
The polls, now scheduled for December 2024, will be the first in the world’s newest country, which seceded from Sudan 12 years ago.
Last year, President Salva Kiir announced that elections would be conducted at the end of the transitional period. By Sudans Post
Rishi Sunak’s bill returns to Parliament next week as the Government tries to deem Rwanda a safe country in order for the deportation deal to go ahead.
An i investigation, however, has revealed that six people from Rwanda have been granted asylum since ministers signed the deportation deal with the country in April 2022.
Here, i speaks to two Rwandans who left the country to settle in the UK prior to the deal, and who still receive anonymous death threats if they dare to speak out.
‘I still receive death threats for speaking out against Rwanda’
By Poppy Wood
Prudentienne Seward still faces threats and intimidation for speaking out against the Rwandan regime almost 28 years after she came to the UK as an asylum seeker.
As recently as last year, she received a number of ominous phone calls from a withheld number. The voice at the other end of the line, whom she believes to be connected to the Rwandan Government, repeatedly told her to stop spreading claims Rwanda that “is not safe”.
UK government says Rwanda plan violates human rights, has issues with human rights record. Years earlier in 2015, she received even more alarming phone calls from people saying they would kill her son if she didn’t stop speaking out about her family’s experience in Rwanda.
“They were threatening me [that] they will kill me – they will kill my son,” she told i. “They said ‘if you don’t stop your activity you will be perished and your son will be perished. Why can’t you be silent?’”
Prudentienne was granted asylum in the UK on 6 April 1996, arriving with little other than her 11-month old baby clinging to her side. Five days earlier, on 1 April that year, her husband was shot dead after being ambushed by bandits in Angola.
The couple were in the country as part of their work for Oxfam, and had fled there after escaping Rwanda during the genocide.
Exactly two years earlier, on 6 April 1994, violence erupted across the country. Rwandan President Juvénal Habyarimana was assassinated after rebels shot down his plane, triggering a state of chaos, before armed Hutu militias began a killing spree of the Tutsi ethnic group.
Prudentienne’s family split up in the hope of avoiding being killed all together. Her father was from the Tutsi ethnic group and her mother came from a family that was mostly Hutu.
Prudentienne sought shelter in the nearby city of Butare, before eventually escaping the country through the help of aid agencies. When she returned to her hometown several months later to try and find her family, she was told that both her mother and sister had been killed by Tutsi forces.
As many as 800,000 people are thought to have been killed in the 100 days of militia violence in the country between 7 April and 15 July 1994, which ended when the Tutsi-led Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) declared a military victory. Rwanda has been governed as a de facto one-party state by the RPF since then, with former commander Paul Kagame as president since 2000.
In the years since, Prudentienne has made it her mission to speak out about the violence she witnessed in Rwanda from the relative safety of the UK. In her view, little has changed over that time.
“Rwanda is not a safe country,” she told i. “The [Rwandan] people themselves can’t speak up, the country doesn’t even have any journalists now.”
Prudentienne thinks she would be imprisoned or killed “within a month” if she were to return to Rwanda, and that continuing threats against her show just how unsafe the country is.
“I would be sent to jail, or killed in a ‘car accident’, or by ‘food poisoning,’” she said.
[“The UK Government] can’t claim that Rwanda is a safe country. It’s not safe at all. I was shocked when I heard about the Rwanda deal – it’s a shocking and shameful project.
“Rwanda is a country that doesn’t even care about its own people – and then you’re sending other human beings there? You’re making a double suffering for people, because they’re coming here thinking they’ll be safe, and then you’re sending them to a country where they’ll be shut down.” By Zoe Drewett, The I
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