Azimio leader Raila Odinga has vowed to mobilise street demonstrations from July 7 to protest the Finance Bill assented to by President William Ruto.

By signing the Bill, Raila said the president ignored pleas by Kenyans not to inflict more pain on the cost of living.

“Now you know that the only language Ruto and the Kenya Kwanza understands is street protests and boycotts,” he said at Kamukunji Wednesday on arrival from an overseas trip.

Odinga told a rally in Kamukunji that the Kenya Kwanza government had betrayed Kenyans hence the need to boycott.

“We are the people,” Odinga said, “and the people are supreme.”

He said the Bill signed by President Ruto will push the cost of living up and make life difficult for Kenyans.

“And that is why we are saying that Ruto must be made to listen to the people and the only way is to resist,” he said signalling the resumption of mass protests.

He said, “protests and boycotts is the only language Ruto will understand because he declined to listen to the voice of the people.”

President Ruto signed into law a bill that raises taxes on a wide range of items defying criticism that it will pile more economic hardship on citizens.

Ruto, who took office in September after a bitterly fought election, is seeking to fill the government’s depleted coffers and repair a heavily-indebted economy inherited from his predecessor Uhuru Kenyatta, who splurged on major infrastructure projects.

Kenya is now sitting on a public debt mountain of almost $70 billion or about 67 percent of gross domestic product (GDP), and repayment costs have jumped as the shilling sinks to record lows of around 140 to the dollar. 

The new law — expected to generate more than $2.1 billion — will hike taxes on basic goods and services including food and mobile money transfers.

The contentious bill stipulates for a 1.5 percent levy on the salaries of all tax-paying Kenyans that will be matched by employers to fund an affordable housing programme.

People who earn 500,000 shillings ($3,600) a month will now pay 32.5 percent in income taxes while those making 800,000 shillings ($5,700) will pay 35 percent, up from the current 30 percent. 

Sales tax for small businesses has also been tripled to three percent. 

A new five percent withholding tax for digital content creators has also been introduced. 

The bill was approved by the National Assembly despite widespread opposition from Kenyans, civil society and Azimio leaders with the president declaring that it will be passed.

He even dared MPs who will fail to support it, branding them “the enemy of the people and progress.” capital FM

The question of energy is a big headache to the world now. Of course, there is a strong consensus that our world is turning into an oven. Energy has played a role. Further, the war in Ukraine has reminded us of our energy insecurities. Besides, Africa is still energy poor.

About 600 million people can’t access clean energy. Yet, there is a strong correlation between energy abundance and socio-economic development. Indeed, it should not be lost on us that the African Union’s Agenda 2063 obligates us to help end Africa’s energy poverty. And for Kenya, we all want lowered cost of power.

To reconfigure our fortunes, we need radical measures that will deliver an energy revolution. First, nations thrive because of the courage of their imagination. Second, the centrality of energy to socio-economic development is solid; the better if the source is native. 

In fact, the Parliamentary Committee on Energy is exploring ways to lower the cost of power. It’s a welcome initiative. The draft “6-point plan”, as reported in the media, is interesting. Still, I wish to submit too that investment in our own homegrown resources and cutting the use of thermal will be a game-changer. That’s why geothermal energy is king.

Geothermal is our natural heritage - it’s not imported like oil. It’s abundant in Kenya [about 10,000MW]. Furthermore, it’s clean, reliable, and affordable. Crown all that with Kenya’s vibrant homegrown geothermal expertise and you get a country with the right ingredients to drive a geothermal boom. 

And it’s paying off. Today, Kenya’s geothermal installed capacity stands at 940MW. Very soon we are going to cross the 1,000MW of geothermal power mark once we start power generation at Menengai. Today, geothermal energy accounts for roughly 45 per cent of our grid. It is geothermal that gallantly cushioned the country during the previous drought. Tariffs from geothermal too, because they are low, are also cushioning the consumer against high bills.

To leapfrog into an energy-rich country requires boldness. To sharpen our competitiveness, policymakers, investors, academia, and financiers must consider geothermal energy.   

It should not be lost on us that geothermal development is an arduous undertaking. That is why the private sector will shy off from the initial critical investments like scientific exploration, infrastructure development, provision of water and drilling operations. The upstream is considered costly and risky.

The government, through GDC, absorbs these upfront risks to create an enabling environment for investor entry. To some good degree, the strategy has worked. It explains why in Menengai, for instance, three Independent Power Producers (IPPs) are set to each generate 35MW in the first phase of development. One of the IPPs, Sosian, is currently testing its 35MW power plant.

Soon Kenyans will start to get power from Menengai. And just recently, we broke ground with Globeleq, another IPP, for the construction of a 35 MW powerplant. Power from Menengai will cost about Sh9 per kWh compared to the Sh22 per kWh that thermal plants would charge.

As I have noted, once the resource is proven, and well-managed it can serve us for centuries. Italy is a good case. The first geothermal plant was established in 1904; it still runs today. All they do is replace equipment.

To make optimal use of geothermal energy, we will need also to reinvigorate the entire energy ecosystem. First, we need a robust East Africa Power Pool system. This system will allow us to trade our excess power. Second, it is time to focus on captive power use. 

This is when heavy consumers set shop near power generation sites to tap direct power from the powerplant. The captive power approach will encourage a value chain of different actors and therefore industrial centres.

The writer, Paul Ngugi, is the Managing Director and CEO of Geothermal Development Company. The Standard

BERLIN—As news spread across the Central African Republic (CAR) on Saturday that thousands of mercenaries from Russia’s Wagner Group had started to march to Moscow in a mutiny led by their boss Yevgeny Prigozhin, cabinet members in the restive African nation became very uncomfortable and started to phone each other with concern, according to a senior government official who spoke to The Daily Beast.

The CAR government has a very close relationship with the Wagner Group, which has built a spider's web of military and economic relationships over the past five years in a number of African countries, including Libya, Sudan and Mali.

In CAR alone, Russia has—over the last five years—sent weapons and hundreds of military advisers and Wagner mercenaries as an extension of the government’s security forces. The Wagner fighters have been intimidating locals and targeting citizens opposed to the private military company’s presence, while also exploiting the country’s mineral resources.

Why Did Putin Let Prigozhin Walk Away? 

But Prigozhin’s decision to seemingly turn on his former ally, Russian president Vladimir Putin, set off panic among those who benefit from Wagner’s activities in Africa.

“Yes, there are Wagner mercenaries [in CAR] and everyone is worried that the face-off between Putin and Prigozhin would bring an end to their operations in our country,” said an adviser to CAR President Faustin-Archange Touadéra in a private conversation with The Daily Beast via telephone. “The Russians play a very important role in the security architecture of our country and if they are forced to pull out completely, things could become messy.”

The longer the mutiny lasted, the more worried CAR officials were, according to the government adviser. As reports emerged that Prigozhin and his troops had captured Rostov-on-Don—a southern Russian city that has served as a critical logistics hub supporting Putin's ongoing war in Ukraine—and were continuing to march towards Moscow, CAR government officials became scared that Russia could descend into a civil war, which could affect the support the African nation gets from the Kremlin through Wagner.

"Everyone feared that if war broke out in Russia, the Russians [in CAR] would not only be forced to return home, but our political, military and business relationship with Russia would be halted," he said. "The last thing the government [in CAR] wants to see at the moment is the exit of Russia from the country."

When news broke late Saturday that Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko had reached a deal with Prigozhin to call off the coup and take refuge in Belarus, government officials in CAR were anxious to know what would become of Wagner's operations in the country, a senior military official told The Daily Beast in another private telephone conversation.

“Cabinet members were calling both [CAR] military officers and Russian military instructors [present in CAR] to find out if they had received any information about Russia's role in the country going forward,” said the official who works at the CAR army headquarters in the capital, Bangui. “But nobody, not even the Russian instructors here [in CAR], has got any information relating to that.”

Russian State TV Anchors Aghast that Putin Didn’t Kill Prigozhin

Wagner's influence in governance in CAR is huge. At some point, a former Russian military intelligence officer, Valery Zakharov, served as the national security adviser to the president, and a shell company known as Diamville not only forces CAR's poor miners and collectors to turn over their gems or sell them only to the Wagner-owned company, but also plays a key role in mining regulations in the country.

The coup attempt in Russia may have been aborted, albeit temporarily, but the brazen nature of the assault against the Russian state could have major repercussions for Wagner's operations in Africa. And, as the uncertainty continues, those who benefit from the group's presence in the continent remain anxious.

"Have you heard anything about where Yevgeny Prigozhin is?" the CAR government adviser, sounding apprehensive, called The Daily Beast Sunday morning to inquire. "We just don't know what's going on." By Philip Obaji Jr., Daily Beast/Yahoo News