Taxi vans sit parked as passengers walk through New Taxi Park in downtown Kampala, Uganda, on Tuesday, June 23, 2020. Uganda has enforced restrictions for almost two months to arrest the virus outbreak, prohibiting movement by vehicles except for cargo and essential services. Photographer: Esther Ruth Mbabazi/Bloomberg , Bloomberg
(Bloomberg) --
Uganda will fully reopen its economy in January after almost two years of control measures to contain the spread of Covid-19, as at least half of the targeted population would have been inoculated, President Yoweri Museveni said.
The East African country expects to have vaccinated 12 million of the targeted 21 million people by end-December, Museveni said in a televised address Thursday night from the capital, Kampala.
“Vaccination is the key to opening the economy, now that the vaccines are available the economy will be opened in January,” he said. Uganda has received more than 9.5 million doses of mainly AstraZeneca, Pfizer and Johnson & Johnson vaccines and expects more by year-end, he said.
Schools, bars and entertainment centers have been closed since the virus was first detected in the country in March 2020 and a dusk-to-dawn curfew been enforced to contain the virus. Bloomberg
Rwanda and Tanzanian ministers of foreign affairs on Thursday, October 28, signed an MoU on Defence Cooperation at the end of the Joint Permanent Commission (JPC) meeting held in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania this week.
Rwanda's envoy in Tanzania, Maj Gen Charles Karamba, told The New Times that the Ministerial session was co-chaired by both countries' Ministers of Foreign Affairs; Dr Vincent Biruta and Liberata Mulamula, respectively of Rwanda and Tanzania.
“The meeting has approved the permanent secretaries’ report and signed it. Both ministers have signed an MoU on Defence Cooperation,” the envoy said.
The fifteenth session of the Rwanda-Tanzania JPC, at technical level, kicked off on Monday with officials from both ends looking to follow up on directives by the two countries’ leaders’ in August, and work towards enhancing ties in various fields.
Presidents Paul Kagame and Samia Suluhu Hassan met in Kigali in August, held bilateral discussions, and signed four bilateral agreements in areas of ICT, cooperation in areas of immigration, in education, and an agreement on cooperation in areas of regulation of medical products.
The two leaders visited different factories at the Kigali Special Economic Zone, among others. Members of the private sector saw President Suluhu's two-day State visit as an opportunity for both countries to make the thriving business between the two countries even better.
SGR funding
Before the Covid-19 pandemic hit, Rwanda and Tanzania ministers held regular meetings as they looked to fast-track the implementation of the two countries' Standard Gauge Railway (SGR) project which is meant to, in future, facilitate transport and trade along the Central Corridor route linking Tanzania to Rwanda and Burundi as well as the DR Congo.
From the Dar meeting, the latest development is that Rwanda will host a meeting next week where Tanzania and DR Congo are invited to discuss joint funding mobilization strategies for the railway project.
“The Ministers agreed that next week a meeting be held in Kigali for Tanzania and Rwanda Ministers of Infrastructure and Finance to study the mode of funding of the Standard Gauge Railway project, among other decisions,” Karamba said.
The 521-kilometre Isaka-Kigali section of the SGR project is what Rwandans are so eager to see happen.
By December 2018, Rwanda and Tanzania were weighing up the option of extending the proposed joint standard gauge railway to Rubavu at the border with DR Congo, a neighbour that is increasingly becoming a strategic trading partner for both Rwanda and Tanzania.
The Isaka-Kigali section of the railway alone was earlier estimated to cost $2.5 billon and officials know that extending it to Rubavu means stretching it by an extra more than 140 kilometre, and thus calls for more funding.
The Tanzanian port of Dar es Salaam handles more than 85 percent of the cargo destined or transiting through Rwanda. - James Karuhanga, The New Times
Airtel Africa’s profit for the first half ended September 2021 more than doubled on-year to $335 million, while revenue for the same period rose 25 per cent YoY to $2.27 billion.
Airtel’s Africa business reported a net profit of $192 million in the fiscal second quarter, which more than doubled year-on-year (YoY) and rose over 35 per cent sequentially. The profit growth was on the back of a sharp reduction in finance costs coupled with strong growth in data and mobile money revenues.
Revenue for the quarter to September rose 20 per cent on-year and 4.31 per cent sequentially to $1.16 billion, the company said on Thursday.
Accordingly, Airtel Africa’s profit for the first half ended September 2021 more than doubled on-year to $335 million, while revenue for the same period rose 25 per cent YoY to $2.27 billion.
“Our first-half financial performance has been strong. The first half of last year, and especially Q1, was impacted by the start of Covid, but even after adjusting for these effects, our revenue growth rates for the half-year for the Group and all our service segments are ahead of our FY’21 revenue growth trends, and in reported terms, these are all in strong double-digit,” Segun Ogunsanya, Airtel Africa’s recently appointed new chief executive officer, said in an official statement on Thursday.
Net finance cost in the July-September quarter fell 23% on-year and nearly 27% sequentially to $71 million.
Airtel’s Africa arm said, “The continued strength of the business has led the board to declare an interim dividend of 2 cents per share in accordance with an upgraded dividend policy which sets a new target base dividend for FY’22 of 5 cents per share, with the aim to grow this at a mid-to high- single-digit percentage each year.”
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