Author: Otiato Guguyu

Galana Kulalu
CountiesNews
Otiato Guguyu

Private sector eye 35,000 acres of state land in food production push

The private sector is set to gain access to over 35,000 acres of state land currently being held by parastatals and organisations such as ADC, NYS, Kenya Prison Service, universities, government agencies among others. Kenya has identified eight potential land parcels totaling 35,700 acres suitable for the project’s pilot phase, with an additional 36,400 acres mapped and located across Kenya. Agriculture PS Kello Harsama said the land will be used to produce maize to help meet the country’s demand and deficit. “Kenya is taking positive steps ahead of its regional peers by implementing this initiative to make land readily available for commercial agricultural production. By…

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William Ruto in Paris
Featured
Otiato Guguyu

Inflation worse than default

I have always found networking weird, the idea of meeting strangers for the first time and being put on the spot to say what I do for a living. It makes me ask myself uncomfortable questions on what I really do for a living. As I fumbled with my introductions when I found myself at a panel session on implementing and financing renewable Energy projects in Africa organized by Canada, I sought refuge at the margins, where I could nod and smile kindly at passing strangers without having to do the work. Being a journalist who is not attached to a big media house is…

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Sakaja
CountiesNews
Otiato Guguyu

The land problem of Sakaja’s PPPs

Court has frozen a multibillion loan deal for the Pangani Urban Renewal Project after it barred Nairobi County from providing a private developer with the land title deed to use as collateral. A little known petitioner Sheria na Watu has obtained orders from the Environment and Land Court stopping Nairobi Governor Johnston Sakaja from implementing the transfer contesting how the county got approvals for such a deal. Members of the county assembly have raised concerns that the motion that gave the county a go ahead was rushed through the house without providing crucial documents from the central government, and terms of its joint venture deal…

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EconomyNews
Otiato Guguyu

Why local currency power deals will not bring down electricity cost

Power producers are unlikely to embrace push for local currency denominated deals given supplies are bought in dollars and most financers will require multiple level of guarantees that make such an alternative even more complex and expensive. Speaking at a panel discussion organized by the Canadian government ahead of the Africa Energy Forum in Nairobi, Joao Duarte, Africa Development Bank Division Manager Renewable Energy, said when they tried local currency financing through swaps, the contracts became very complex and expensive and created new unanticipated risks. Mr Duarte said power producers would also require protections against local currency inflation that would reflect in the tariff. Senior…

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GTC
Featured
Otiato Guguyu

Lost above Nairobi’s trees

I had not been to the Global Trade Centre (GTC), but it had come to me on several occasions in social media photos as the shiny modernity that took over Nairobi’s pride replacing Kenyatta International Convention Centre as the icon of the city skyline. I remember especially one iconic photo taken by a talented photojournalist that headlined the World Bank 2021 Kenya Economic Update where ‘I love NBO’ was sticking up defiantly like the City’s solar compass, cradled by the Nairobi Expressway as if both pieces of slab had come together in a set. I had passed beneath the monstrosity a couple of times and…

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Diaspora Remittances
EAC & The HornEconomyNews
Otiato Guguyu

Kenyans in Uganda send a billion home as US diaspora flows decline

Kenyan remittances from Uganda tripled to over a billion, the highest in recent CBK records, as the East African nation helped sustain a decline in flows from America, Australia and most parts of Europe. Remittances from Uganda grew threefold from $2.5 million (Kes349 million) in May last year to $8.8 million (Kes1.2 billion) this May, even as Saudi Arabia continued to gain prominence as the second largest source of Kenya’s dollars with a 30 percent growth in remittances to $35 million (Kes4.8 billion). Total remittance inflows in May hit $352.1 million (Kes49.22 billion), Central Bank of Kenya latest data indicates, compared to $339.6 million (Kes47.4…

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Budget Kenya
MarketsNews
Otiato Guguyu

Kenya to change fuel pricing formular to reflect market conditions

The government wants to change the fuel pricing formular that sees the industry regulator fix retail prices every mid-month into a structure that reflects ‘market conditions’. Treasury Cabinet Secretary Prof Njuguna Ndung’u told Parliament the government will use the long supply contracts negotiated with oil producing countries to change the model of pricing without revealing how the new formula will look like nor the impact on prices. Petroleum pricing in Kenya is regulated by the Energy (Petroleum Pricing) Regulations (2010), which give the Energy and Petroleum Regulatory Authority (EPRA) the power to determine—according to a formula and on a monthly basis. The maximum wholesale and…

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Hunger Horn of Africa
ClimateNewsPolitics
Otiato Guguyu

Specter of climate change pushes 55 million to hunger on the Horn of Africa

Five consecutive poor rainy seasons have pushed 55.45 million people in the Horn of Africa to starvation heightening conflicts in fight for scarce resources and putting lives at risk. The latest IGAD Regional Focus of the Global Report on Food Crises (GRFC) 2023 shows 55.45 million people across seven out of the eight IGAD member states need urgent food assistance. Kenya had 4.35 million people affected, Ethiopia ( 23.61 million), Somalia ( 5.59 mil-lion), South Sudan (7. 74 million), Sudan ( 11.65 million) and Uganda ( 2.3 million) in 2022. The report shows that 11.53 million children under 5 years were estimated to be affected…

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CBK best
EconomyNews
Otiato Guguyu

CBK worried about short term small business loans

Nearly all loans issued by banks to small companies are short term or overdrafts which means the businesses cannot get sufficient long term funding for growth. The Central bank of Kenya said its survey on small businesses showed there was a relatively narrow range of credit facilities utilized by MSMEs, centering largely on short-term loans and overdrafts. Within commercial banks, the term loans and bank overdrafts accounted for over 90 percent of the MSME loan portfolio. Alternative financing instruments for MSMEs such as contract financing, performance bonds, invoice discounting, bank guarantees, letters of credit and warehouse receipts only accounted for 10 percent. “Owing to the…

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