Author: NLM Correspondent

By Kevin Motaroki Kenya’s ambitious revenue and expenditure targets in 2018/19 budget will be challenging to deliver. Moreover, because the medium-term outlook for public debt remains broadly unchanged, government debt will remain elevated at around 60% of GDP, according to a report by Moody’s Investor Service. This is given impetus by the idea that it is unlikely that government can, in the foreseeable future, reverse the erosion in fiscal metrics that caused the rating agency to downgrade Kenya’s rating to B2 in February. Lucie Villa, a senior credit officer and vice president at Moody’s, foresees a reduction in the fiscal…

By Mbiki Kamanjiri This year’s Budget Speech had its main focus on the “Big Four Agenda”. Accordingly, a lot of allocations went to health, housing, food security and manufacturing, with other significant portions going to the so-called enabling sectors, such as security and infrastructure. Government spending has increased five-fold in a span of 10 years, with the latest budget being bigger than those of Tanzania, Uganda and Rwanda combined. For perspective, in the 2007/2008, Government spent Sh693 billion compared to this year’s Sh3.074 trillion. Properly however, what government has at its disposal is Sh2.3 trillion, as Sh800 billion will go…

M-Akiba is popular, but it missed target When Kenya launched M-Akiba last year, the goal was to offer ordinary citizens access to the nation’s capital markets. A study by FSD Africa, a non-profit focused on finance sector development, shows while it recorded some success, the bond launch also had some failings: the government only raised 8% of its target as less than 5% of the over 300,000 people who registered for the bond actually made a purchase. The study blames the low uptake on a confusing purchase process which “gave no clear, immediate instruction for how to complete the purchase”,…

More than 130 new hubs have opened in Africa over the last two years, and there are still not enough. Many hubs get financial and technical support from foundations as well as tech and telco corporates among others. Recently, Facebook and Google have both rolled out significant new centres, with NG_Hub and Launchpad respectively in Lagos, Nigeria. Google last month announced the opening of an Artificial Intelligence Centre in Accra, Ghana. There are promises of more to come elsewhere. The “tech hub” label includes a wide range of very different types of operations. Many, perhaps most, are community centres in…

After fighting the longest war in its history, the US stands at the brink of defeat in Afghanistan. How could this be possible? How could the world’s sole superpower have battled continuously for more than 16 years – deploying more than 100,000 troops at the conflict’s peak, sacrificing the lives of nearly 2,300 soldiers, spending more than $1tn (Sh100 trillion) on its military operations, lavishing a record Sh10 trillion more on “nation-building”, helping fund and train an army of 350,000 Afghan allies – and still not be able to pacify one of the world’s most impoverished nations? So dismal is…

By Kenyatta Otieno William Ruto, the former Christian Union leader who once led university student delegations to see former President Moi, is facing the political battle of his life. In 1992, he got in with the infamous Youth for KANU (YK’92), cutting his political teeth under Cyrus Jirongo, whose outfit played extremely dirty to help Moi win the first multiparty elections. Ruto then helped one William Saina rig out Reuben Chesire during 1992 KANU nominations for Eldoret North Constituency. He would later beat Chesire, who was Moi’s preferred candidate in 1997, to clinch the seat. Afterwards, he had a brief…

By Kevin Motaroki Those with an interest in politics – active or passing – understand the hierarchy of interests in a system of government; nine and half times out of ten, the system wins. And they learn to live with that circumstance, gleaning the best out of that half chance while at it. If they are lucky, they earn a place and become pseudo stakeholders. William Ruto is a master at this game – betraying and grabbing half chances. He properly thrives in it, which is how he has become the billionaire Deputy President he is today. He has lived…

By George Omuholo Will Kenya’s self-styled hustler, William Ruto, survive the shark-infested waters that are Kenya’s political landscape, to become the county’s fifth President in 2022? That the race to the Big House on the Hill has begun is not in doubt. This is despite political top cats every often petitioning everybody else “to stop doing politics and focus, instead, on development.” The plea is itself at once a contradiction and a misnomer. It is political abracadabra that only brings out the leaven of hypocrisy, for there can be no separating politics from development. By its very nature, social and…

By Tioko Ekiru Emmanuel The scale of deadly attacks reported from Kapedo village, Turkana East every year is shocking, horrible and terrible. From time to time, Kapedo has been in the headlines as the subject of national platform. The main intention of the ruthless bandits patrolling this region is to convert it into a “no man’s land,” and, “a major hotspot of violence.” The merciless killing of school going children among other civilians at Ameyan, Baringo County, is not something new in these remote, ungoverned jungles. It demonstrates seemingly unstable age we live in today. In November 2014, twenty-one police…

By Payton Mathau The announcement by Interior Cabinet Secretary Fred Matiang’i mid last month that contraband sugar seized in various parts of the country contained huge amounts of poisonous heavy metals has elicited a huge debate and caused panic amongst consumers. In the days following, thousands of bags of Brazilian sugar were seized around the country in what appeared to be a synchronised operation by security agents, mainly in Kitui, Webuye, Kakamega, Homa Bay, Kajiado, Ruiru and Mombasa, among other towns. “It is shocking what we are doing to our country. The level of criminality in this syndicate is mind-boggling.…