Author: NLM Correspondent

It is evident someone powerful is pulling the strings behind KRA’s unrelenting war on Keroche BY SGI ORIARO Charity is said to begin at home but for some of Kenya’s local industries – those not known to get along well with the state – this is a cruel fairy tale. No single story illustrates this better than the years-long tax wars between Keroche Breweries and Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA). The brewery’s proprietors Tabitha and Joseph Karanja are entrepreneurs who have painstakingly worked their way up the ladder. The Karanjas say they started a hardware shop in Naivasha back in the…

Border closings, confinement, and other social distancing measures to retard the spread of COVID-19 have brought the global economy to a near standstill. Forecasts of output losses and unemployment rates have increased as governments face a crisis that is like no others. The economies of developing countries have been hit as hard as, or even harder than, those of developed countries even though their lockdowns have not been as stringent. Developing economies are suffering the indirect effects of COVID-19 on external demand from China and advanced economies, resulting in a commodity price bust and reduced tourism, remittances, and capital inflows. In the…

By Katharina Fenz, Kristofer Hamel, and Baldwin Tong For nearly six months, journalists, pundits, and researchers have explored the ongoing and expected impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic through several core lenses: public health, mortality, economic prospects, and, most recently, food security. These domains—which collectively constitute the first three Sustainable Development Goals—are the primary means by which the “temperature” of humanity can be quickly benchmarked. But as efforts to flatten the curve of infections now begin to take hold, policymakers would be well advised to start looking beyond the current crisis management phase to the medium term. With some 55 million more people now living…

The Constitution professionalizes and democratizes the budget-making process. On the one hand, it ensures Parliament benefits from the technical insights of the Commission while debating the revenue sharing and allocation Bills. On the other, it safeguards the legislative authority of Parliament by requiring that both Houses pay due regard to the recommendations without necessarily being bound. By David Wanjala The Supreme Court of Kenya, in an advisory opinion, has finally settled, among other vital issues, the controversy of whether recommendations by the Commission on Revenue Allocation (CRA) are binding on both the National Assembly and Senate during deliberations on the…

Rules of unexplained assets do not simply evoke legal questions but moral ones too. By NLM Writer The Anti-Corruption and Economic Crimes Act (ACECA) provides circumstances under which a person is required to explain how he or she acquired funds and other assets. This has commonly been referred to as unexplained wealth orders. The principle of unexplained assets is based on the aspect that a person who has assets that are not in any way comparable to his known legitimate source of income and the fact that he or she cannot not explain satisfactorily the source of the assets. With…

By Christabel Mideva Eboso In August 2010, Kenyans gave themselves what has come to be referred to as a transformative and progressive Constitution. This was the culmination of a long journey that started before the Kenyan state was born, through independence and through costly struggles to shape our society. The Constitution of Kenya 2010, summed up, was our shared, unique history as a society, and our shared aspirations for our nation. Our Constitution gave life to long known but ignored principles while introducing previously only aspired-to or thought-of values. There have been different arguments about what the framers and drafters…

The G-20 debt suspension initiative is unlikely to ease the significant credit challenges that the coronavirus pandemic has amplified in some frontier market sovereigns, particularly in Africa, Moody’s Investors Service reports. By lowering debt-service payments at a time when government resources are limited and access to market financing is considerably constrained, the initiative will help to ease short-term liquidity pressures. However, debt-service relief won’t have a significant impact on medium-term debt trends that have worsened during the crisis. Bilateral relief would only cover a fraction of the increased external funding gap resulting from the shock. “While debt-service relief will allow…

China Mobile International, Facebook, MTN GlobalConnect, Orange, stc, Telecom Egypt, Vodafone, and WIOCC announced last month they will partner to build 2Africa, which will be the most comprehensive subsea cable to serve the African continent and Middle East region. The parties have appointed Alcatel Submarine Networks (ASN) to build the cable in a fully funded project that will significantly enhance connectivity across Africa and the Middle East. At 37,000km long, 2Africa will be one of the world’s most significant subsea cable projects. It will interconnect Europe (eastward via Egypt), the Middle East (via Saudi Arabia), and 21 landings in 16…

By Victor Adar When the 120-kilometre Nairobi-Naivasha passenger railway line was completed in mid-October 2019, amid high expectations and need to provide fast, safe and convenient transport solution, some Kenyans were afraid that the project would likely not pay off. But the launch of freight operations to the Naivasha Inland Container Depot (NICD) in December, around two months after the deal, could go some way in shifting that mind-set. Although people abreast of the cargo industry have questioned the rationale of the dry port, with questions touching on opportunities, and what it means to the logistics sector, the SGR cargo…

Security, risk, data loss, and legislation. These are the primary concerns listed by organisations and government institutions when asked why they are reluctant to move to the cloud. It is the perennial debate – will cloud put the data at risk? Isn’t on-premise more secure? How can the organisation ensure it is compliant in light of growing regulatory control over how data is accessed, protected, and used? For many, the answer lies in the tried and trusted foundations of on-premise solutions that have weathered the storms so far. The problem is that this isn’t necessarily the right answer. Some organisations…