BY TNLM REPORTER After two four-year terms at the helm, Prof Njuguna Ndung’u’s tenure as Central Bank of Kenya governor has finally ended. His exit will mean different things to different people. His regime has been dotted with controversies that have clouded the monetary policies which, many agree, have improved economic fundamentals. And so how he walks out of his office on March 4 will depend on what critics and supporters choose as his legacy. Bankers, for instance, will applaud him. He is now one of the most admired bankers on the continent after being named Central Bank Governor…
Author: NLM writer
BY TNLM REPORTER Following last year’s General Election, the first under the country’s new constitutional dispensation, various sectors of the economy underwent major reforms, leading to a more robust and business-friendly environment. In response to these changes, businesses have identified new opportunities to take advantage of the new landscape to grow their values and market shares. One such business is the African Banking Corporation (ABC Bank), which has strategically aligned its operations within the financial market in a bid to shore up its margins and market share. The bank released a Sh650-million private bond in May last year with a green-shoe option of…
BY TNLM REPORTER Following last year’s General Election, the first under the country’s new constitutional dispensation, various sectors of the economy underwent major reforms, leading to a more robust and business-friendly environment. In response to these changes, businesses have identified new opportunities to take advantage of the new landscape to grow their values and market shares. One such business is the African Banking Corporation (ABC Bank), which has strategically aligned its operations within the financial market in a bid to shore up its margins and market share. The bank released a Sh650-million private bond in May last year with a green-shoe option of…
BY TNLM REPORTER In October last year, Kenya rose to position nine of the top 10 biggest economies in Africa. That reclassified the country as a middle-income country, through a recalculation of its sector under what is known as rebasing. But as East Africa’s biggest economy comes to terms with its new ranking, like many developing countries, it is realising that the status alone is not enough to make people wealthy. New research shows that close to a billion extra people globally face a life of extreme poverty if leaders do not make key decisions touching on poverty, inequality and…
BY Kevin Motaroki Last year could rightly be classified as one of Kenya’s darkest, when terrorists crossed the border from Somalia, once besieging a mall at the heart of Nairobi, hunting down and shooting people for hours, and twice taking hostages and picking out Christians to butcher, all in the name of God. Kenyans were rightfully angry – government was doing little to secure our borders, and there was the general feeling that the people tasked to run security agencies were grossly unqualified. Our problem, it has been said, time and again, is that we enact but never implement.…
BY TOM ODHIAMBO As the debate rages in Kenya about the new laws intended to “strengthen” the government’s management of security in the country, those opposed to them argue that this is another case of undermining the constitution that Kenyans instituted in 2010. The “new” constitution was celebrated by all Kenyans as evidence of a shared vision of the future and proof that Kenya was entering a new democratic age. Yet, beyond the celebrations there was, and still is, little debate on why the Constitution is a landmark in the relationship between the governed and the governing in Kenya; it was…
BY PHILIP OCHIENG If free debate is desirable and possible in a one-party state, is it not easier to allow many parties to spring up instead because, in that way, this same free debate that’s so dear to our hearts would be facilitated even more? It might be, and this was the gist of what the advocates of the multi-party system were saying in the 1980s and 1990s. For them, as for our Western gurus, the Western political ideas and institutions into which these have solidified can simply be removed – lock, stock and Blair – and grafted onto any non-Western social…
BY DAVID MATENDE Kenyans would never have known how they lost billions of shillings through Goldenberg had veteran journalist Sarah Elderkin not exposed the scandal. Elderkin’s expose was a classic example of how commitment to public interest journalism can save society from the excesses of an avaricious power elite. That was more than 20 years ago. Today, how many Kenyan journalists can claim fidelity to this higher form of journalism? Which house can claim that it encourages its journalists to investigate and report on matters of major public interest? For some unclear reason, our media – which are celebrated…
BY MAORE ITHULA Siblings of the late Cabinet Minister Njenga Karume are at each other’s throats in inheritance and succession battles. It was the same story soon after Gerishon Kirima, another former Cabinet Minister, passed on some years ago. Tuskys Supermarket, the second largest chain of convenient stores, was almost ruined by sibling rivalry. The dust has not settled on another battle between brothers who own Naivas Supermarket. Actually, our judicial system is jammed with cases of sibling suing one another. Often, quite a number of these cases end in regrettable physical confrontation or even death. Sometimes the cases…
BY HARSHAD SANGHVI Although cervical cancer is a highly preventable disease, women in the developing world continue to die needlessly from it. That’s because global attention and funding in countries and from donors for prevention efforts are minimal, leading to more than 528,000 new cases and 266,000 deaths annually.(1) The majority of deaths–85%–occur in low- and middle-income countries.(2) Over the next 25 years, 4 million women will die unless prevention efforts are ramped up. Jhpiego’s approach to address this disease includes primary prevention—vaccinating girls before sexual debut against human papillomavirus (HPV), the cause of cervical cancer—and secondary prevention, notably,…
