The government yesterday was urged to withdraw the KDF from Somalia and strengthen border security to retaliate Somalia's suspension of miraa imports.

Miraa Green Gold ambassador Rajesh Hirani said Somalia's temporary suspension of miraa imports is in retaliation for Kenya's closure of the Daadab refugee camp. It houses mostly Somalia refugees.

A statement sent to the Miraa Cargo Operators, the Interior ministry, Ministers of Transport and Finance in Mogadishu and Airport managers by the Somali Civil Aviation Authority said they have suspended all flights transport

By Kimeng Hilton Ndukong

Cosmos Educational Press on September 6, 2016, in Yaounde offered assistance to 10 pupils worth 1 million FCFA.

Cosmos Educational Press Limited on September 6, 2016, in Yaounde offered textbooks, stationery, Mathematics sets and exercise books worth a million FCFA to 10 underprivileged nursery and primary pupils. Some 10 trash cans were also donated to 10 elementary schools in Yaounde. Each pupil received items worth 100,000 FCFA.

The gifts were handed over by Ndjock Christian, Cosmos Marketing Manager, who explained that the gesture was part of the publishing company's support of government's policy of education for all. In the past three years, Cosmos has donated about 500 trash cans to schools in the Littoral, South West, North West and Centre Regions.

Cosmos Educational Press Limited was founded by Eselecha William (Bill) Forcha in 1983, with headquarters in Limbe, in the South West Region. While still in high school, Bill authored and published three books in Economics and Commerce. Today, Cosmos has numerous course book series' in English Language, French, and Mathematics, almost all of which are on the National Book List of the Ministry of Basic Education.

Dr. Leo Cheng, a maxillofacial reconstructive surgeon with the UK National Health Service, spends two to three weeks of his leave each year volunteering on board the Africa Mercy, the world's largest charitable floating hospital run by international charity Mercy Ships. His patients suffer from large benign tumours on the face and neck. Many of them have never received any kind of healthcare before they meet him.

Earlier this year, Dr. Cheng joined the Africa Mercy to travel to Tamatave in Madagascar, where more than 90% of the population live on less than a dollar a day. For every 10,000 residents, there are only two physicians and three hospital beds available.

The Africa Mercy has five state-of-the-art operating rooms and advanced equipment to help make fast and accurate diagnoses. Dr. Cheng and the ship's team are always on the lookout for new methods and technologies that can improve the work they do while aboard.

"Ahead of this latest journey, I initially inquired about a laptop-style ultrasound machine. Once I found out about the Vscan with Dual Probe, I immediately felt that I must introduce this to the ship clinicians," Dr. Cheng said.

Equipped with GE Healthcare's Vscan™ with Dual Probe – a pocket-sized ultrasound that allows easy visualisation of internal organs – Dr. Cheng and the other clinicians on board were able to reduce patient waiting times and referrals thanks to the ultrasound's ability to quickly obtain high quality images. The Vscan™ with Dual Probe was also recently used in rural parts of Africa where distances between hospitals can make accessing medical care difficult.

"The Vscan with Dual Probe can be used in clinical situations without the need of connecting it to a main electricity supply," Dr. Cheng commented. "On the Africa Mercy, we used it for intravenous access, scanning lumps on the face, and to help us identify exactly where to inject a nerve block. Without this type of equipment, clinicians like us would not be able to do this safely."

"It was particularly helpful when our conventional laptop-style ultrasound machines were not available and it allowed us to diagnose vascular lesions and to ensure accurate instrumentation without unpredictable complications," Dr. Cheng said.

Once a patient has been diagnosed, the Mercy Ships team can proceed with treatment. Dr. Cheng performs about two to three operations a day but he finds that for many of his patients, the journey towards healing begins by offering human contact and acceptance, which sometimes starts with a simple handshake. Many of Dr. Cheng's patients have been shunned by their families and by society because of their deformities.

"So many of the patients I meet on board are trapped behind their facial tumours and from my experience, the healing process begins when you show them a bit of human contact and acceptance. Seeing the tremendous joy and happiness that overcomes the patient once their tumour or deformity is removed is such a special moment to witness," Dr. Cheng added.

One of Dr. Cheng's patients suffered from a large benign jaw tumour which had been slowly growing for six or seven years. Being benign, it had not spread to other parts of the body but had grown so large that it was covering most of his face.

When he met Dr. Cheng, he was living in a cattle shed because he had been rejected by his family for his facial deformity. Some of the villagers had even thrown stones at him when he visited public spaces because they believed his large facial tumour meant he was cursed.

Dr. Cheng was able to successfully remove the tumour and reconstruct the patient's jaw using titanium metal plate. After the surgery, the patient looked at himself in the mirror and could not believe what he was seeing. "That's not me," he said.

Dr. Cheng will join the team of volunteers on the Africa Mercy again next year to travel to Cotonou, Benin, West Africa.

As part of the efforts to fight unemployment among educated Nigerian youths, the Federal government is to expend a whopping sum of N2 billion on the Graduate Internship Scheme (GIS) before the end of the year.

The Project Director of the Scheme, Mr. Dennis Chukwu, disclosed this in Ado Ekiti, the Ekiti State capital during a Career Development and Entrepreneurship Skills Training for Interns recently.

Chukwu revealed that the scheme, being funded by the Federal Ministry of Finance, is currently training about 2,000 graduate interns across the country on skills and career development that would make them employers of labour, rather than job seekers.

He added that President Muhammadu Buhari’s government decided to sustain the scheme initiated by the immediate past government owing to his desire to banish unemployment ravaging the potential of Nigerian graduates by exposing them to trainings and opportunities in every sector of the economy.

Chukwu said the scheme had excited 35,000 interns, with thousands of them securing jobs in the civil service and in the business sector and contributing immensely to the growth of the economy.

“Many secured credit facilities and grants through YouWin, and other sources to expand businesses they set up using GIS stipends and many have set up through cooperative associations, some of which have transformed into SMEs; and rather than seeking for jobs, they are now employers.

“In view of its prospect for skills building and job creation, the scheme has developed special programmes for non-oil sector. GIS has entered into special partnerships with governmental and non-governmental organisations to have graduates trained in ICT, agriculture, community health, construction, financial inclusion and the feedbacks of their performances with employers have been encouraging”, he said.

A GIS Consultant, Mr. Victor Ivoke pointed out that it is imperative for job seekers to acquire special skills in order to get good values in the job market.

Ivoke, in his presentation, added that as difficult as situation is in getting jobs in Nigeria is, that graduate with special skills are still being employed with blue chip companies with high pay.

“There is need for job seekers to look for opportunities and in getting opportunities, you must have special skills and that is what we are exposing our unemployed youths to through this scheme.

“There should be need for packaging of employees, so that you can get employees to a good job market, which means you will be the one to tell your employers your wage. It is sad that some of the job seekers even get jobs that can’t sustain them and this is because they didn’t have special skills”, he lamented.

Ivoke told the participants to use the monthly stipends being paid them by the federal government in the course of the 12 months training, saying some of their counterparts had hit the labour market and made big exploits through the stipend without taking credit facility.

The National Council of State of Wednesday said that it approved the steps being taken by the Federal Government to revive the economy.

The council also approved the appointment of six commissioners for the Independent National Electoral Commission, among them Editor of THISDAY Lawyer, May Agbamuche-Mbu (representing South South)

It also approved the appointment of the Inspector General of Police‎, Ibrahim Idris.

All these were disclosed by the Lagos State Governor, Akinwumi Ambode, who briefed State House correspondents at the end of the council meeting presided over by President Muhammadu Buhari.‎

The governor of Jigawa State, Abubakar Badaru ‎who was also at the briefing, provided the details on the confirmation of the IGP.

‎Ambode said: “We deliberated on the appointment of six national commissioners for INEC. You know INEC is supposed to have twelves commissioners. We had earlier approved 6 sometimes last year and additional 6 were actually approved today. And those six represents six nominees from the six geo-political zones.

“You may also wish to know that we approved five new commissioners for the National Population Commission, (NPC) in addition to what was actually approved for INEC.”

He gave the names of the new INEC commissioners as Mohammed Haruna (North Central); AVM Ahmed Tijani Mu’Azu rtd (North East); Abubakar Nahuca (North West); Professor Okechukwu Ibanu (South East); and Dr. Adekunle Ladipo Ogumola ( South West).

The names of the new NPC commissioners are‎: Dr Eyitayo Oyetunji (Oyo); Barr. Patricia Iyaya (Benue), Egr. Benedict Ukpong (Akwa Ibom), Dr. Halu Bala (Kebbi), and Gloria Isofo (Bayelsa).

The Jigawa State Governor who briefed on a meeting of the National Police Council which was also held at the State House yesterday said ‎the appointment of the IGP was unanimously accepted.

He said: “So, the police council did resolve to confirm the Acting Inspector General of Police, Ibrahim Idris.”

During questions and answers,‎ journalists demanded to know if the prevailing economic situation was discussed.

Responding‎, Ambode said: “The council was also briefed on the state of the economy. The minister of state from the Ministry of Budget and Planning actually made a presentation to council on the ways and manner in which the federal government is approaching the way to rescue the recession path that we are going through.

“Council was confident and also approved the measures the federal government is putting in to ensure that Nigeria goes on the path of recovery as quickly as possible.”

The Federal Road Safety Commission, FRSC, says a total of 12, 077 road crashes were recorded across the country in 2015, the News Agency of Nigeria, NAN, reports.

The FRSC Corps Marshal, Boboye Oyeyemi, disclosed this in Uyo on Wednesday while addressing a public enlightenment forum organised for transport stakeholders at old Akwa Transport Corporation (AKTC) park.

Mr. Oyeyemi was represented at the event by the Assistant Corps Marshal in charge of Policy, Research and Statistics, Michael Olagunju.

He said out of 12,077 road crashes recorded last year, 5,400 people representing 65 per cent of those involved in the crashes lost their lives.

Mr. Oyeyemi said the commission would not go back on the October1 deadline for the implementation of speed limiting device nationwide as approved President Muhammadu Buhari.

The corps marshal regretted that most of the crashes would have been avoided if appropriate safety measures were adopted by the motorists while plying the highways.

He described the statistics on road crashes as staggering and reiterated that the speed limiting device would save Nigerians the embarrassment on the highways.

“Most of the road crashes are preventable, if we are able to bring down the speed, we will be saving a lot of lives on our highways,” Mr. Oyeyemi said.

In his remarks, the State Transport Commissioner, Godwin Ntukude, expressed satisfaction with the introduction of the speed limiting device.

Mr. Ntukude called for a technical session with all stakeholders to enlighten them on the workability of the device.

“There is no policy introduced by government that will not have a positive effect on lives of the people.

“Let us have technical session with experts to ascertain whether it can be installed on an expired (Tokunbo) vehicle or not.

“It is important for us to know this so that the good policy would not work otherwise negatively,” Mr. Ntukude said.

Earlier, the FRSC Public Relations Officer, Godgift Uwen, said that the introduction of speed limiting device would make Nigeria join the league of nations like Japan, Australia and Sweden.

The Mozambican government is proposing a total ban on all exports of unprocessed logs, regardless of the tree species from which they come, reports Tuesday’s issue of the Maputo daily “Noticias”.

The national director of forests in the Ministry of Land, Environment and Rural Development, Xavier Sakambuera, told the paper a bill on this matter has already been drafted and deposited with the country’s parliament, the Assembly of the Republic.

There have been many haphazard attempts in the past to outlaw the export of logs from particular species of hardwoods, but this would be the first blanket ban on the export of all logs. As such it is bound to meet with ferocious opposition from logging interests, who are busy destroying Mozambique’s forests to sell unprocessed wood to foreign buyers, often from China.

A complete ban means that forest wardens and customs inspectors will no longer have to determine what kind of trees the logs come from, since all log exports will be illegal.

Current estimates are that Mozambique is losing 220,000 hectares of forest a year. This is due not only to logging, but to the uncontrolled bush fires associated with slash and burn agriculture, and the clearing of land for building purposes.

Sakambuera said the government hopes a ban will greatly reduce illegal logging, and will create more jobs in the timber processing industry.

“There will be a modernization of technology in the timber industry”, he forecast, “which will add value to the product at all stages in the production chain”.

Sakambuera added that, with an export ban in place, the government hopes to harmonise the prices charged in marketing wood throughout the country.

The Ministry of Solid Minerals Development has confirmed that it is aware of the discovery of high grade nickel in Kaduna State. It however advised excited members of the public to be patient and await an official position of the ministry after due investigation.

In a press statement issued at the weekend, the Permanent Secretary of the ministry, Mohammed Abbas, said: “The Ministry of Solid Ministry of Solid Minerals Development is aware of the excitement in the media about the discovery of nickel in parts of Kaduna State.

“This is totally understandable considering the partial assay of the mineral assets referenced. The ministry is aware of the occurrence of the mineral in the area.

“Since the discovery many months ago, technical experts from the ministry have been following up on this development as provided by law.”

Abbas therefore appealed to the general public to allow the ministry to come up with detailed reports on the find.

By Julius Bizimungu

The number of people involved in informal trade is growing, but most in the region don't have access to proper transport means.

This is one of the challenges highlighted during the last day of The Global African Investment Summit that closed on Tuesday in Kigali.

It was noted that only one in four households in the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) region has access to energy, and the majority of them live in rural areas.

Experts said in order to overcome these challenges, the region should put in place creative financing mechanisms to boost infrastructure development.

"We have had desire to increase the region's power pool but the provision of power in COMESA, for instance, is very poor. Only one in four people in the region has access to energy and some of the countries tend to use sources like hydro-power, which makes it complicated especially when it comes to drought seasons. There is no unified grid access and many rural areas simply have no electricity at all," said Edward George, head research at Ecobank.
 

On the other hand, he said, "when you look at the existing corridors in the region, you can tell that they could unlock the potential in the near future."

"The long corridors like those running down the Nile valley along the East African coast, the Maputo development corridor, the proposed Khartoum-Morocco (corridor) across the Mediterranean sea, all could integrate the region," he added.

Spearheading devt

George Negatu, the regional director for Eastern Africa, African Development Bank, said the East African Community is spearheading the infrastructure development on the continent, but there are still challenges that still persist which governments should be addressing.

"EAC is arguably one of the most integrated regions on the continent. But there are some challenges that still persist that need to be addressed. The poor infrastructure like the transmission lines, the low access to energy, air transport lines, railways, and road systems are hampering trade competitiveness and exchange. Unless we get to improve regional infrastructure, we are not going to achieve what we want," he noted.
 

Negatu cited high energy cost as another factor affecting economic integration in a way that it limits productivity of industry in the region.

"In the end, this limits the efficiency and competitiveness of the industries. This means that industries in the region are not able to reap benefits of the global value chain," he added.

Lack of harmonisation of policies and regulations was also cited as a major challenge for infrastructure development.

"If you work across several neighbouring countries you would at least expect to have harmonised policies that allow your investment to become effective across the region, which is a different case in our region. There are different policy regimes and regulatory frameworks, which hinder investment," Negatu said.
 

He called for more financial systems that can allow companies to borrow money to invest in long-term investments.

"The availability of loans is low and access to finance is a problem. Non-tariff barriers are also making it difficult for trade. Unless we change this, regional integration will remain a wish," said Negatu.

Standard Bank's Jonathan Muga said infrastructure financing is most of the times held up by the high risks associated with infrastructure projects.

Currently, governments spend 10 per cent of their GDP in infrastructure and the significant part of this goes into transport, mainly roads.

"When it comes to private sector financing the infrastructure, we see that the gap between the expectations and the reality is critical. Governments should restructure the packaging of projects that require private sector financing."

By Kennedy Senelwa

Companies interested in East Africa's hydrocarbons have started putting their capital into countries with proven resources and decent fiscal terms.

The region still offers significant opportunities for investors taking future strategic positions, but it is not attracting attention as a hotspot of oil and gas exploration investment due to declining crude prices.
 

Data from Oslo-based consulting Rystad Energy shows that capital spending in East Africa by exploration companies was $4.6 billion in 2012, $4.7 billion in 2013, then dropped to $4.3 billion in 2014 and $2.5 billion in 2015 as crude prices declined.

The low price environment has led to a reduced level of activity among industry players, with a crippling effect on countries such as Nigeria and Angola that depended heavily on oil revenues.

PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) says governments in East Africa that want to attract oil and gas investors now have to offer an attractive environment by reforming their regulatory, fiscal and licensing systems.

"There seems to be an increased level of awareness on the part of governments and policymakers that they have to play their part in implementing projects as soon as possible," said Chris Bredenhann, PwC Africa oil & gas advisory leader.

Kenya's Petroleum (Exploration, Development and Production) Bill, aimed at creating a new legal and regulatory framework, is being debated in parliament.

PwC's Africa oil & gas tax leader Ayesha Bedwei said Tanzania's regulatory environment is uncertain despite the promulgation of the Petroleum Act, 2015, which allows increased central government involvement, fuelling investor fears of project delays relating to developing liquefied natural gas (LNG) processing plant for natural gas.

While global demand for affordable reliable energy will continue to grow for the foreseeable future, navigating the years ahead will be challenging, as hydrocarbons are no longer as profitable to produce.

"The appetite for exploration has fallen, with companies moving away from higher risk wildcat wells in frontier regions like East Africa," said Alasdair Reid, sub-Saharan Africa upstream research analyst at London-based consulting firm Woodmac.
 

He said hydrocarbons projects in the pre-final investment decision (FID) stage will not produce commercially for some years and the question is not "What do oil prices look like today?" but "What will they look in the early-to-mid 2020s when production could begin?"

Each operator will use a long-term price scenario and their projection will impact how they design and implement the projects with regard to when they plan to produce first oil, taking account of how they phase the development of the oilfields.

Getting off ground

Financing the projects and the associated infrastructure is a major constraint. If projects can break even below the projected long-term oil price, then they are likely to reach FID. If not, securing financing and getting them off the ground becomes far more challenging.

Mr Reid said that Wood Mackenzie sees the Uganda and Kenya onshore projects breaking even at a Brent price between $40 and $60 a barrel, which is positive for Tullow Oil Plc with its joint venture partners.

"There is still an imperative for the partners to reduce costs as far as possible to ensure a reasonable rate of return. There is a likelihood that some upstream partners will reduce their equity stake in order to meet their capital commitments," he said.
 

Some 6.5 billion barrels of crude oil have been discovered in the Albertine basin in western Uganda and 750 million barrels in South Lokichar, northwestern Kenya.

Tanzania's natural gas is facing the challenge of massive LNG volumes coming on-stream in the next five years from the US and Australia, among other countries. The market is not expected to improve until 2024.

"The key question is whether Tanzania can ensure that its fiscal and regulatory structures are in place and supportive of the project," said Mr Reid.

Tanzania has 57.1 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. Mr Reid said Tanzania's LNG will need to be competitive with other projects around the world that are looking to supply the same markets.