By Ebuka Onyeji

Tragedy struck on Sunday evening in Dakibiu, a suburb in Jabi area of Abuja, when a high voltage electrical cable killed a resident, after breaking off its line due to heavy winds.

The highly charged wire electrocuted Mudi Ajah, a builder and father of three who was having a drink with friends at a popular bar known as “44”.

A witness, Saviour, told PREMIUM TIMES that Mr. Ajah died after leaving his friends briefly to take a pee. He spotted the severed line and tried to remove it with bare hands.

He died on the way to the hospital, the witness said.

Shocked family members could not give more details to the media. Police could not be immediately reached.

One of the victim’s friends, Friday Okoro, described him as a very peaceful and hardworking man.

He accused the Abuja electricity distribution companyof not always moving quickly to remove cut cables that constitute clear danger to locals.

He said broken electrical wires were a common sight in the poor community.

Another resident of the area, Deborah, who sells palm wine, lamented Mr. Ajah’s death, saying it was not the first time such incident happened.

“The other day a heaving rain brought down the high-tension wire and it fell on top of the roof of my shop, it took the power authority two days to come and remove the wire, I think the power authority should be up and doing in this kind of issue because any issue that concerns electricity concerns life,” she said.

Burial arrangements for the deceased Mudi Ajah, a native of Nassarawa State, commenced immediately as he was a Muslim.

By Ephraim Kasozi

Kampala — A minister has said the government is to dole out the 6,000-hectare Zoka Central Forest reserve in Adjumani District to an investor to grow sugarcane and boost the country’s sugar production.

Ms Persis Namuganza, the State minister for Lands, said they are already in talks with sugar producers, whom she did not name, to acquire Zoka Forest land.

This, she said, will “relieve Busoga region” reeling with food insecurity and poverty after most of the sub-region’s land was committed for sugarcane growing.

“We see Busoga land turned into sugarcane growing for the entire country yet when you look at public land, there is a lot of land taken by individuals,” the minister said at the 66th State of the Nation (STON) meeting in Kampala last Friday.

She added: “Sugarcane growing needs one huge piece of land unlike what is being done on small pieces in Busoga.”

Her revelation, which sparked immediate public outrage, prompted a damage control by her senior Betty Amongi, who denied the scheme during an impromptu meeting convened by First Deputy Premier Moses Ali.

“We shall ensure that Zoka Forest and others are protected from whoever would want to deplete [them] for sugar cane growing,” said Mr James Leku, the Adjumani District chairman, after the Friday proclamation.

Gen Ali represents a constituency of Adjumani District in Parliament.

At yesterday’s emergency meeting at Christ the King Church in Kampala, Lands minister Amongi, said: “What we are negotiating for is the land in Amuru in an area called Kololo and we are negotiating for it on behalf of Madhivani Group of Companies. What is at hand for Zoka Forest is the question of illegalities and encroachment which we need to sort out.”

Madhvani Group spokesman Paracuraman Eswar said he was out of the country and unable to comment.

Barely a month ago, Amuru District leaders and land owners disagreed over a proposal to give up their land to Madhvani Group of Companies for sugarcane growing.

Madhvani wants 40,000 hectares of land. Acholi leaders and residents have since 2007 opposed a government-supported plan for Madhvani Group to acquire 40,000 hectares of land in the area.

In April 2011, President Museveni who visited the area accused Amuru politicians of frustrating development by inciting the population against investors.

The latest plot to lease out Zoka Forest land has resurrected memories of the 2007 government attempt to parcel out one-third of Mabira rainforest to Sugar Corporation of Uganda Limited (Scoul), owned by the Mehta Group of companies, to grow sugarcane.

The deal sparked public protests in the city led Ministers Disagree On Zoka Central Forest Giveawayby now Kitgum Municipality Member of Parliament Beatrice Anywar, nicknamed afterward as Mama Mabira. Three people died in the violent clashes, forcing government to shelve the giveaway.

On Friday, minister Namuganza had said Brazil increased its sugar exports after degazetting part of its natural forests for sugarcane growing and Uganda should do the same to avoid a future sugar shortage.

PRESS RELEASE

South Africa named best country for debt management/sovereign bond issuance in Sub-Saharan Africa

Emerging Markets Newspaper an affiliate of the IMF/World Bank Annual Meetings, named South Africa the best country for Debt management/Sovereign Bond Issuance in Sub-Saharan Africa. This comes just after the World Bank also acknowledged SA’s excellence in debt dynamics/composition.

Speaking after receiving the award in Washington last night, Anthony Julies, Deputy Director-General -Assets and Liability Management at National Treasury said, the endorsement of South Africa by Emerging Markets Newspaper is a testament to the success the country continues to enjoy in global capital markets. A deep capital market system, credible judiciary and strong banking system in South Africa continue to be the key attractions which give investors much needed confidence, Julies

This is partly the results of the regular engagements that investors have with senior policy-makers which ensures that there is constant communication on key policy issues which are pertinent to investors.

The country is not only recognized for the “quality” of the deal (price and duration) but also the National Treasury professionalism in debt management operations (operational, and sustainable composition of the sovereign debt portfolio), a continuance of its debt management commitment given challenging political and economic environment globally and domestically.

Debt sustainability remains one of the key principles of government’s approach to fiscal management. Events of this nature keep SA in the limelight given the ongoing funding Programme of government domestic and international markets, Julies concluded.

Issued by: National Treasury

By Mahmoud Fouly

The Chinese yuan’s recent inclusion in the International Monetary Fund (IMF)’s Special Drawing Rights (SDR) basket is expected to facilitate investments in Egypt, said Egyptian experts.

“The yuan SDR inclusion will facilitate Egyptian-Chinese trade and encourage more Chinese investments in Egypt, because the Chinese investors will use the yuan in Egypt and the Arab country will use it as a recognized currency for its imports from China,” said Gamal Bayoumi, head of the Arab Investors Union and also chief of Egypt-Europe Cabinet Unit.

The economist added that the Chinese investors in Egypt are expected to expand their businesses after this step, noting the use of China’s yuan in Egypt will be positively reflected on the relations between the two countries.

China has been working hard on its yuan globalization and the move is considered a step for the Chinese local currency toward becoming a global reserve currency.

“It is a great step for China and the developing countries it represents, as it is the first time for a third world country to have its local currency globally recognized,” Bayoumi told Xinhua.

Chinese President Xi Jinping proposed in 2013 the Belt and Road Initiative that refers to the Silk Road Economic Belt linking China with Europe through Central and Western Asia by inland routes and the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road connecting China with Southeast Asia, Africa and Europe by sea.

The initiative offers both a long-term development vision and real benefits in the near future for participant states.

“Egypt responsibly responded to the initiative and is preparing to contribute through its key portal of the Suez Canal,” said Nasser Abdel-Aal, expert in Asian affairs and professor of Chinese studies at Cairo-based Ain Shams University.

The professor explained that Egypt expanded the vital waterway and is working on the establishment of six new tunnels in the canal region as part of the Suez Canal corridor development project, which is carried out with the contribution of Chinese investments as well.

“The development of the Suez Canal region will serve the initiative and lead to greater economic and commercial cooperation between the two countries,” Abdel-Aal told Xinhua.

“China’s investments in Egypt need hard currency. So, when the yuan is globally recognized, it will benefit both China and Egypt as it will facilitate their mutual trade and investment,” the professor continued.

He argued that the use of the yuan will benefit the Chinese businesses in Egypt as they will not have to use the dollar as an intermediate currency in the Arab country.

Egypt is currently facing economic recession due to political turmoil over the past five years, which led to the decline of its foreign currency reserves from 36 billion U.S. dollars in early 2011 to 19.59 billion dollars by the end of September.

For Ehab al-Desouki, head of the Economy Department of Cairo-based Sadat Academy, the step will benefit Egypt when it gets loans from China, as it can get them and pay them back in yuan instead of dollars.

“Egypt cannot borrow from another country in yuan, and the dollar is still the main currency for Egyptian imports and exports,” Desouki said. “I believe it will take time until Egypt greatly benefits from the yuan SDR inclusion.”

The two countries decided in late 2014 to elevate the level of their cooperation to “a comprehensive strategic partnership.”

The bilateral annual trade exchange has exceeded 12 billion U.S. dollars, mostly represented in Chinese exports.

Xinhua

By Chrispinus Omar
Nairobi — The launch of the Chinese-built Ethiopia-Djibouti railway has shown China’s special position in the modernization of Africa’s infrastructure, Kenyan scholars said Saturday.
“The launching of the Ethiopia-Djibouti standard gauge railway line is expected to spur similar efforts of Africa to link the continent more effectively with an efficient railway transport network, which could be what Africa needs for close integration and expansion of intra-Africa trade,” Gerishon Ikiara, an international economics lecturer at the University of Nairobi, told Xinhua.
The fully electrified Ethiopia-Djibouti railway links Ethiopia’s capital Addis Ababa to the Red Sea port of Djibouti. It was built by Chinese companies with the help of funding from a Chinese bank.
Ethiopian Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn and Djibouti’s President Omar Guelleh presided over the launch of the 752.7km Ethiopia-Djibouti railway on Oct. 5. The Ethiopian premier said the electrified rail helped cut travel time between the two countries from seven days to just 10 hours.
Ikiara, who was Kenya’s vice minister of transport, said the completion of the railway line was a major milestone in the modernization and expansion of transport infrastructure in Africa.
“It is expected that the Chinese influence in Africa’s development is going to rise rapidly,” he said.
“The emerging dominance of China in Africa’s development is leading to increased competition for Africa’s infrastructure financing and construction works,” he said.
The scholar said the railway line would help boost the development of the two countries.
“The collaboration between Ethiopia and Djibouti in the successful implementation of the project is historic and is expected to have huge impact in these two neighbouring and currently highly dynamic economies in Eastern Africa,” Ikiara said.
“The launching of the line significantly increases the areas in Africa in which modern efficient standard gauge railway infrastructure is available,” Ikiara said.
Macharia Munene, a Kenyan international relations scholar, said the inauguration of the Ethiopia-Djibouti railway was a major step towards the realization of the “infrastructural opening up of the African continent”.
Munene said the new rail was an effort to accelerate the movement of goods and lower the cost of goods in landlocked countries across Africa.
Chinese firms had built modern railway lines in Angola and Nigeria, and is constructing the Mombasa-Nairobi railway in Kenya, which is expected to extend to other East African nations.
The first phase of the China-funded railway in Kenya will link the port city of Mombasa to the capital Nairobi.
Munene said he expected the rail to link Kenya with neigbouring Ethiopia in the future, enhancing regional integration and offering southern Ehthiopia access to goods from the sea.
On his side, Ikiara said the launch of the Ethiopia-Djibouti railway, was expected to push other African countries to implement modern railway projects.
“The project is expected to restart Africa’s long desire to create a comprehensive network of rail, road, maritime and air transport systems.” Ikiara said.
China’s engagement has dovetailed with a broad African infrastructure development plan, with the ultimate target being a modern railway network connecting each and every African capital.
Munene said the Chinese efforts towards the modernization of the railway network in Africa were something that no other major power did in the past.
The construction of a series of railways and road networks is part of broader cooperation between China and Africa in Africa’s industrialisation and development.
“China-Africa cooperation is based on perception of mutual interest that is realism and this is likely to continue,” Munene told Xinhua.

Air Peace has approved hundreds of free tickets for passengers who flew two of its Abuja-Lagos aircraft at the weekend.

The free tickets to 196 passengers, the airline said, were to compensate them for the delayed take-off of their flights.

Vice Chairman of Air Peace, Mrs. Alice Onyema, who was on one of the affected flights, made the announcement to the surprised passengers.

The flights, the airline said, were delayed due to unfavourable weather and VIP landings.

Air Peace assured that its customers were at the core of its operations and would do everything within its powers to satisfy them.

The passengers, who have already been communicated, expressed surprise at the airline’s benevolence and interest in satisfying its customers.

Air Peace also recently issued hundreds of free tickets to its loyal customers under its Peace Advantage programme

By Nelson Bwire

A Ugandan entrepreneur has emerged winner in the food truck festival in Copenhagen, Denmark.

Mr Sylvester Bbaale, who owns a truck that vends Ugandan delicacies called UGOOD, was voted ahead of 50 competitors by crowds in Denmark.

“Thank you, thank you and again for the countless people who came to the food festival this weekend. We are more than happy and proud to be named the crowd’s favorite 2016 among tough competition. Thanks for all the votes guys – you know who you are,” Mr Bbaale said upon winning the award.

UGOOD is a Ugandan food truck, which serves healthy and delicious street food, made of ecological ingredients from Uganda and Denmark.

UGOOD is commonly known for the Ugandan Rolex which Bbaale says is “served on the streets of Copenhagen to introduce a refined taste of Ugandan street food to all the people in Denmark.”

Mr Bbaale has been living in Copenhagen for some time after he moved to Denmark as a baby in 1989.

The Ugandan ambassador to the Nordics, Kibedi Zaake commended the works of Mr Bbaale, saying that the embassy has always urged Ugandans to explore opportunities through creativity. “This has opened up more opportunities for him and am grateful, I call upon other Ugandans to take his example,” he said.

“The Embassy will be hosting diplomats in Denmark and some key members from the Danish business community for our independence celebrations tomorrow (October 9) at which Sylvester’s Uganda food truck will be serving various types of Ugandan food including the Ugandan rolex and Ugandan fries,” he added.

By Frederic Byumvuhore

It was a Friday of cheerfulness as top leaders of Banque Populaire du Rwanda among other staff members join the customers at its branch in Kimironko as the bank was closing customer service week.

Customers cheered to share well prepare dinner with Anand Sanjeev, the Bank’s CEO, and Konde Bugingo, Deputy CEO, among other staff.

Closing the Customer service week, Anand Sanjeev, the Bank’s CEO, said that recognizes the extent to which the staff cares about the customers, pledging to prioritize service delivery to win the best place in Rwanda.

“We did not learn during this week but learning is our daily activity. What I am pleased about with Customer service week is that my team speaks the right language and says “Thanks” to customers which means that customers are on the top. We will keep on serving the customers. We want our customers to LOVE us not to LIKE us so that we become number one bank in Rwanda,”Anand said.

He noted that the bank strives to create an environment that is favorable to customers, adding that the situation was not good before but today there is a significant improvement.

Trainings for staff to improve service delivery

Konde Bugingo, Deputy CEO, said that the bank is likely to organize trainings for staff aim at equipping them with knowledge on how to improve the service to satisfy customers successfully.

“Our target is to improve our services and results. Instead of calling customers to like us, we want them to love us. We want to ameliorate the system. We are improving our system to give loan by reducing the time we would spend. We want also to train our staff so that we can improve their service, empower them towards bank’s success. Our customers need us to advance services but also having good results,”Bugingo said

Bugingo recognizes the great improvement in service delivery since Atlas Mara has partnered with Banque Populaire du Rwanda.

“We started investigating the reason why service delivery was not improved in Banque Populaire du Rwanda. We asked ourselves the reason why many people criticized the service? We finally revealed the challenges and we are working hard to overcome them,” He added.

Awareness on Mobile app

During the customer service week the bank have been creating more awareness on the use of Mobile app that aims at increasing the efficiency and advance the way the bank’s clients are served.

Zakhia Mbabazi, Customer Service Manager at Banque Populaire du Rwanda, said BPR mobile app is among the ways to ease service delivery.

“We will keep on informing clients about the new product that we are marketing which is a BPR Mobile Banking app. We have a wide network due to the high number of clients. Such a number would cause queues of clients. The app was launched to solve the problem of queuing'”Mbabazi said.

Saidi Karegeya, BPR branch Manager in Kimironko, said that the week was an opportunity for the bank to interact with clients to get their insights on how they appreciate services.

During customer service week the bank visited its branches in the city to inspect service delivery and Kimironko branch emerged the best in service delivery.

The main branch in Nyarugenge emerges the second while BPF emerged third place.

BPR has 193 branches across the country with more than 50,000 clients.

A Cyber security firm, Sophos has once again been positioned in the lead on “Magic Quadrant for Unified Threat Management” award.

The quadrant is based on an assessment of a company’s ability to execute a completeness of vision. Sophos is one of three vendors to be placed in the Leaders quadrant in this latest report, and the only IT security company to be positioned as a Leader by Gartner in three security Magic Quadrant reports.

According to the Senior Vice-President and General Manager, Network Security Group at Sophos, Bryan Barney, network security is a critical pillar in protecting against today’s sophisticated and persistent threats – and is one of the fastest growing market segments in IT security.

“Our continued recognition as a leader in this Magic Quadrant validates our position at the forefront of this important and growing market,” he said. “As a recognised leader in both endpoint and network security and with over 100,000 customers in each segment, Sophos continues to deliver on our vision for a synchronised security platform that directly shares threat intelligence and the health status of all security products.

This strategy achieves more advanced levels of protection for enterprises of all sizes – while at the same time being easier to manage.” He added, “The Leaders quadrant contains vendors at the forefront of making and selling UTM products that are built for midsize-business requirements

. The requirements necessary for leadership include a wide range of models to cover midsize-business use cases, support for multiple features and a management and reporting capability that’s designed for ease of use,” said Mr Barney.

He added that vendors in this quadrant lead the market in offering new safeguarding features and in enabling customers to deploy them inexpensively without significantly affecting the end-user experience or increasing staffing burdens.

These vendors, he said, also have a good track record of avoiding vulnerabilities in their security products. He said that common characteristics include reliability, consistent throughput and products that are intuitive to manage and administer.

He further said that the Sophos network security business continues to grow faster than the market, adding that in Sophos’ fiscal year ending March 31, 2016, reported billings growth was 27.5 percent in network security business, which is well above the reported market growth of 7 per cent.

“In the same period, the UTM and next-generation firewall (NGFW) business represented approximately half of Sophos billings worldwide,” he concluded.

By Ludivick Kazoka

Vice-President, Ms Samia Suluhu Hassan, has officially unveiled the ‘Proudly Tanzanian’ campaign, with a promise that the government will support the ‘buy local’ campaign in order to facilitate the industrial transformation agenda.

Ms Hassan made the promise at a gala dinner of the 2016 Top 50 Tanzanian Brands Awards in Dar es Salaam on Friday evening, saying the government was contemplating on how best to support the campaign.

“We understand that the campaign requires financial resources. The government is considering how to support the campaign. We want it to succeed,” said the vice-president at the official launch of the campaign which also saw Top 50 Tanzanian Brands rewarded.

The campaign is jointly run by the Tanzania Private Sector Foundation (TPSF) and Tanzania Bureau of Standards (TBS). It aims at addressing issues of job creation, boosting local consumption and stimulating the Tanzanian economy through local investment in local products and services.

Ms Hassan, who was the guest of honour at the event, directed the industry and trade ministry to join hands with the private sector to ensure the campaign is successful. She noted that the campaign was an ideal platform to promote consumption of products made by local producers and manufacturers.