Month: August 2017

Nigeria: Another Building Collapses in Lagos

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By Abel Ejikeme

A three-storey building located at 31 Ilufe, Ojo Alabama, Lagos collapsed on Tuesday morning.

The incident which occurred around 7 a.m. had given signs of an imminent collapse the night before, residents said.

According to one of the residents who would not want his name in print, “we noticed the building bending and the doors became stiff, we had to struggle to open the doors, when the doors were open we carried some of our belongings and vacated the house that night.”

Residents living around the collapsed building said “we heard an explosion which caused everyone to take to their heels, only to discover later that it was a building that collapsed. But we thank God no life was lost.”

It was also gathered that it was only the landlord that slept in the building, and it was not up to 10 seconds the landlord left the premises, that the building collapsed.

Residents, however, kept lamenting over their belongings that were still trapped as most of them came out with just their phones.

The cause of the collapse could not be immediately ascertained as rescue operators among whom were officials of the Lagos State Emergency Management Agency, LASEMA; Nigeria Security and Civil Defense Corps, Red Cross; Lagos State Ambulance Service, LASAMBUS, Lagos State building control agent and police officers were seen evacuating residents from other buildings that are likely to be affected by the collapsed building.

The collapsed building has, however, been sealed.

Details later…

Zimbabwe: China Pledges Support for Food Production

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By Munyaradzi Doma

China will continue supporting Zimbabwe’s agrarian revolution to help increase both food production and food self-sufficiency, Beijing’s envoy to Harare Mr Huang Ping has said. Speaking during the official commissioning of Shauke Weir Dam in Zvishavane yesterday, Ambassador Huang said Command Agriculture programmes had engendered new opportunities for Zimbabwe-China agricultural cooperation.

The commissioned dam, with a holding capacity of 39 000 cubic metres, was built under the Chinese Food Assistance for Assets (FFA), through the World Food Programme.

Adventist Development and Relief Agency (ADRA) Zimbabwe are the implementing partners.

“In 2016, China provided $1 million for lean season assistance and productive asset creation, for which we are holding the handover ceremony now,” said Ambassador Huang.

“In this programme, $534 000 is being spent in productive asset creation projects, with an expected 1 800 households in Zvishavane being supported through cash transfers.

“WFP has provided twinning funds to support the construction of assets and partner costs. The remaining went to support beneficiaries of the 2016-17 Lean Season Assistance programme through in-kind assistance.”

The lean season is usually the period covering December and March where people often turn to food aid.

Ambassador Huang said China recently donated $5 million through WFP, which will be spent in 2017-2018 lean season on assistance and support to refugees, benefiting approximately 107 000 people.

He said in boosting agriculture production in the country, China had also provided machinery and fertilizers in the form of governmental aid and concessional loans, worth an estimated $100 million.

The Shauke Weir Dam will support a 1,3 hectare horticulture garden and orchard, as well as water for livestock, while there are also plans to start a fish project.

In a speech read on his behalf by Mr Cleto Diwa, a director in his ministry, Minister of State for Midlands Provincial Affairs Jason Machaya paid tribute to the long-standing relationship with China and the support which is being given to Zimbabwe.

“You have been an all-weather friend that we have relied on time and time again,” he said. “It is a true testimony of the commitment of the People’s Republic of China to uplift the lives of Zimbabwe.”

WFP country representative Mr Eddie Rowe said in the face of erratic climate and unreliable yields, communities can now depend on Shauke Weir Community Garden and Orchard.

ADRA Zimbabwe country director Mrs Judith Musvosvi said the main objective of the FFA project was to ensure food security, income security, livelihood opportunities, as well as building communities’ resilience to shocks.

She said on completion, Shauke Weir Dam would see communities growing vegetables, fruits and other crops expected to improve their diet and nutrition.

The dam will be completed by November this year.

Mozambique: Police and Lawyers Clash Over Darkened Car Windows

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Maputo — The Mozambican police and the bar association (OAM) are at loggerheads over whether the police campaign against smoked or darkened glass windows in vehicles is legal.

On Monday the OAM issued a statement that the police fines of motorists driving cars with darkened windows have no basis in law.

The police defend their actions on the grounds that vehicles with darkened glass are used for criminal purposes, since it is impossible for people outside the vehicle to see who is inside it or what they are doing.

Windows are often darkened by covering them with a dark plastic coating. The police argue that this is an alteration of the characteristics of the vehicle. Such an alteration violates the Highway Code, which has the force of law.

But a decree of 1954 lists what is meant by the term “characteristics of the vehicle”. This covers such aspects as gross weight, number of axles, number and size of the tyres, number and size of the cylinders, year of manufacture, colour, and country of origin. This list does not mention the characteristics or colour of the windows.

Hence the OAM argues that darkening the windows does not constitute an alteration of the characteristics of the vehicle and so cannot be illegal. On the contrary, the OAM’s statement adds, it is the police campaign against darkened windows that is “illegal, unacceptable and a violation of the principle of legality to which agents of law and order are bound”.

Since bans restrict the rights of citizens, the lawyers continued, “they cannot be presumed, but should result expressly and unequivocally from the law”. But in the Mozambican legal order, there are no provisions banning the circulation of vehicles with darkened windows”.

The OAM regarded the police campaign as “a violation of the principle of the democratic rule of law, which is characterized by compliance with the laws and respect for the constitutional rights, freedoms and guarantees of citizens”.

The lawyers state that they are willing to assist citizens who have been victims of this police campaign and urged them “to use the mechanisms envisaged in the law for the best defence of their rights and freedoms”.

The OAM also called on the Public Prosecutor’s Office “to exercise effectively its function in the control of legality”, and hold responsible for their actions members of the police force who commit illegal acts.

But on Tuesday the General Command of the police retorted that the OAM was mistaken. At a Maputo press conference the spokesperson for the General Command, Inacio Dina, claimed there was “no doubt” that the police action was legal.

He said the campaign is covered by the police law of August 2013 and by those articles of the Highway Code which supposedly refer to the police power to search vehicles. But neither of the articles mentioned by Dina (number 7 and 89) seems to have anything to do with the colour of windows.

Article 89 does indeed mention a “ban on the use of certain equipment”. But it specifies that this refers to equipment that can “reveal the presence or disturb the functioning of instruments intended to detect or register transgressions”.

This appears to refer to anything that interferes with safety equipment such as speed cameras, but the police are now stretching its meaning to cover darkened windows, and to justify fines of 2,750 meticais (45 US dollars) for any motorist using them.

Dina protests that the OAM statement did not mention article 89 which, he claimed, gave the police the power to remove immediately any dark coating from car windows. He claimed the police had been “saddened” to read the OAM document.

For the police, darkened windows fall within the equipment mentioned in article 89 because “they hinder visibility inside vehicles when the police are investigating in the case of any suspicion”.

“The police are working to guarantee the comfort of citizens”, said Dina. “Guarantees of public order and tranquility are not given by people wearing ties in air conditioned offices, full of papers with pretty words. It’s done on the ground, and the police are always strictly obeying the law, always guaranteeing the supreme interest of citizens”.

Dina seemed unaware that Article 89 of the Highway Code is not even Mozambican legislation. It is copied, almost word for word, from the Portuguese Highway Code. The only significant difference is that the fines are expressed in euros in the Portuguese code, and in meticais in the Mozambican one.

Furthermore, the Portuguese article was not written to stop motorists from darkening their windows. This is not illegal in Portugal, as long as the type of coating is recognised as valid by the Portuguese Institute of Mobility and Transport, and is applied to the window by a duly certified company.

Uganda: BOU Officials Fail to Defend Golden Jubilee Expenditure

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By Solomon Arinaitwe

Parliament — Bank of Uganda officials have failed to produce 154 audit reports related to three financial years and an unspecified number of contracts for money running into billions that was spent to bankroll the central bank’s lavish golden jubilee celebrations in 2016.

BoU@50 celebrations, which were held in 2016, have been thrown back into the spotlight after it emerged that the Central Bank spent Shs125 million to buy 350 pens, a transaction that is now a subject of separate inquiries by Parliament and the Auditor General.

BoU officials led by Governor Tumusiime Mutebile and Secretary Susan Wasagali Kanyemibwa on Tuesday appeared before a Parliamentary Committee that is investigating the bank but the sitting ran into disarray as the officials failed to table the much sought- after audit reports and contracts.

BoU officials failed to show evidence how Shs700 million was spent on an activity marked as School Challenges ahead of the Golden Jubilee celebrations, Shs100 million for refreshments and a cocktail at the Serena Hotel and Shs144 milllion for accommodation of golden jubilee guests.

On the missing audit reports, Ms Kanyemibwa explained that each BoU department makes particular audits and the audit reports are submitted to the board on a quarterly basis.

“The audit process is such that we make individual reports on each department and then at the end of every quarter, we extract issues that have been raised for action by management and also to see the status on how far management has[gone] to implement those issues,” Ms Kanyemibwa said.

Ms Kanyemibwa’s explanation was, however, treated with scepticism by MPs who said that the bank officials were hiding information related to the money that was spent on BoU@50 celebrations.

Committee Chairman, Mr Abdu Katuntu demanded that all audit reports related to Bank of Uganda’s financial operations and tenders during the Golden Jubilee celebrations.

“What we wanted are audit reports .Can you please produce the audit reports. Can you have all those by close of business tomorrow [Wednesday]. Please do not withhold [information]. For heaven’s sake, do not withhold,” Mr Katuntu said.

The Central Bank is also expected to present reports related to the liquidation of Greenland Bank, International Credit Bank (ICB), Global Trust and the National Bank of Commerce.

Meanwhile, the Auditor General (AG) will now conduct an inquiry to establish whether the 350 pens bought at Shs125 million were genuine CROSS pens.

The pens that were supplied by Aristoc Booklex were handed out as souvenirs to guests at the annual Joseph Mubiru Memorial Lecture and those who attended the golden jubilee celebrations.

One of the pens was laid before the committee and the AG is expected to use it as a specimen to verify whether the pens were worth the Shs125 million that was spent on them.

“Are there genuine cross pens and they are not counterfeit cross pens. Before delivery or after delivery, did you examine whether they are genuine CROSS pens,” Mr Katuntu asked.

Zimbabwe: Oil Producers to Buy Local Soya Bean

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By Livingstone Marufu

il producers have agreed to buy soya bean produced locally at $500 per tonne as part of efforts to promote local production, Oil Expressers Association of Zimbabwe president Busisa Moyo said yesterday.

The development comes after Government reduced soya bean import permits and urged the oil processors to first buy locally and import later in a bid to increase local soya bean production. Prior to that development, oil producers favoured cheaper soya imports that went for $350 per tonne.

Mr Moyo, conceded that in the long run the use of local soya bean will help to save foreign exchange. He said: “For soya bean farmers who are willing to supply us, we will give them the required $500 per tonne to improve their production and their welfare.

“If the farmers have the readily available soya bean, we are willing to buy it but the point is that the 30 000 tonnes will only sustain us for three months. We need extra soya bean going forward.

“Going forward, we are very keen to commit on Command Soya Bean in the 2017/2018 summer cropping season and we need to ensure that we exceed 150 000 tonnes of the soya bean output.

“We need $100 million worth of inputs, irrigation infrastructure and 100 000 hectares to grow soya bean in the next summer season.” He said the facility would be for contracted farmers and administered by the cooking oil manufacturers.

The country’s cooking oil processors have over the years been forced to import their raw materials owing to shortage of soya beans, cotton and sunflower. The sector at the moment imports soya bean and semi-processed crude oil for further processing.

Last year, Zimbabwe imported crude soya bean oil worth $119,9 million. Sakunda Holdings, which has been financing Government’s agricultural schemes, is said to have since committed about $47,8 million towards soya bean production.

Financial support will allow farmers to produce enough soya bean to service the market. Meanwhile, Mr Moyo said that local manufacturers are currently at 60 percent capacity utilisation.

Cooking oil imports had reduced significantly due to the introduction of Statutory Instrument 64 of 2016, which restricts the importation of cooking oil, building materials and other raw products into the country.

When operating at capacity, oil manufacturers have a potential to produce 12 000 tonnes of cooking oil per month, well above the current market demand of 10 000 metric tonnes.

Oil expressers membership grew from three enterprises to seven since the implementation of Statutory Instrument 64 of 2016. Farmers managed to attain 30 000 tonnes from last season’s harvest and expect to earn around $15 million from the produce.

Over 2 200 farmers have registered to take part in Government’s initiative to boost soya bean production in collaboration with various stakeholders from the soya bean value chain.

Over 25 000 hectares had been registered under soya bean production for next summer cropping season.

Congo-Kinshasa: Is Child Labor the Price for E-Cars?

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ANALYSISBy Helle Jeppesen

Whether in cars, laptops or smartphones, cobalt is in nearly all batteries. The biggest supplier is the Democratic Republic of Congo, where human rights are often violated in the mines.

Young men, armed with only torchlight and tools climb down in a deep, dark hole, without helmet or security gear. The path becomes even smaller as they go further down in the unsecured tunnel. To remove the cobalt, the young miners use chisels and hand hooks and then place the gem rocks into bags, which are then pulled up by another miner above ground.

The rights group Amnesty International witnessed this scene during a research trip in Kasulu, the former Katanga province in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). These mine workers are known in the DRC as Creuseurs, loosely translated as the diggers.

The mining work is divided among everyone. Men dig for the rocks in the tunnel, women wash the rocks in the river, and children are tasked with separating the cobalt from the rock with their bare hands. “Neither the children nor the adults who we met had any form of security equipment”, said Amnesty International’s researcher Lauren Armistead.

In May 2015, Armistead, her colleague Mark Dummett and a staff of the African mining resources monitoring group, AFREWATCH, researched the conditions of cobalt mining in the DR Congo for an article they titled: “This is what we die for.” When the report was published in January 2016, it caused a lot of stir due to its damning documentation of child labor in the artisanal mining sector.

“The youngest child we met was just seven years old when he first went down into the mines,” said Armistead in a DW interview. “Most children involved in sorting little rocks or crushing the stones on the surface in old industrial mines are teenagers.”

Toxic dust from cobalt stones if inhaled could lead to fatal lung diseases.”Children and adults are both struggle with respiratory problems, cough and sinus infections,” Armistead added. Moreover, the rights researcher said the sacks with the cobalt are too heavy for the children to carry. In addition, a normal working day consists of 10 to 12 hours in the blazing sun, cold or rain.

No batteries without the DR Congo

The world’s largest deposit of cobalt lies in the Copperbelt region in the DR Congo. During the mining for copper or tin, cobalt was discovered as a by-product. Through the dark tunnels of the mining fields in Haut Katanga and Lualaba, the raw cobalt materials go through several distributors before making it to the Congolese shores, from where it is exported. The clean cobalt is delivered to manufacturers of lithium-ion batteries, which are high in demand.

“The price of cobalt has increased by 100 percent since the beginning of this year,” said Siyamend Ingo Al Barazi, a geologist with the German raw material agency, DERA (Deutsche Rohstoffagentur). “The biggest consumer is electro-mobility.”

Al Barazi is sure that the demand for cobalt will continue to boom. However, among experts there are disagreements whether the current demand which is at 100.000 tons per year will rise to 180.000 or 300.000 tons per year by 2025. “Which ever way you turn it, one thing remains clear, an increase in demand will take place. This leads us to the main question, whether demand can be met by supply,” Al Barazi added.

The high demand is also related to the technological developments of batteries and accumulators, according to Michael Ritthoff, an expert on recycling economy at the Wuppertal Institute for Climate, Environment, and Energy in Wuppertal, Germany. “Currently most lithium-ion batteries contain cobalt. But there are alternatives that have been developed and some can already be used,” Ritthoff said.

Daily pay: A few dollars

The price for a ton of cobalt is currently a bit under 60,000 dollars (51,000 euros). The children, women and men, removing, crushing and sorting the stones, receive around one to three dollars a day. Industrial mines, which are run by international companies, use high technology, whereas small-scale mines, which make up ten percent of the world’s supply, rely a lot on children to work under miserable conditions.

“These people have no other alternatives for survival,” said Amnesty’s Lauren Armistead. “If the companies choose to boycott cobalt from DR Congo, this would have huge unintended consequences for the people and could drive them further into poverty.”

Since Amnesty International’s damning report, some slight changes can be seen in the DR Congo. “Currently, Congolese mining authorities are trying to give artisanal miners license that were once only meant for major corporations,” said geologist Sebastian Vetter from the German organization, Federal Institute for Geo-science and Natural Resources (BGR).

The BGR developed a certification process for gold, tantalum, tin and wolfram in a so-called “Certified-Trading-Chains” or CTC process, where small-scale products can be tracked back to their origins. “The ability to find the origin of the resources is part of the certification. The certification itself encompasses many other criteria or standards and promises freedom, job security, the absence of children at the mines and also social standards,” said the BGR geologist in an interview with DW. According to Vetter, it would be possible, with little adaptations, to apply the CTC process on cobalt.

Cobalt no conflict mineral

However, laws in the United States, the so-called Dodd Frank Act, and the new European Union regulation on imports, list only four minerals from conflict regions as “conflict minerals; these include gold, tantalum, tin and wolfram,.” For those four minerals, companies listed n the US and the EU, which import minerals, have to state the origin of the resource and evidence of compliance with the regulations. Whereas the Dodd Frank Act in the USA is restricted to the DR Congo and the region.

For other resources, an evidence of origin is not a necessity and companies usually do not deliver any proof of origin. Firms, which produce laptops, smartphones or cars, use this complex supply chains for their accumulators and battery components.

Most of these firms claim to be carrying out responsible acquisition of their resources and respect human rights. “The responses from the companies show that as long as they are no required to do something, many of them will not do it,” said Armistead.

First stop: China

The largest wholesale buyer from artisanal mined cobalt in the DR Congo is the Chinese firm Zhejiang Huayou Cobalt Co. Ltd. This corporation obtained its license from the government owned mining company Gecamines, which was accused of corruption, favoritism and fraud in a report by organization – Global Witness.

The price of cobalt is determined by its weight and clarity. The creusers hardly have any means to control whether they are receiving an appropriate amount for their rocks or not. Zhejiang Huayou’s subsidiary in the DRC exports the cobalt to China, where it is smelted and sold on the global market.

First attempts for human rights

Since Amnesty’s report was published in 2016, Huayous said work has been done to improve the working conditions in the Congolese cobalt mines. The aim, according to the Chinese company, is to comply with the OECD guidelines on due diligence in the supply chain.

BGR’s Sebastian Vetter confirmed that the Chinese company has changed its working policies. “Huayous’s subsidiary, Congo Dongfang Mining, is working to improve transparency in the supply chain and aim for a better management and formalization of the mines,” Vetter said. “The will for improvement has been communicated. But whether this is enough, I cannot tell at the moment.”

In autumn, Amnesty International intends to publish an update and analyze what has changed since the previous report was published in January 2016.

Kenya: Teachers Union Issues 7-Day Strike Notice Over Annual Increment

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By Simon Ndonga

Nairobi — The Kenya National Union of Teachers (KNUT) has issued a seven-day strike notice to the government due to the scrapping of the annual salary increment for teachers.

Speaking after a National Executive Council (NEC) meeting, Secretary General Wilson Sossion accused the Teacher Service Commission (TSC) of deceit since it increased teachers’ salaries while at the same time removing their benefits.

He further stated that the Commission has also failed to recognise and compensate teachers who have attained higher academic qualifications.

“This increment is available to the teacher as a matter of right in the law. The increasing schemes of service further governs this entitlement. The schemes of service for the teachers, graduates, non graduates and technical teachers must be upgraded appropriately by the Teachers Service Commission. This has not been done for the last three years and our patience has run out,” he said.

Sossion stated that should the issues not be addressed, teachers countrywide will down their tools.

“We have given a seven day notice that the department which is involved must take care of this matter as quickly as possible so that the program of the Ministry of Education should not be disrupted because that is what will happen on a grand scale,” he stated.

The union also wanted the TSC to discuss recognition of new qualification as contained in the scheme of service for teachers as they want teachers to be promoted on graduation.

South African Universities Need to Rethink How They Invest Their Millions

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ANALYSISBy Stephanie Giamporcaro, University of Cape Town and Xolisa Dhlamini

Universities are no longer simply institutions of learning. Over the past 50 years, they have also become important players in global financial markets. They have become institutional investors.

Universities have to decide what to do with the pension fund contributions of their staff. They also receive large monetary donations from alumni and other private donors. This money – millions, sometimes billions of dollars – goes into university investment funds. These can be managed internally or delegated to investment managers.

Harvard University in the US has the biggest endowment fund in the world with USD$32.7 billion, while university endowment funds in the UK hold between £2.5 million and £1 billion. Pension funds in the US and UK are even more substantial. For example, the California University pension fund boasts more than USD$70 billion.

University funds in southern Africa are much smaller, but some are still significant. According to our calculations, the universities with the largest endowments are all in South Africa, with the top five representing a little less than USD$1 billion collectively. The pension funds of the top 10 universities in the region come to around USD$3,6 billion.

The question of how universities choose to invest all this money is increasingly coming under scrutiny. In the US, Europe, Australia and New Zealand universities’ pension funds and endowment funds are starting to align their investment portfolios with the social concerns of their students and staff.

Putting assets to work for a better world

In the 1970s student and staff activists at US universities put serious pressure on their managements to stop investing in companies involved in the Vietnam war or, later on, in apartheid South Africa.

Today climate change is the issue that’s increasingly dominating the activist agenda on university campuses. Since 2012, 350.org, a climate change activist movement, has been pushing for total disinvestment from fossil fuels – with some significant victories . Student activists in the US have also called successfully for disinvestment from prisons.

In 2005 the UN established a responsible investment coalition called the Principles for Responsible Investment. Signatories pledge to invest according to six principles, aiming to achieve long-term sustainable investment returns and benefits for society as a whole. So far over 1000 investment managers have signed up, making it the biggest coalition of this kind in the world.

A few academic institutions have signed up too. Harvard’s USD$35 billion University Endowment Scheme joined in 2014. And at least four retirement funds, endowment funds or foundations linked to tertiary education institutions in the US and Europe signed up this year. As was the case with Harvard, this has often happened under pressure from student activists.

Progress at South African universities

So far no universities in South Africa or Africa have signed the principles. But there are signs that the idea of responsible investment is starting to gain some traction – especially within the heightened activism at South African universities.

For example, the South Africa fossil free disinvestment campaign has made significant progress at the University of Cape Town. After a four-year campaign, the university’s convocation of alumni and students this year voted to support a motion to disinvest from fossil fuels.

The Rhodes Must Fall movement also brought the issue of workers’ exploitation into focus. It accused leadership at the University of Cape Town of having blood on its hands for being invested in Lonmin at the time of the Marikana Massacre.

This was closely followed by nationwide Fees Must Fall protests. Protesters called on government to provide free education for all. In doing so, they challenged the idea that universities should operate as businesses according to free market principles. They also challenged the role of the university in society by calling for decolonisation of the institution.

Since then the University of Cape Town’s council has agreed to design a responsible investment policy. This makes it the first known Southern African university to do so.

Paradigm shift

For this movement to truly take off in Southern Africa’s universities, there needs to be a paradigm shift at the level of university management.

As stressed by the University of California, becoming a responsible investor is not about giving up on financial returns. Rather it’s about finding ways to achieve these while addressing societal challenges and opportunities. A responsible investor can decide to disinvest from environmentally and socially harmful sectors, but also to support new investment opportunities such as renewable energy.

An institutional investor that takes its responsibility towards future generations seriously should reflect on its values to take informed decisions on how financial returns can be better achieved. Fortunately it’s becoming easier to do this thanks to a surge in innovative investment strategies and funds that seek to achieve both good financial returns and positive social impacts. The African Investing for Impact Barometer – a research project that we run for the Bertha Centre for Social Innovation and Entrepreneurship at the UCT Graduate School of Business – charts the rise of opportunities like this and shows that impact investing on the continent is booming.

This trend, combined with activism, can persuade universities to become more proactive, creative and responsible investors.

Student and staff activists have clearly begun to interrogate the links between social and environmental issues and their universities’ investment choices. For university management, these questions present an opportunity to think about how their investment portfolios can be used address the social concerns of their students and staff. Universities – being both institutional investors and places of education – can ultimately find improved investment solutions that create a more sustainable future for the generations of learners to come.

Disclosure statement

Stephanie Giamporcaro receives funding from Government of Flanders

Xolisa Dhlamini is on a Bertha Scholarship for his PhD Studies funded by the Bertha Centre, a specialized unit within the UCT Graduate School of Business. Xolisa volunteers as a member of the investment subcommittee at the Institute for Retirement Funds Africa (IRFA).

Tanzania: UK’s 1.026trl/ – a Huge Booster

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AS part of its continued support to Tanzania, the UK government has pledged US 450 million dollars (about 1.026trl/-) support, to improve roads and port infrastructure, education and industrialisation.

According to a statement issued by the Directorate of Presidential Communications, the announcement to that end was made by the United Kingdom’s Minister of State at the Department for International Development, responsible for Africa affairs at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, Mr Rory Stewart.

The visiting minister announced the funding after meeting with President John Magufuli at the State House in Dar es Salaam yesterday.

Mr Stewart said the aid would be channeled into projects for improving the quality of education and enrolment of pupils, as well as strengthening road and port infrastructure.

In addition, the funding would help boost commercial farming and improve meat and cotton processing factories. Speaking at the occasion, Mr Stewart praised President Magufuli for his staunch moves to curb corruption and opening up access to education for many young Tanzanians.

“I visited one school in Dar es Salaam yesterday (Tuesday) and I was impressed how the free education policy in Tanzania has played a significant role in increasing enrolment of pupils.

“During the visit I had an opportunity to speak to parents and teachers; enrolment of pupils has increased two times within a short period and has brought major reforms; education is everything,” Mr Stewart remarked.

1.026trl/- a big booster

He pledged his country’s continued support for cementing bilateral relations, expressing optimism that the just announced aid would improve the welfare of Tanzanians.

Dr Magufuli was also impressed and thanked the minister for visiting Tanzania, requesting him to send his regards to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II and Prime Minister Theresa May, for the support the UK had been extending to the country for development projects.

Apart from aid to support development endeavours, the United Kingdom remains the leading country with investments in Tanzania, a fact that Dr Magufuli acknowledged during the meeting with Mr Stewart.

The Head of State explained that the anti-corruption drive was yielding positive results, stressing that the funding from the UK would be put to its intended use.

“It is the responsibility of every Tanzanian to support the government’s efforts to curb corruption and this will enable our country move forward. Corruption is a deadly vice. “In addition, we must nurture a culture of paying taxes for our development rather that depending on our development partners,” Dr Magufuli stressed.

The meeting at the State House was also attended by the United Kingdom High Commissioner to Tanzania, Ms Sarah Cooke, Foreign Affairs and East African Co-operation Minister, Dr Augustine Mahiga and his counterpart in the Finance and Planning docket, Dr Philip Mpango.

Also in attendance was Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Finance and Planning, Dr Doto James.

Nigeria: N299 Billion Abuja Metro Rail Ready December – Contractor

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By Abdullateef Salau

The China Civil Engineering Construction Corporation (CCECC) has assured that the phase one of the Abuja Rail Mass Transit project will be ready for public use in the next four months.

The rail transit project, costing N299 billion ($823 million), consists of lot 1A and lot 3 covering a length of 45km with 12 designated passenger stations. It links the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, Abuja to the Central Business District.

The rail project is a double-tracked line of right side running, and standard-gauge 1435mm.

Speaking to journalists during a tour of the site, the project manager, Mr Kong Tao, said work on the large scale project was going on smoothly and would be test-run by November and commissioned for public use in December 2017.

He said the project, after completion, would generate employment and boost the commercial activities of the host communities.

“Abuja rail mass transit project is bound to accelerate the growth of the national economy. The realization of this large-scale project will definitely deliver much benefits to the general public, such as better investment environment, better living condition, more employment, land value enhancement, energy saving and greater social responsibility,” he said.

Tao, however lamented that the perimeter fencing built to prevent trespassing had not stopped some residents of the host communities who crossed the rail track at will.

This, he said, endangered lives as operational trains moved constantly on the rail track.

“Safety is the most important thing in our operation. Even though we built a fence to prevent trespass, they break it to cross the rail track,” he said.

He also deplored the recurrent incidence of theft of the company’s equipment, including facilities installed at the passenger stations.

“Despite hundreds of security personnel employed to secure the facilities, thieves still steal something here almost every week,” he added.