COLUMNBy Dr George Kanani

This year 2017, as a nation, we ought to adjust more efforts in the adopting and using e-health so that our country advances steps closer to attaining the goal of Universal Health Coverage (UHC).

For instance, an effective tele-health improves healthcare access at lower cost.

The healthcare industry is among the sectors that are enjoying the fruits of technology. The world is now endeavouring to achieve the goal of UHC, where every individual will have access to the healthcare services without financial risk.

The good news is that technology use in health has provided a platform that is proving beyond doubt that this goal can successfully be achieved.

Adoption of e-health in healthcare systems all over the globe has brought some hopes amongst healthcare stakeholders as far as achievement of UHC goal is concerned.

E-health is the use of information communication technologies (ICT) in health and health-related areas at large. E-health is indeed very wide and it incomporates fields like m-health, tele-health, e-health records, social media and e-learning.

Tanzania has already established her own strategy so far and in the health sector strategic plan – IV(HSSP-IV), e-health is clearly elaborated.

Recent survey conducted by the World Health Organisation on e-health adoption rate has revealed that it is very possible to attain the Universal health goal if e-health component is effectively absorbed in a national health system.

Adoptability rate of these e-health components differ very much from one another. M-health is one of the highly adopted e-health type in developing nations compared to the rest, and this is explained by tremendous growth of mobile technology amongst us.

Mobile-health

This is one of the important aspects of e-health which indeed has the potential of changing the dynamics of our health system. In brief, m-health refers to the use of mobile devices like mobile phones, wireless accessory and monitoring devices, for medical and public health benefits. M-health in Tanzania is already operational all over the country.

There are a lot of m-health operational programs in Tanzania to-date. These do serve both urban and rural areas. These m-health programs fall under either of the following; health call centres, community mobilisation/health, reminder of appointments, mobile telehealth, health surveys, patient monitoring, electronic patient information, m-learning and promotion campaigns.

Not all m-health programmes are under government, some are operated privately. Though there is an argument that the impact of m-health is not an immediate one but the role m-health plays towards universal health coverage can never be underestimated.

As long as the number of mobile phone users goes on raising, m-health gives a rare opportunity to be utilised maximally in this year 2017 towards attaining UHC goal.

Tele-health

There is also a good number of operational tele-health programmes in Tanzania. Tele-health is based on the use of ICT to enable interaction between a health care provider and a distant patient; and this may happen on real-time or that interaction may take place in real time basis or store-and-forward basis. For example, tele-radiology, tele-pathology and so forth .

However, these tele-health programmes are subjected to various challenges so far and it is advised that they must be regularly evaluated; extra attention is to be paid to government-sponsored programs.

Electronic health records

These are patient centred records which provide on-time and secure information only to warranted users. A significant number of health facilities so far in Tanzania have adopted electronic medical record system. In this year, 2017, a number of healthcare facilities employing electronic medical record system ought to be increased significantly.

This is the time to begin the initiatives towards establishment of national electronic health record system. Its establishment shall lead to an integrated system of patient management nation-wide.

Social media

Social media is a very crucial means of relaying messages for healthcare facilities and also of receiving and sharing health information amongst individuals.

I wish to say a lot with regards to social media but I better put it this way; watch out when you are using social media this year following enactment of the social media law and be extra cautious to the health information you get from social media.

By Geoffrey Kamadi

Naivasha — Using waste from vegetable and flower production, biogas is providing energy to Kenya’s electricity network

A commercial farm in Kenya has become Africa’s first electricity producer powered by biogas to sell surplus electricity to the national grid, cutting the carbon emissions associated with oil-powered generation.

The Gorge Farm Energy Park in Naivasha produces 2 megawatts (MW) of electricity – more than enough to cultivate its 706 hectares (1,740 acres) of vegetables and flowers, and with sufficient surplus to meet the power needs of 5,000-6,000 rural homes.

The new plant generates not only electricity, but also heat for the farm’s greenhouses, with fertiliser as a by-product.

Gorge Farm, approximately 76km (50 miles) northwest of Kenya’s capital, Nairobi, is owned by the Vegpro Group, a leading East African exporter of fresh vegetables and its second largest exporter of roses.

Biojoule Kenya, the independent power producer that operates the Gorge Farm plant, signed an agreement to sell electricity to Kenya Power & Lighting Company (KPLC) – the country’s sole power distributor – in 2016.

Biojoule Kenya sells the power to Gorge Farm and to KPLC for $0.10 per kilowatt hour (kWh). Diesel-generated power, by contrast, costs $0.38 per kWh to produce.

“The Gorge Farm plant is physical proof that locally produced feedstock can be used to generate clean and cost-effective power for all Kenyans,” said Mike Nolan, chief operating officer at Tropical Power, a developer of biogas and solar plants in Africa.

It supplied engines for the plant in conjunction with Clarke Energy, a UK-based engine service provider.

SLASHING DIESEL USE

The plant produces biogas through anaerobic digestion, a process in which crop residue from the farm is digested by micro-organisms. The biogas produced is burned in two engines, producing both electricity and heat in a process called cogeneration.

Producing the same amount of energy using diesel would require 5 million litres of fuel annually, Nolan explained, plus the extra fuel required to transport the diesel inland from the port of Mombasa.

Tropical Power says the biogas plant contributes to a 7,000-tonne reduction in carbon dioxide emissions per year, since the farm does not have to use electricity from the grid produced by oil-fired power stations.

Cogeneration currently makes up a tiny fraction of renewable power sources in Kenya, at 0.7 percent in 2015, according to the Kenya Electricity Generating Company (KENGEN), the country’s biggest power company.

Geothermal was the biggest contributor to the electricity generation mix, with 49 percent, followed by hydropower at 44 percent. But some experts see room for considerable biogas expansion.

“The potential for biogas generated electricity in Kenya is significant,” said Helen Osiolo, a policy analyst at the Kenya Institute of Public Policy Research and Analysis. She believes biogas could generate between 29 and 131 MW of power, but says the biggest challenge is that the government will not pay enough for it.

“There are concerns that the tariff is too low to attract substantive investor interest,” Osiolo said. In addition, agricultural and municipal waste is in demand for other uses such as fertiliser, which may limit the expansion of biogas generation.

Even though anaerobic digestion of waste to produce biogas is an established technology in Europe and Asia, the concept is still new in Africa at large scale. The technology had been deployed in 45 sites globally before debuting at the Gorge Farm plant.

SOURCE OF FERTILISER

Osiolo says a further barrier to the expansion of the use of biogas is the perception that it requires a substantial amount of raw material in order to produce any meaningful energy output.

However, according to Tropical Power, if organic material or crops from 1 percent of Kenya’s landmass were deployed in anaerobic plants connected to the grid, it would produce the equivalent of the country’s entire current effective installed electrical capacity of around 1,800 MW.

There are further benefits, according to Tropical Power’s Nolan. The 50,000 tonnes of Gorge Farm’s residue that can be used annually for biogas can produce 35,000 tonnes of a natural fertiliser by-product.

That can be used to improve the crop yield of local farms, displacing synthetic fertiliser, he said.

Nolan said thatTropical Power’s experience with the grid operator has been straightforward.

“Our site is located very close to the grid interconnection point and so engineering challenges were minimised,” he said.

– Reporting by Geoffrey Kamadi; editing by James Baer and Laurie Goering

By Ejiofor Alike

Major and independent marketers of petroleum products have raised alarm over outstanding subsidy claims incurred during the subsidy regime, saying their indebtedness to banks is now a whopping $1 billion.

They also warned that unless the claims were paid, they could kill not only their businesses but also worsen the liquidity crisis in the banking sector with the attendant unsavoury implications for fuel supply nationwide.

In a communiqué issued at the end of their meeting in Lagos yesterday, the marketers under the aegis of Independent Petroleum Products Importers (IPPIs) noted that the $1 billion outstanding debt was money borrowed from banks to fund importation during the subsidy regime and has accumulated an interest of N160 billion because of the failure of the federal government to pay the interest on the loans as agreed.

The marketers, comprising Major Oil Marketers of Nigeria (MOMAN), Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria (IPMAN), and Depot and Petroleum Products Marketers Association (DAPPMA), said their inability to pay or service the loans, has not only stalled importation of fuel by the private marketers but is also threatening the operations of the affected banks and the country’s financial system.

“Government through the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has initiated intervention programmes for strategic sectors such as agriculture, manufacturing, petroleum products importation, and aviation. The CBN’s intervention programmes are primarily to stimulate growth in Nigeria’s foreign exchange (forex) earning capacity, and to prevent collapse of the banking system due to the huge exposure of the banks. The CBN has also offered foreign exchange to IPPIs under a special window aimed at liquidating outstanding matured Letters of Credit at an exchange rate of N305. However, the exchange rate of N197 when Letters of Credit were initially opened for IPPIs and transactions concluded and the current CBN offer rate of N305 is an increase of 55 per cent and a significant rate differential,” the marketers explained.

They said: “This means that for every 15,000 metric tonnes of petrol imported by the IPPIs at a rate of $500 per MT and whose foreign exchange differential claims have not been paid then it means that the cargo of 15,000MT imported at the N197 rate will now be given foreign exchange at the rate of N305. By implication a cargo of 15,000MT at $500 per MT is S$7,500,000 or N1, 477,500,000 at N197 rate or N2, 287,500,000 at N305 rate. If these outstanding payments to IPPIs are made at N305 they would suffer a loss of N810, 000,000 per 15,000MT cargo of petrol. Government’s delay in paying debts to IPPIs and the difficulty they face in procuring forex at equitable rates will likely see the extinction of many of the IPPIs in 2017 thereby creating petroleum products shortages and attendant insecurity,” the marketers added.

The marketers said the problem of the banks was compounded by the fact that they provided billions of dollars to finance the importation of cargoes of petrol by IPPIs.

“They opened Letters of Credit at approximate exchange rate of N197 per dollar. Petrol cargoes were supplied and sold by the IPPIs at the selling prices approved and subsidised by government and the subsidy payments were calculated using the above exchange rate. Now at the beginning of 2017, the banks have not liquidated the Letters of Credit from 2014 because of lack of foreign exchange from the government. The outstanding matured Letters of Credit are currently over $1billion. The Nigerian banks involved and the entire Nigerian banking system is at risk on account of these transactions,” said the marketers.

The communiqué, which was signed by their Legal Adviser, Mr. Patrick Etim, added that there is little evidence that the government has seen the risks in further delaying the payments under the subsidy scheme.

“The exposed situation of the banks is exacerbated by the current trends in the petrol market. When the fixed pump selling price of petrol was increased from N97 to N145 per litre in May 2016, it was based on an exchange rate of N285 resulting in a 45 per cent increase. On June 20, 2016 the Naira was devalued from N285 to N305, which is an increase of seven per cent but the fixed pump selling price of petrol has not been increased. This means that petrol must be subsidised,” the marketers added.

“A key term of the government’s contract with IPPIs is that the subsidy payments shall be paid to IPPIs within 45days of discharge of petrol cargo. It was also agreed that after 45 days the government shall pay the interest charges on the loans taken by the IPPIs to finance the importation of cargoes of petrol. The outstanding interest payments owed to IPPIs is currently over N160 billion,” said the marketers.

The communiqué added that the outstanding claims arose largely from importation of petroleum cargoes authorised by the administration of President Goodluck Jonathan’s government, stressing that since government is a continuum, the contracts of the President Jonathan’s government will remain binding on successive governments.

The marketers appealed to the government not to allow its inactions in handling the critical issues facing banks, airlines, manufacturers, electricity companies and other businesses expose consumers to suffering, adding that honouring contract agreements would help boost local and foreign investments.

COLUMNBy Lusuga Kironde

The bad thing with the Christmas- New Year festive season is that it comes and goes, and within no time you have to go back to your normal hectic life. By the time the next season arrives, so much may have changed.

If you are lucky to be around then, somebody dear to you may not be.

Somebody in good health today may be seriously ill, next season. Somebody who was enjoying his life as a free person may be behind bars come December.

A person in high echelons of authority today may be out on the street by then, and so on. But before we completely forget this year’s Christmas and New Year festivities, let us revisit what the various writers brought to our attention as the festive season was approaching.

The Good Citizen on Saturday (24 December (p. 12) carried a warning: “Don’t indulge in excessive drinking no matter what”. The writer concludes: “It is wise for one to refrain from imbibing an excessive amount of alcohol because in as much as the festive season is a time of joy, it is also a time when people are quite ‘carless’ with how they conduct themselves.

Be careful”. You have surely heard of the warning: “Do not drink and drive”. Since most of us drive cars, the warning is mainly addressed to us. You want to drink? Leave your car at home. Be carless, at least for sometime.

However, that is not the writer of the warning above had in mind. He meant that people can be quite ‘careless’ (not ‘carless’) during the festive season. Yes, it may be better to be ‘carless’ than to be ‘careless’.

Once again, festive season or not, do not drink and drive. As Christmas approached, there was unanimity among various commentators that the public in Tanzania was facing a cash crunch.

This included both buyers and sellers of goods: “Christians celebrate Xmas amid cash woes”, went the front page headline in the Good Citizen on Christmas day itself. There was a similar outcry from Kenya as can be gauged from this front page headline of the Sunday Nation (25 December): “Broke Christmas for Teachers and County Workers”.

The workers had not received their December salaries, come Christmas. As Jim Reeves was singing of a White Christmas, these public employees in Kenya were complaining of a moneyless Christmas. So, this year’s Christmas and New Year season must have been grim for many East Africans.

The Good Citizen on Christmas writer sampled public feelings from Dar es Salaam and Arusha and the finding was: “Merry making and heavy partying that usually accompany Christmas and New Year festivities will likely be overshadowed by the cash crunch and the impending January school bills for most parents” (p. 2).

However, there was determination from some people to enjoy themselves. A Dar es Salaam resident, one ZW, was quoted as saying: “It is true that this year we have faced challenging times as far as getting money is concerned, but that should not ‘dumpen our spirit’ on this day… … “.

“Dumpen our spirit?” No. According to my Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English, there is no verb “to dumpen”. The writer may have mixed up homophones “damp” and “dump”. From “damp” we get the verb “dampen”. We do not have a similar development with regard to the word “dump”.

“To dampen” means “to make slightly wet”; and also, “to make less strong or intense” as in “nothing could dampen their enthusiasm”. The writer should therefore have used the verb; “to dampen”. “To dumpen” does not exist.

The Dar es Salaam resident who was interviewed should have been reported to have said as follows: “It is true that this year we have faced challenging times as far as getting money is concerned but that should not ‘dampen our spirits’ on this day… … “.

Please note as well that we are saying: “to dampen our spirits”, not “to dampen our spirit”. The festive season is now behind us. We have no choice but to pick ourselves up and forge ahead.

The Parliamentary inquiry into the fitness of the SABC board to hold office will only resume its work on Friday.

It was expected to kick off on Tuesday, with former public broadcasters’ board chairpersons Ellen Tshabalala and Ben Ngubane testifying.

Inquiry chairperson Vincent Smith confirmed the three-day delay.

“It was postponed to Friday because former SABC board chairperson Ben Ngubane requested an extension to prepare adequately for the inquiry,” Smith told News 24 on Monday.

He confirmed that Tshabalala would also appear before the adhoc committee.

Qualification lie

The disgraced Tshabalala resigned in 2014 following a furore over her qualifications. A parliamentary inquiry found her guilty on two misconduct charges.

The charges related to allegations that she lied about her qualifications to Parliament and that she lied under oath when she said in an affidavit that her qualifications had been stolen during a burglary at her home.

However, Unisa revealed that she had registered for a BCom degree in 1998, and again in 1996, but had failed to obtain the qualification.

During the inquiry in 2016, Tshabalala was fingered for having a hand in the appointment of Hlaudi Motsoeneng as Chief Operating Officer, despite a Public Protector’s report which found that he had lied about his matric certificate, and that he should face a disciplinary inquiry.

Former acting chief executive Phil Molefe told the inquiry that Ngubane had ordered him to approve a R500 000 unlawful salary hike for Motsoeneng in 2011.

When Molefe refused to sign off on the increase, he testified under oath that Motsoeneng told Ngubane: “Chair, I told you that this is not our man, I am going to Pretoria tonight.”

The adhoc committee will be racing against time to submit a final report to Parliament by February 18.

Smith, however, remained confident that they would meet the deadline, despite the delay.

Source: News24

By Julius Businge

BoU cut its central bank rate from 13% in October to 12% in December to stimulate economic activities

As 2017 business starts commercial banks are optimistic that the sector will register a surge in profitability on the back of improving economy and a reduction in Non-Performing Loans.

Speaking to The Independent in exclusive interviews, top bank managers made it clear that this New Year will be generally better for business enabling banks to post better returns.

Patrick Mweheire, the chief executive officer at Stanbic Bank, Uganda’s largest bank, for instance, said the financial industry is now gearing up for a more robust phase of the economy. The economy is projected to record a 5% growth this financial year compared with 4.6% a year before, according to latest data from Bank of Uganda.

“With the election behind us and a looser monetary policy in place, we will see increased economic activity in 2017,” Mweheire said.

His comments came barely a fortnight when BoU announced a cut in the Central Bank Rate from 13% to 12% in December to lure banks to reduce interest rates to stimulate private sector borrowing and economic growth.

Samuel Odeke, the CEO at Commercial Bank of Africa said of prospects in 2017: “I am very optimistic that the banking industry will grow.”

Industry executives said they are encouraged by governments undertaking of several infrastructural projects arguing that the developments would in the medium to long term create multiplier effects that would help the other sectors of the economy to grow.

They cited the $20billion that will be invested in the country’s nascent oil and gas sector in the next three years saying the investments will have a much more trickle-down effect into the local corporate and small and medium enterprises and hence spurring economic activity.

Last year’s bank performance

Last year was generally a bad year for the banking industry as it chocked on bad loans leading to the reduction in profitability.

The worst scenario happened when one of the country’s leading banks, Crane Bank, was the worst hit hard; with its core capital wiped out by more than half, prompting BoU to take-over its management.

According to BoU, the NPLs to gross loans jumped from 3.8% in September 2015 to 8.3% in June 2016, but marginally declined to 7.7% in September 2016.

Bankers attributed the hike in NPLs to regional instability especially south Sudan and bad performance of speculative sectors like real estate – these failed businesses and borrowers [of these businesses] could not honor their loan obligations.

The average return on equity (ROE) and return on assets (ROA) declined from17% and 2.7% to 15% and 3% respectively.

However, as at the end of Sept. 2016, the total capital to risk weighted assets increased by 3 percentage points to 23% compared with 20% during the same period last year.

On a positive note, the BoU report described the sector as sound, citing favorable status of liquidity and capital buffers remaining well above the minimum requirement.

Latest data

Latest data from the BoU’s State of the Economy Report released last December indicates that over the last five years, Uganda’s economy has grown at an average of 4.5% compared with an average of about 7.5% between the years 2000 and 2011.

“The domestic economic growth outlook remains subdued, although the low point of the cycle appears to be behind us,” reads in part the BoU report.

It is this gloomy outlook and harsh economic environment that is currently making banks unsure of whom to extend credit especially on personal loans.

The BOU’s take-over of Crane Bank in October last year was reportedly attributed to few huge companies and powerful individuals who borrowed and failed to honor their loan obligations due to a bad economy.

It is on this basis that banks could still concentrate their bigger efforts towards lending to the government through treasury bills and bonds which are risk free at the expense of private sector borrowers.

But even in the TB segment, BoU reports indicates that yields on all categories of TBs were on a downward trend hence signaling limited profitability.

According to the report, the yields on the 91-day, 182-day and 364-day Treasury bills (T-bills) averaged 14, 15, and 16 % in the three months to November 2016, down from 20, 22 and 23%, respectively during the same period in 2015.

Also for T-bills, the yield on the benchmark 2-year Treasury bond (T-bond) also declined to 16% from 21% during the same period.

But business executives say the only way to avoid NPLs is for commercial banks to lower interest rates that will also translate into lower costs of doing business.

“There is nobody who gets a loan and fails to pay, whoever fails it means the terms and conditions are not favorable,” said Martin Okumu, the head of communications at the Uganda National Chamber of Commerce and Industry.

Okumu, like his friends at Kampala City Traders Association, Private Sector Foundation Uganda and Uganda Manufacturers Association, argues that higher interest rates lead to high costs of operations that eventually lead to high prices.

ANALYSISBy Lominda Afedraru

Though Hibiscus sabdariffa, also known as Roselle, grows in the wild, it is domesticated in some parts of Northern Uganda as a traditional vegetable. Many farmers are growing it on medium to large scale.

Besides being part of the diet, the plant has a number of medicinal properties and the products made from it have certain health benefits.

But a youth/women’s group in Arua District, Ayivu Women Poverty Alleviation Association, is making other products from Roselle such as wine.

Started in 2002, the association has 35 mainly female members. Many of them own other businesses such as saloons, poultry farms, retail shops but the wine and juice business is done jointly.

The proceeds are added up and shared at the end of the year.

In 2014, they joined an entrepreneurship initiative supported by International Labour Organisation (ILO) and European Union (EU) to train youth from various districts in business innovation.

After the training, they applied for a grant as a startup capital and were given Shs27m.

“When pitching our business idea, we focused on value addition on non-timber products and natural vegetative cover with medicinal and nutritional benefits,” explains Damaline Amaguru, the group’s coordinator.

“We majored in hibiscus which we collect from the wild and also buy from farmers growing hibiscus for consumption.”

Dried flowers are used in processing wine, juice and powder. The wine making activity started last year.

Fresh hibiscus is harvest, crushed and dried. Once dry, it is soaked in cold water overnight and sieved to get the liquid. Sugar, pineapple juice or grape juice is added for the right flavour.

The sugar is heated before it is added to the mixture and left to ferment for three months.

The group prefers to process a 40 litres of wine at a time, where mixing the ingredients can be apportioned easily.

Therefore, it will require 3kg of dried hibiscus and 10kg of sugar plus a litre of pineapple or grape juice.

It is made to ferment in 40-litre jerry can with an outlet for fresh air to enter.

The wine is packaged in 700ml bottles, which are sold at Shs20,000 each. However, the members buy it at Shs15,000.

The group has plans to package their wine in smaller quantities to suit various consumers such as smaller bottles which they can sell at Shs10,000.

“To process wine and juice, we bought a miller to crush the hibiscus, blender for the juice,” Amaguru points out.

EU head of cooperatives, Michelle Labeeu encouraged those, just like Ayivu Women Poverty Alleviation Association, who benefited from the three-year project, to continue with their innovations.

Citing the statistics, she noted that 40 per cent of the population comprises youth, between the age of 14 to 18. This means entrepreneurship innovations will help solve the challenge of youth unemployment.

By Kagondu Njagi

Weru, Kenya —Insects like termites can provide additional nutrition and income when extreme weather hits traditional harvests

The knee-high dome on Ikung’u Kathimbu’s farm in Weru village, eastern Kenya, shelters an unusual crop: a termite swarm.

Kathimbu walks around the structure covered with banana leaves, drumming on a tin-like vessel and stamping his feet on the ground.

“The noise is to make it sound like rainfall, so that the termites are tricked into coming out of the ground,” he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

Farmers’ traditional crops have suffered here in recent years due to long periods of drought. Some are taking up construction work to supplement their income, while others like Kathimbu are harvesting insects whenever the rainy season is delayed.

At this time of year, Kathimbu’s farm should be sprouting with a waist-high maize crop. But only wilting cassava stems populate the parched terrain.

“Five years ago I could store enough maize and beans in my granary to feed my family for seven months,” said the father of six. “But now all my grain is depleted three months after the harvest, and only cassava is left.”

Kathimbu and his family are not alone in grappling with this situation. Willy Bett, Kenya’s cabinet secretary for agriculture, livestock and fisheries, declared in November that the country was facing severe drought.

“The intensity of drought varies from one area to another,” he told a congress of the Seed Trade Association of Kenya. By his estimation, Kathimbu’s village lies in one of the most affected areas.

According to the Nairobi-based International Centre of Insect Physiology and Ecology (ICIPE), a growing number of farmers in eastern and western Kenya are now harvesting and eating insects like termites to cope with prolonged drought.

TASTE FOR TERMITES

Termites now supplement Kathimbu’s family’s meal of boiled cassava – as well as its income.

“When I have picked up enough termites, I take some to the nearby Kambandi open-air market and sell them to other families,” Kathimbu explained. A cup of insects fetches KES 10 (almost $0.10).

The most he has ever made in a day selling termites is KES 500 – which is “still far less than I used to make selling maize”, he said.

On good days, though, Kathimbu uses the extra money to buy maize flour to make ugali, a popular white bun-like dish and a treat for the family.

Another advantage of termites is that they are rich in protein, according to ICIPE scientist Komi K.M. Fiaboe.

ENVIRONMENTAL THREAT

But farmers like Kathimbu need to establish proper insect farms to prevent damage to other crops, said Fiaboe.

“While termites help decompose the soil, they can also attack crops when the soil lacks humidity and minerals,” he explained.

He suggested breeding insects that multiply quickly and can be harvested easily, like termites, crickets and grasshoppers, which do less damage to crops than some other species like locusts.

A recent study published by the African Journal of Food, Agriculture, Nutrition and Development found that people still see insects as ugly, smelly and poisonous creatures that cause allergic reactions.

“This is because people harvest wild insects and consume them raw, leading to negative effects on their health,” explained co-author Kennedy Pambo, a researcher at the Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology.

Cutting down trees and digging up the ground to make traps like Kathimbu’s termite mound also damages the environment, he said.

“This can be solved by rearing insects in a controlled manner, instead of harvesting them at random,” said Pambo.

“When harvested, they should be mixed with other foods like maize, and milled into flour. The resulting porridge is nutritious because it has high levels of starch and protein,” he added.

($1 = 103.6000 Kenyan shillings)

(Reporting by Kagondu Njagi; editing by Zoe Tabary and Megan Rowling. Please credit the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters, that covers humanitarian news, women’s rights, trafficking, property rights and climate change. Visit http://news.trust.org)

By Thupeyo Muleya

A South African magistrate has thrown out a bid by 300 Zimbabwean farm workers who sought to recover R1,6 million from a Limpopo farmer who has been underpaying them for the last 10 years. Mr Van der Walt, the proprietor of Johannesburg Farm in Lephalale area, and nine other top managers had been dragged to court for assault and kidnapping of the Zimbabweans, but was freed after witnesses failed to show up several times at the courts.

Sources close to the case said 36 of the witnesses failed to attend the trial when that country’s Home Affairs Department deported them under the guise that they would be called when the trial resumes.

However, most of the witnesses were allegedly never called to testify against Mr Van Der Walt. Department of Labour spokesperson for Limpopo Province Miss Lerato Makomene confirmed the developments yesterday.

She said Mr Van der Walt had also been separately charged by the Department of Home Affairs for employing illegal immigrants.

“The Department of Labour had also filed another charge of labour exploitation, but our case is now weak since the court has thrown out the case. “Our hands are tied. There is nothing more we can do at law,” said Miss Makomene.

She said the farmer was accused of forcing the Zimbabweans to work from 6am to 11pm, and paying them R70 instead of the government-stipulated R103 for an eight hour-shift per day.

“We tried to bring him to the round table without success, and hence, we had to resort to legal action,” she said.

The expelled workers’ spokesperson, Mr Thembani Ndlovu, who is a former foreman at the farm, could not be reached for comment yesterday.

By James Ngunjiri

Nairobi is on the global watchlist of top five fast modernising cities that are attracting new global business on growing realisation that big companies cannot operate from one sub-Saharan location in South Africa.

The city is also taking off as a hub for global corporations looking to establish an office to cover the East African region, according to Global Cities – The 2016 Report by Knight Frank.

Big companies with global reach have come to the conclusion that they need to operate from multiple locations and Nairobi is a natural starting point in entering or expanding to new regions.

Nairobi has been termed as demonstrating Africa’s rapid modernisation and joins other cities like Dubai, United Arab Emirates capital, which is said to have pulled clear of past difficulties and is expanding as a hub for investment, tourism and transport.

Others are Kuala Lumpar in Malaysia, Bangkok in Thailand and Moscow, Russia.

The report indicates that around 1.8 million square feet of modern shopping mall space was opened in 2015 and the space forecast to increase.

“Given that the mall stock previously had totalled 980,000 square feet, this amounts to a revolution in the city’s retail experience, which matches the huge economic and demographic changes that have unfolded in Kenya,” said James Roberts, the chief economist at Knight Frank.

With the world’s cities predicted to add 380 million new citizens in the next five years, new mass transit systems, utilities and faster connections to markets will be needed.

The Lamu Port and Lamu-South Sudan-Ethiopia transport Corridor (Lapsset) has been termed as one of the global infrastructure projects that will be generating new business clusters and creating real estate opportunities.

The project consists of a new 30-berth port and oil refinery at Lamu, which will be connected to Nairobi and the borders of Ethiopia and South Sudan by rail, road and oil pipeline.

Other mega infrastructure projects include; China’s global railway links – China is using rail to speed up freight transport to Europe on a route running through Russia or via Iran and Turkey.

The Chinese are also constructing the Standard Gauge Railway (SGR) from the Port of Mombasa to Nairobi and these projects form part of China’s one belt, one road programme to enhance trade routes.

In Ethiopia, a new Chinese-funded railway line between Addis Ababa and the Red Sea port of Djibouti was expected to begin operations before end year.

In Nigeria, a Chinese firm won the $12 billion (Sh1.212 trillion) contract to build an 870 mile railway between Lagos in the West and Calabar in the East.

Other projects are; The Delhi – Mumbai Industrial Corridor – This is a development zone that will be targeted for investment to build up new industries to support India’s rapid urbanisation.

Expanding the Panama and Suez Canals is another mega project. Presently, ships queue to transit the Panama Canal whose original locks are restricted to ‘panamax’ ships that carry around 5,000 containers.

A new set of locks completes construction by end year that will offer passage to ‘post-panamax’ ships that can carry up to 13,000 containers.

A super airport – In Dubai, Al Maktoum International Airport which opened in 2010, is to be expanded from a current freight capacity of one million tonnes of cargo per annum to 16 million tonnes.

The report notes that Kenya is seeing a surge in electronic payments via mobile phone.

“The country is undoubtedly a developing world success story,” said Mr Roberts.

Kenya’s Economic Survey 2016 Outlook showed that last year mobile telephone subscriptions increased to 37.7 million, resulting to penetration rate of 85.4 per cent.

Swelling middle class

Internet subscriptions increased significantly from 16.4 million in 2014 to 23.9 million in 2015. The number of licensed Internet Service Providers (ISPs) increased from 177 to 221 over the same period.

The number of mobile money transfer service subscribers grew to 26.8 million last year, with total amount of money transacted through mobile platform expanded by 18.7 per cent to Sh2.816 trillion over the review period.

The global cities report said that while agriculture retains a large share of Gross Domestic Production (GDP), the country is developing a broad-based economy with rising services and production industries.

“The country is a fast growing centre for Information Technology (IT) and telecom industries in Africa, and output from Information and Communication industries has risen by 30 per cent between 2011 and 2014 in constant prices.

Finance and insurance output is up by 24 per cent over the same period,” the report showed.

For 2016, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) is forecasting Kenyan GDP to expand by nearly 7.2 per cent, compared to 2.1 per cent for South Africa and five per cent for Nigeria.

As a result of this economic transformation, Mr Roberts said the ranks of Kenya’s middle class are swelling thanks to so much growth in service industries.

“They are now living, working and shopping ever more in line with developed world expectation, as well as a modern retail experience and international brands, there is rising demand for food and leisure outlets, now that shopping is increasingly combined with socialising. This is why Nairobi needs more modern retail stock,” said Mr Roberts in the report.

United Nations (UN) is forecasting that by 2020, the country’s urban population will expand to 14.7 million people, an increase of nearly 2.8 million.

Knight Frank’s head of London Residential Research, Tom Bill said that for investors and landlords there are clear long-term rewards in the world of short-term rental accommodation.

“Cities that embrace the flexibility of models like serviced apartments will reap the economic rewards,” said Mr Bill.

The report said ensuring quality levels of short-term accommodation will be a challenge, particularly given that future economic growth will be dominated by emerging markets.

For the serviced apartment market, it underlines the growing importance of branding and the uniform quality of services and booking systems.

For example, the report said the quality of serviced apartments in Kenya matches that of a hotel, but it’s done relatively informally to date. “The next level will mean more professionalism and a branded type of offer,” it stated.

The country has also been identified as easy in doing business.

In the World Bank’s Doing Business Index for 2017, Kenya climbed 21 positions to rank 92nd out of 190 countries.

That included jumps of 34 positions for ‘Starting a Business’, 21 positions for ‘Getting Electricity’, 25 positions in ‘Protecting Minority Investors’, and 48 positions for ‘Resolving Insolvency’.

UN notes that there is going to be more demand for modern retail over the next five years, although the shopping development pipeline is ready to meet the challenge.

By next year, a further 1.3 million square feet of modern retail space will complete development in Nairobi, as the city is expanding from being the economic focus of East Africa into its biggest modern shopping destination.