Kenya has launched Africa's largest wind power farm in a bid to boost electricity generating capacity and to meet the country's ambitious goal of 100% green energy by 2020.The farm, known as the Lake Turkana Wind Power (LTWP) will generate around 310 megawatts of power to the national grid and will increase the country's electricity supply by 13%, President Uhuru Kenyatta said at the launch of the project on Friday."Today, we again raised the bar for the continent as we unveil Africa's single largest wind farm," Kenyatta said. "Kenya is without doubt on course to be a global leader in renewable energy."The project is powered by the Turkana corridor wind, a low level jet stream originating from the Indian Ocean and blows all year round, according to a government statement.An international consortium of lenders and producers, which includes the African Development Bank, came together to install the 365 wind turbines, which cost around $700m, the largest private investment in Kenya's history, President Kenyatta said.The 52-meter blade span windmills will take advantage of high winds in the remote area.In the past years, Kenya has made progress in investing in clean sources of energy. According to the Renewables 2018 Global Status Report, the country is 9th in the world for its geothermal power generating capacity of up to 700 megawatts.Around 70% of Kenya's national electricity comes from renewable sources like hydro power and geothermal.State-owned power company KenGen produces approximately 80% of electricity consumed in Kenya, and of that, 65% comes from hydro-power sources, which it sells to Kenya Power, the country's main electricity transmission company,
Kenya's LTWP is not the only existing wind power project on the continent. Africa has fully operational wind farms in Morocco, Ethiopia, and South Africa providing sustainable energy.
In South Africa, wind energy is already boosting electricity. With five wind farms in place, the country has added a collective 645.71 MW to the national grid.And in Ethiopia, two of its wind farms account for 324 MW of the country's total electricity output of 4180 MW.While these projects will help build energy supply on the continent, the International Energy Agency has said sub-Saharan Africa needs to invest $300 billion in order to achieve universal electricity access by 2030.Source: CNN
At a time when a large section of local Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) and start-ups have been found to be facing issues that make them ineligible to credit from financial institutions, Bank of Kigali is seeking to help reverse the trend.The bank is one of the four subsidiaries of BK Group, which last week announced a profit after tax of Rwf 7.5 billion in the first quarter of 2019, as well as surpassed the $1 billion valuation in assets becoming the first Rwandan company to reach the mark.At the moment, its large corporations operating in the local market that are eligible to access to credit with the local financial institutions 'fighting' for the attention of the firms.To change status quo, bank's officials said that they are seeking to expand the percentage of firms that are eligible to credit by working with the emerging Small and Medium Enterprises.Multiple studies on the local SME sector have shown that emerging firms continue to face challenges such as lack of adequate governance, poor bookkeeping practices, little market research and poor business plans among others.Its challenges that have driven up SMEs risk perception and often blamed for non-performing loans. For instance, Bank of Kigali's non-performing loans grew by 16.5 in the first quarter compared to the same period last year to Rwf 39.2 billion.Among the approaches by Bank of Kigali include working alongside the SMEs to point out common challenges and ways to address the challenges such as bookkeeping practices among others.The bank's Chief Executive Officer Diane Karusisi said that they also have incentives for well managed SMEs by giving them subsidized loans in a bid to encourage improved management practices."The main problem has been governance, these are typically managed by one person and when there is a small problem with that person, the whole company starts struggling. We are making sure that adopt ideal business practices such as record their financials, this is something that will work on for the next couple of years. Most SMEs do not understand the importance of having an accountant to look into their books," she said.She added that they were making gradual process with the intervention. "We are making progress. With the new credit approach that give subsidies to well managed SMEs, we are telling our customer that if you show us that you are managing your business better, you will get better rates," she added.The bank's Head of Business, Barnabas Kalenzi, said that other persistent challenges observed in the local market which they are seeking to address include challenges around security and collateral when SMEs seek credit.With most of the start-ups and SMEs having little if any assets to deposit as collateral when seeking loans, the risk perception often leads to loan rejection.To address the challenge, Kalenzi said that they are working with guarantee funds such as the Business Development Fund, among others, as well as partnered with business trainers to build capacity in the problematic areas."There are also challenges around security, collateralisation of loans. Many loans are rejected because of security, we are partnering with several guarantee funds to be able to increase the collateralisation of these facilities. We have also partnered with firms like Inkomoko and BPN to be able to do some training on management of these companies," he said.Commenting on the performance of the interventions so far, he said that there was some notable improvement saying that they are likely to scale up the intervention to a bigger level."We are already seeing some progress in firms that have undergone this training and hopefully we can scale it to a bigger level," Kalenzi said.Such interventions, he said are aligned to supporting government priorities such as support to local producers under the Made In Rwanda initiative, boosting job creation and support emergence of competitive local enterprises among others.Bank of Kigali is currently the market leader in regards to lending with 32.9 per cent market share.Source: Allafrica.com
Kenya is the fifth largest coffee-producing country in Africa, but that might change. Coffee farmers in the East African nation are turning to other crops because of drought and low prices on the international market.Joseph Wainaina, 71, started farming coffee a year after Kenya gained independence. As a teenager, he loved to farm, and for years he enjoyed good returns. But recently, global coffee prices kept dropping, and coffee trees became expensive to maintain.“I want to cut down coffee trees and forget about it. So that I can I continue with other projects like dairy farming, pig farming, and even poultry farming, these days even chicken makes good returns,” said Wainaina.In recent years more small-scale coffee farmers in Kenya have been uprooting their coffee trees. Those who have a sentimental attachment to coffee and want to continue farming it must incorporate other crops to make a decent living.Morris Ikonya is still growing coffee, but to make ends meet for his family, he is forced to grow other crops. “I cannot live off coffee right now. I have to diversify and do other things, and that’s how I went into mushroom farming, and I went into pumpkin farming to try and diversify the source of income,” he said.Ikonya says he is continuously battling tree diseases and he spends $200 a month to maintain his coffee farm. The price of coffee on the global market has dropped up to 30 cents a kilo. If they are lucky, farmers get 70 cents per kilogram.Joseph Kieyah of Kenya's Coffee Task Committee, a body charged with policy formulation in the sector, says they are trying to help farmers increase production and coffee tree yields.“We also proposed a three-year subsidy program again with the intention of trying to assist the farmer to reduce the production cost. Increased production such a way that, we are talking about increasing production from two kilos cherry per tree about eight,” he said.The reforms in the coffee sector may have come too late for some farmers. Some, like Wainaina, say only an increase in global prices could convince them to continue producing coffee.Source: Allafrica.com
Dar es Salaam — Tanzania will sell Zimbabwe a total of 700,000 tonnes of maize following food shortage challenges that the latter has been experiencing in recent years.President John Magufuli made the commitment yesterday to his Zimbabwean counterpart, President Emmerson Mnangagwa, when the two met at the Harare State House during Magufuli's official visit.Dr Magufuli told his host that Tanzania had a total of 3.3 million tonnes of surplus food after harvesting 16.8 million tonnes while the country's needs do not exceed 13.5 million tonnes.Tanzania's Head of State advised Mr. Mnangagwa to consider introducing a National Service programme in his country, saying Tanzania was a good example as the army unit did not only inculcate discipline among the youth but toughened them to cope with various situations and had the potential of making economic contributions.During their talks, President Magufuli also expressed his disappointment over what he described as the absence of meetings under the Joint Permanent Commission (JPC) since 1998, something he said weakened bilateral relations between the two countries.He directed cabinet ministers in Tanzania to hold JPC meetings with their Zimbabwean counterparts in the next two months to discuss areas of further cooperation.Source: allafrica.com
Ghanzi — Director of Crop Production, Mr. Galeitsewe Ramokapane has observed that Botswana dependency syndrome on importation of Agricultural produce is crippling the agricultural sector.Officiating at horticultural technical meeting geared towards improving horticultural sub- sector in Ghanzi recently, Mr. Ramokapane stated that 'we cannot produce enough because we have alternatives, as we are depending on our brothers and sisters in South Africa'.He said despite numerous climate change related challenges facing crop production, food security was an attainable goal only if Batswana could calibrate their mindset. He was concerned that the country was importing even produce of crops which were doing better in the country.He said the department was working on the formation of horticultural clusters, 'as we expand the idea, we want to exploit all horticultural value chains'. He added that jobs would be created, and value addition incentives enjoyed in the process."There are a lot of potatoes produced in Ghanzi area, we should consider processing them before selling them," he exemplified. Chief horticulture officer, Ms. Kgotso Madisa called for exploitation of horticultural the value chain, saying farmers should be taught about every opportunity in each component.She posited that horticulture presented job opportunities, hence urged sector officers to be agents of change. One participant, Ms. Mpho Morupisi called for establishment of fruit nurseries across the country, arguing that importation of fruit promoted spreading of pests."Importation of fruit means importation pest," she said. One Mr. Moremedi Thokweng said productive areas should be exploited to improve production. He said excessive use of chemicals in agriculture was posing health hazards to consumers.This was so particularly because there was no sector dedicated to check chemical residues content in Agricultural produce. He also said the funding component of horticulture should be improved.Ghanzi District agricultural coordinator, Ms. Merriam Munamava said safety of agricultural produce was a concern, thus appealed to farmers to keep records of all activities in their farms. "Let's go back to the basics, encouraged farmers to keep records and inspect them." she stated.Source: Allafrica.com
Page 39 of 44