News — kenya

Youth Vox Pop Africa! 🇬🇭🇬🇭🇬🇭🇬🇭🇬🇭 We take to the streets of Ghana and ask the general public what the Capital of Kenya is! Presented by Melissa May and Maya.

Sex starved female prisoners in Kenya are pleading with authorities to implement new laws that will allow them to have sexual intimacy with their spouses when they visit.

Sofia Swaleh who is serving a life sentence, speaking on behalf of her inmates said the time given to their visiting spouses and relatives is too short and does not give room for intimacy.

“The Government, through the leadership of Kenyan prisons, should introduce a law that allows women serving lengthy jail terms enjoy sexual intimacy with their visiting husbands,” Swaleh of the Mtangani GK Prison in Malindi, Kilfi County said.

Mtangani GK Prison senior administrator, Purity Nkatha Muthaura, spoke with K24 digital, saying the request from the female inmates or even their incarcerated male counterparts cannot be permitted.

He added that it will be impossible to allow for such conjugal rights to be enjoyed unless a new law is passed by Parliament.

The pursuit to have conjugal visits introduced into the country started years ago.

In 2014, similar requests were made but the country’s detention centers were unsuccessful as the Government was not in favour of inmates having conjugal relations because the Government was not ready for such arrangements in the detention facilities.

Meanwhile, the Democratic Republic of Congo is facing one of the worst humanitarian crises this year, which is affecting the prisons too, according to the International Rescue Committee.

The structures in the country are not conducive for the free man let alone those in prison. At least 17 prisoners have been reported dead over the past week in one of DRC’s biggest prisons, a charity says.

The causes of death, according to aid workers, were due to lack of food, medicine and poor hygiene.

The Makala Prison in the country’s capital, Kinshasa has been devoid of food supplies in the last two months, state officials confirmed.

“It’s terrible! People are dying almost every day,” a prison official, who did not want to be named, told the BBC.

A Kenyan family of a victim of the 2019 Ethiopian Airline crash has been paid $3 million by U.S. planemaker Boeing. This is the first Kenyan family out of 32 families from the country to receive a payout after losing their relatives in the deadly crash, according to local media.

“We sought and asked for the largest amount possible to be paid as compensation to the families we represent,” Manuel von Ribbeck from Ribbeck Law Chartered, a U.S. law firm that represented the family, stated after the settlement. “It is important to note however that no amount of money in the world will bring our clients’ beloved family members back.

This is the first settlement in a case by Ribbeck Law Chartered which sued Boeing on behalf of some families who lost their loved ones in the crash. A total of 157 people, including 32 Kenyans, died when the Boeing 737 Max aircraft crashed in March 2019 in the town of Bishoftu, Ethiopia. That accident came on the back of a similar Lion Air jet crash in Indonesia in October 2018 that killed 189 people.

Aviation regulators around the world subsequently grounded Boeing’s 737 MAX planes. This September, an investigative report said the plane manufacturer and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) were responsible for “repeated and serious failures.” Boeing’s 737 MAX was however cleared by the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration to fly again last month.

Boeing, which has lost more than than $20 billion following the crisis, is also facing a series of lawsuits from families of victims. U.S. law firm Ribbeck Law Chartered filed suits against the aircraft maker in a US Federal Court in Chicago following the two fatal crashes. According to Bloomberg, it would cost Boeing at least $1 billion to settle claims. Von Ribbeck has said the plane manufacturer “should not be greatly affected by it”.

“Most of the payments will be made by their insurance and reinsurance companies and as stated by Wall Street firms, Boeing can afford that cost: Boeing has posted record revenues of $101 billion last year and $10.6 billion in profits,” he said.

In July 2019, Boeing promised to give $100 million to help families affected by the deadly crashes of the company’s 737 MAX planes in Indonesia and Ethiopia. The company said in a statement that the funds will not go directly to the families but will be given to local governments and non-profit organizations to help families with education and living expenses and to improve economic development in affected communities.

Navalayo “Nava” Osembo, a lawyer and accountant, had her dream job working for United Nations but she decided to leave all that behind to start Africa’s first high-performance athletic shoes manufacturing company, Enda, in her home country Kenya. It is a decision she does not regret making, she said.

Nava followed her passion and upped her life to start Enda with her co-founder Weldon Kennedy, a social activist and running shoe nerd. The pair met in 2015 over discussions on how Kenyans can benefit from their running culture.

Kenya is known worldwide to produce some of the best runners on the continent. Like machines are to Germany, Nava wants Kenyans to also monetize what they are good at — running — and what better way to do that than to create running shoes for athletes, designed with Kenyan athletes, while creating jobs and giving back to the community.

Enda means “Go!” in Swahili, a language spoken in Kenya and other East African countries. The company was officially registered in 2017 in Kenya.

The company prides itself in being the only running shoe manufacturer on the continent and it currently has about 90% of its consumers in the United States, 8% in Europe and the rest in Kenya.

Enda uses Kenyans to manufacture the shoes and try to source most of its parts locally. However, the local supply chain is not conducive and the company hopes it changes over time. Currently, Enda sources about 52% of its materials in Kenya and the rest from China.

A more affordable model will be launched soon that will have all of its components locally sourced so Kenyans can also patronize Enda because currently, it is quite on the high side.

According to Nava, her ultimate goal is to invest heavily in the Kenyan people and create jobs while supporting local communities.

“By making our shoes here, we are not only supporting those who work with us to make them, we are also supporting various subsectors that supply us with raw materials, Nava said to WIPO.

“My aim is to create an enterprise that not only supports top athletes, but also generates opportunities and benefits for the broader community. That’s why we donate 2 percent of our revenue to community projects.”

Owners of the company currently have to provide adequate training for the locals because one of their major hurdles is the lack of expertise in the field. Another major challenge is funding as many local manufacturers and investors are reluctant to support them.

Enda’s debut product, Iten, is the ideal shoe for shorter and faster runs. It was named after the village where many marathon champions come from. It launched in 2016 and this was made possible with a crowdfunding campaign.

The second product is the Lapatet – which means “run” in Kalenjin, a language spoken by many great Kenyan runners. It is a daily trainer that works best for long distance runs.

Nava is charting a new path for female entrepreneurs and the lack of women in the field means there is more work to be done. According to her, Enda is only the beginning for Africa and Kenya in manufacturing.

“Kenyans hold the majority of the company’s shares. While we do have diverse minority shareholders, we are Kenyan founded, Kenyan led, and with majority Kenyan investment.”

Kenya’s tourism sector lost close to $1 billion in revenue between January and October, when numbers of foreign visitors fell by two thirds due to COVID-19, the Tourism Ministry said on Wednesday.

From safaris in the Maasai Mara and other world-beating wildlife reserves to holidays on pristine Indian Ocean beaches, Kenya’s tourism industry contributes 10% of economic output and employs over 2 million people.

It brought in the equivalent of 163.5 billion shillings last year, and the government had initially expected that figure to grow 1% in 2020.

But international visitors fell to fewer than 500 000 in the first 10 months from 1.7 million in the same period last year, the Ministry said, knocking 110 billion Kenyan shillings ($995 million) off revenues that had been predicted to reach 147.5 billion shillings.

Minister for Tourism Najib Balala said that there had been a slight rise in visitor numbers following the lifting of travel restrictions in August.

The government was “optimistic the situation will gradually improve once the (COVID) vaccines being developed become readily available to the masses,” he said in a statement.

Kenya has had nearly 84 000 confirmed coronavirus cases,with 1 469 deaths, according to data from the World Health Organisation.

Between 2012 and 2015, visitor numbers to Kenya fell after a spate of attacks claimed by al Qaeda-linked al Shabaab, which wants Nairobi to pull troops out of neighbouring Somalia.

A fall in attacks in subsequent years helped the sector to rebound.

Earnings from horticulture in the first 10 months of the year have defied the Covid-19 economic fallout to rise 8.6 per cent to Sh126 billion compared to a similar period year earlier.

The earnings were boosted by high demand of fruits as Europe, Kenya’s major market for fresh produce, saw most of the countries open up following the easing of restrictions that had been occasioned by Covid-19.

The value of exports like cut flowers reached $1.1bn (£845m) between January and October, almost 9% more than the same period last year.

Kenya’s Horticultural Directorate said there was an increase in global demand, despite concerns that the coronavirus pandemic would hit the industry.

Earlier this year the industry was alarmed at disruption caused by airlines being grounded and so unable to fly flowers as cargo to customers in Europe.

Business may have picked up recently but the sector is now growing concerned that the second wave of Covid-19 in Europe is creating uncertainty about demand for flower exports in the coming months.

Alongside exports of tea, horticulture is a major earner of foreign exchange for Kenya, which is the world’s fourth biggest exporter of flowers – after the Netherlands, Colombia and Ecuador.

Fruits export earnings rose to Sh17 billion from Sh11 billion while flowers, which normally account for the largest portion of the income from horticulture exports, raked in Sh89.6 billion — an improvement from Sh83.7 previously.

Horticulture is a major foreign exchange earner alongside tea, remittances from Kenyans living abroad and tourism.

Avocado boosted fruit sales but its harvest season has come to an end with the closure of export for the two main export varieties.

Vegetable earnings fell to Sh19 billion from Sh21 billion.

“The fruit sub-sector has been expanding and growing owing to exports of avocado and high demand for the produce in the world market,” said Benjamin Tito, head of Horticulture Directorate.

In the 1960s, about 100 Shona missionaries arrived in Kenya from Zimbabwe and Zambia to establish the Gospel of God Church. The move was accepted and welcomed by Kenya’s first president, Jomo Kenyatta, but his successors have not done much to integrate the Shona.

The descendants of these missionaries are stateless in Kenya. Despite living and being born in the country, they are not recognized by the law and have been demonstrating in recent weeks to end decades of statelessness.

Most of the missionaries settled in the Kiambu area just on the outskirts of the Kenyan capital, Nairobi. Under the first post-independence constitution, people who are not of Kenyan descent cannot be registered as citizens.

Due to this, about 5,000 Shona people living in Kenya have been rendered stateless because of this outdated law and it is affecting their daily lives.

Nationality laws in most African states operate on the concept of jus soli, or ‘rights to soil’ and jus sanguinis, or ‘right of blood.’ With the jus soli concept, a person can obtain citizenship if they are born in a specific country while with jus sanguinis, a person gains citizenship by virtue of the origin of their parents.

The issue now is, countries that base their citizenship laws on ‘rights to soil’ hinder people who are away from their ‘historic’ homeland rights to citizenship of their ‘new’ country, and unfortunately, they are also denied nationality of their new country of residence because of laws based on ‘right of blood,” according to a report by DW.

Thus, the Shona, without proper recognition, are stateless, meaning, they cannot hold Kenyan citizenship or identify as Kenyan nationals. Their ties in Zimbabwe or Zambia have been severed as well, hence, they cannot identify with those countries as well.

In international law, a stateless person is someone who is “not considered as a national by any state under the operation of its law.”

“They are in limbo because they are not protected by the citizenship of their new country and at the same time they are not protected by their country of origin because they are no longer citizens,” Cristiano d’Orsi, a research fellow and lecturer in Refugee and Migration Law at the University of Johannesburg told DW.

The Shona in Kenya do not have access to identity cards, passports or driver’s license and are hindered from accessing good jobs because they cannot be employed formally. Subject to informal streams of income, they cannot also open bank accounts or buy houses. They sometimes cannot get legally married or even travel abroad.

Mike Moyo, a carpenter in nearby Kiambu County, has 10 children and 7 grandchildren who were all born in Kenya but are stateless and do not have birth certificates or identity cards. Moyo’s eldest son laments on the dreadful effect of their statelessness.

“We can’t enjoy services that nationals enjoy. We don’t have mobile banking and going to the hospital is also a challenge.

“Birth certificate are needed for class 8 registration for our children who are in primary school so sometimes we are forced to ‘buy’ parents so that our children can continue with education. We cannot even save money.”

In recent weeks, some hundreds of Shona people have been going on peaceful marches in the streets of Kenya to draw the attention of the government to their statelessness; they simply want to be recognized.

Although they have fully integrated with the Kenyan way of life, they will not truly belong unless they are recognized formally as citizens.

Members of the Kenyan Shona community have presented a petition to the Kiambu county calling for recognition. The Assembly’s speaker, Stephen Ndichu, told VOA that it’s now up to the government to process the petition as they have handed it over for fast track processing.

There have been efforts by the Kenyan government to resolve the statelessness of the Shona people and in August 2019, 600 citizenships were offered to some of them although there is more work to be done. Some 2,000 people have applied for birth certificates recently and they are yet to be processed.

According to a UNHCR report, there are about 19,000 stateless people in Kenya and approximately 12 million in the world of which 715,000 are in Africa. Statelessness is seen as a major problem in Africa, however, there are ongoing works to tackle the issue across the continent by individual governments and the African Union.

Kenya’s president Uhuru Kenyatta met his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron in Paris on Wednesday to witness the signing of three bilateral agreements in a multi-day trip that is expected to strengthen rapidly expanding economic ties between the two countries.

Travelling with a delegation of ministers, Kenyatta will attend several high-profile events over the next two days including one of France’s premier business conferences as he seeks to increase French investment in Kenya. 

Over 100 French companies are operating in the East African nation in sectors like hospitality, energy, luxury goods and retail.

The latest deals, signed at the French president’s official residence, were in infrastructure.

French infrastructure giant Vinci Concessions made its first foray into Africa with a $1.3bn public private partnership (PPP) to build and operate a 175 km highway from Nairobi to Mau, one of the largest PPP projects in the region.

Other agreements included the development of the Nairobi Central Business District (CBD) and a commuter railway line to Jomo Kenyatta International Airport.

Along with foreign direct investment, Kenyatta is hoping to boost Kenya’s exports of mainly fruit and vegetables to Europe’s second-largest market.

It is his first overseas trip since Covid-19, providing further evidence that France is playing an increasingly important role in Kenya while expanding its footprint beyond the North and West African markets where it has been active since the colonial era.

“France could use this visit to strengthen their position in East Africa, as Kenya is showing a resilient growth over years and offers a stable stronghold to run businesses in East Africa,” says Clément Leclerc, sales manager for Kenya at Snetor East Africa, a French-company distributing chemicals across the region.

“I’m convinced that this meeting will be fruitful for both countries and will bring up new partnerships.”

Since 2012, the number of French companies in Kenya has increased dramatically from 30 to 110, according to the French Chamber of Commerce Kenya.

Major French groups to have recently established a presence in the country include Accor, Peugeot, Décathlon, Carrefour, Société Générale, Air France and France 24.

In 2018, French exports to Kenya increased by 11.7% compared to 2016, reaching €171.2m ($194.4m).

In March 2019, Macron made the first official trip by a French head of state to Kenya since independence.

France is now the third-largest investor in East Africa’s most developed market.

Kenya has introduced its first licensed investment fund for citizens living overseas, in a move that is expected to channel more of the diaspora’s money into development projects across the country.

Almost three million Kenyans living in mostly North America and Europe sent an estimated $3bn in remittances to Kenya last year, representing the largest source of foreign exchange for the country.

While remittances are usually sent to families, direct investment is also common though studies have shown that difficult procedures, lack of information and informal channels often lead to unsuccessful ventures.  

Kenya’s diaspora can now make investments through the African Diaspora Asset Managers (ADAM), an investment firm that has been granted the first licence of its kind for a diaspora fund by the Kenyan Capital Markets Authority.

The fund is expected to provide a safe and regulated investing body for Kenyans living overseas.

It also allows payments to be made using Kenya’s popular mobile money platform M-Pesa, enabling Kenyans to make investments from as little as five dollars.

Susan Muigai, ADAM’s head of global business development, said: “The use of technology will be the hallmark of the five diaspora funds, available to investors from all over the world as well as Kenyans. Using the ADAM mobile app, they are able to invest, check their investment balances and even sell their units in real time using VISA cards, bank accounts and MPESA.”

Abubakar Hassan, director of market operations at the Capital Markets Authority, added: “Kenyans living in the diaspora send billions home every year, but mostly for consumption and social support. A few have tried their hand in investments including real estate and farming, but without a way to establish what is happening on the ground, it has in numerous instances ended up with them losing their hard-earned money. We are delighted with this development, as all this will now be a thing of the past, as those investing through these licensed diaspora Funds will have the recourse and protection of the CMA as a regulator.”

Kenya’s president Uhuru Kenyatta has eased a range of Covid-19 restrictions, but reminds citizens that a return to one of Africa’s strictest lockdowns is possible in the event of a second wave.

Bars and eateries will be allowed to resume the sale of alcohol and remain open until 10pm while religious gatherings and funerals have seen capacity restrictions partially lifted.

The nationwide dawn-to-dusk curfew will continue for another 60 days, though the window has been reduced from 11pm to 4am.

Explaining the move, Kenyatta said the percentage of positive tests had fallen from 13% in June to 4.4% in September, which is less than the World Health Organization’s 5% threshold for lifting restrictions.

The president attributed the slow decline in cases to the “civic duty” displayed by Kenyan citizens and quick advances in health infrastructure.

Kenya now has over 300 intensive care beds throughout the whole of the country, compared to just eight at the start of the pandemic.

“In this period, we have installed more medical equipment than has ever happened since independence,” he says.

He also paid tribute to nationwide efforts to observe Covid-19 protocols, calling Kenyans the “first line of defense” against the virus.

At the same time, the president warned of cautionary tales elsewhere and made it clear that his government would continue its strict approach.

“The greatest danger is at the moment of victory,” he says.

“If we have won the battle against Covid-19, we have not yet won the war. The possibility of a second wave is real.”

Despite expectations to ease measures, Kenyatta has continued with school closures until possibly 2021.

Businesses, however, have welcomed the news due to the increase in operating hours.

“Bars, churches, taxi businesses and other informal sector jobs are set to boost liquidity in the Kenyan economy unlike during the old 9pm to 4am curfew,” says Sam Wakoba, CEO of Moran Media.

The government is also continuing with regulation changes to boost the economy, like reductions in VAT and income tax.

The Central Bank of Kenya expects the country to grow at a revised rate of 2.3% this year, driven by increased agricultural exports due to favourable rains.

This World Bank projects a lower growth of 1.5% as a result of the massive disruption to the aviation and tourism sectors.

While the lifting of most restrictions will breathe life into the damaged economy, a return to a more severe lockdown is still possible.

“As far as I give these directives, I underscore the need to adhere to the protocols, to keep the gains we have made,” Kenyatta says.

“I will not hesitate to escalate any measures in the event cases rise again.”