Loans Made Easy for Small Traders
A partnership between Fina Bank and the Centre for International Development at Harvard University`s Entrepreneurial Financial Lab has seen a new flavor in the banking industry in East Africa.
Clients of Fina Bank; one of the banks in East Africa will not need collateral anymore to get loans. A new technology that will enable all this is being experimented and once done, the bank will be using psychometric technologies that involve the evaluation based on the entrepreneurial potential or future earning potential of applicants for small business finance. This will replace the screening of new borrowers based on their current wealth, known as collateral-based lending or the social reputation known as microcredit.
The move that has been praised as a breakthrough in profitable lending to small and medium enterprises in Africa will be piloted in Kenya, Rwanda and Uganda. Once it is proved to be successful, it will be very essential in boosting small and medium enterprises in the region financially.
Rwanda to Assess Banks Liquidity Levels
The government of Rwanda through the Central Bank is set to assess the liquidity volumes in local banks; a move that will help to determine whether it should proceed with introducing long-term capital as a stimulus package to accelerate credit to the private sector. The lessening liquidity in local commercial banks has seen a rather tight clutch on private sector’s accessibility to long-term investment capital, a situation that has called for state intervention. The governor of the National Bank of Rwanda (BNR) was reported as saying that according to the local banks’ books of accounts, they have comfortable liquidity levels, but they keep warning that it`s for only short term lending. The assessment is set to be conducted throughout the second half of this year.
New Financing Plan for Public Universities in Kenya
Barclays Bank in Kenya is developing yet a new platform in the bonds market that promises to significantly change the way public universities finance their unending needs. The bank is working on an education bonds plan that will be valued on the billions of shillings worth of assets held by the public universities. According to people familiar with the plan, it has got the potential of lowering the cost of education and increasing access to the universities by the prospective students. The aim is to relieve the institutions of their heavy dependence on short term borrowing that has left them with a yawning budget gaps and ramped up the cost of higher education.
Tanzanian: EAC pact with EU to delay
The government of Tanzania has disclosed that the East African Community (EAC) bloc is likely to delay the signing of a new trade deal with the European Union because fresh issues have been introduced in the negotiations. The five bloc members of Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda and Burundi - are among the nearly 80 countries of the Africa, Caribbean and Pacific group that are in talks on a new pact with the EU. The Tanzania trade minister said that the issues included government procurement, environment and sustainable development among others.
South Africa, Zimbabwe, Zambia and Mozambique have signed an agreement to share the tourism spin-offs of the 2010 Fifa World Cup through “border-free” tourism packages. This means more cheaper opportunities for the Fifa World Cup fans come 2010.
South Africa’s provincial Limpopo Tourism Parks Board, the Zambia National Tourist Board, Zimbabwe Tourism Authority and Mozambique struck the deal creating the Limpopo-Zambezi Destination at the Tourism Indaba conference and exhibition in Durban.
These agreements will see the creation of new package tours between and within the four countries and this will result in the easing of border formalities to smoothen the route of travellers through border posts, and joint marketing and branding in support of all the package tours.
The Victoria waterfalls, located at the border between Zambia to the north and Zimbabwe to the south, is one of the natural wonders of the world. It is 1 708 metres wide, making it the largest curtain of water in the world. Remember that South Africa is not only an important emerging economy in its own right but rather, it is also a key gateway to sub-Saharan Africa.
George Obama, the half-brother of U.S. President Barack Obama, has been arrested by Kenyan police on a charge of possession of marijuana, police said Saturday. According to the Inspector Augustine Mutembei, the officer in charge, said Obama was arrested on charges of possession of cannabis, known in Kenya as Bhang, and resisting arrest. He is scheduled to appear in court Monday, Mutembei said.He is being held at Huruma police post in the capital of Nairobi. Speaking from behind bars, Obama denied the allegations.George Obama and the president barely know each other, though they have met. George Obama was one of the president’s few close relatives who did not go to the inauguration in Washington last week.In his memoir, “Dreams from My Father,” Barack Obama describes meeting George as a “painful affair.” Barack Obama’s trip to Kenya meant meeting family he had never known.McKenzie tracked down George Obama in August and found him at a small house in Huruma, a Nairobi slum, where he lives with his mother’s extended family. His birth certificate shows that he is Barack Obama’s half-brother.The two men share a Kenyan father. In the memoir, Barack Obama struggles to reconcile with his father after he left him and his mother when he was just a child. Barack Obama Sr. died in a car accident when George was just 6 months old. Like his half-brother, George hardly knew his father. George was his father’s last child and had not been aware of his famous half-brother growing up.Unlike his grandmother in Kogelo, in western Kenya, George Obama had received little attention from the media until reports about him surfaced in August. The reports sprung from an Italian Vanity Fair article saying George Obama lived in a shack and was “earning less than a dollar a day.” Those reports left George Obama angry.Obama, who is in his mid-20s, said at the time that he was learning to become a mechanic and was active in youth groups in Huruma. He said he tried to help the community as much as he can.Remember you can book your trip to the land of Obama! Get there and see the ancestral home of the US president!
SIX five-star hotels are to be constructed in six national parks in Uganda to boost tourism; this is according to the minister for tourism for the Uganda government.Kidepo National Park in north eastern Uganda, Bwindi Impenetrable National Park and Mgahinga Gorilla National Park in south western, Murchison Falls National Park in the North, Lake Mburo National Park in the south and Queen Elizabeth National Park in the west; all these would get the five star hotels according to the ministry.The minister revealed that negotiations with investors like Kempinski Hotels, Hilton Hotels, Sheraton Hotels and Serena Hotels to construct these hotels are under way ant the hotels would be in position to boost Uganda’s tourism sector in the near future. According to the current state of the industry, more hotels are needed near game parks to accommodate tourists.It is important for our tourists to face nature in its virginity, see animals like climbing lions and relax and therefore, accommodation within the parks has to be improved to the best standards.Tourism is one of the fastest growing industries in Uganda, with earnings expected to reach $500m (about sh820b) annually. This is the first venture in East African National Parks
Can any one mental snapshot encapsulate the Tanzanian experience? Thousands upon thousands of wildebeest that march in mindless unison on the annual migration through the Serengeti, perhaps? Or a family of elephants wading across the wide, muddy Rufiji/Tarangire River? What about a pride of well-fed lions sunbathing on the grassy floor of the majestic Ngorongoro Crater? Certainly, it is such images that tend to spring to mind when one thinks of Tanzania. And properly so!
Tanzania, truly, is a safari destination without peer. The statistics speak for themselves: an unparalleled one-quarter of its surface area has been set aside for conservation purposes, with the world-renowned Serengeti National Park and incomprehensibly vast Selous Game Reserve heading a rich mosaic of protected areas that collectively harbour an estimated 20 percent of Africa’s large mammal population.
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