The International Trade Centre (ITC) has launched the Kenya chapter of SheTrades in the Commonwealth in a drive to connect more Kenyan women entrepreneurs to markets. A dedicated project of ITC’s global SheTrades initiative, the SheTrades in the Commonwealth project aims to drive increased trade, productivity and competitiveness for women entrepreneurs and women-owned companies to ensure that they play an active role in international trade. Through intensive training and mentoring activities, the goal is to strengthen the capacities of 3,000 women-owned businesses with a view to generate sales worth $38 million (Sh3.8b) by 2020. ITC is the joint agency of…
Author: NBM CORRESPONDENT
Over a third of all airline seats in Europe today are on a low cost carrier. In the Americas the figure is 31% and in Asia Pacific it is 26%. Midas Aviation, a team of aviation specialists suggests that the problem is not that Africa is immune to the lure and benefits of the low-cost phenomenon, just that the take up is happening from a lower base level than 10 years ago. This gives hope. Given time, and more steady growth like this, African air travellers will be able to take advantage of the low fare travel that consumers elsewhere do. As we look…
The manufacturing sector has gotten a huge boost in terms of costs as the government decided to reduce the power tariffs from Sh12 to Sh9 per kilowatt-hour. The power tariff reduction is expected to cause a change that will see locally manufactured goods become cheaper. The reduction came after the President chaired a meeting between the private sector and the government at the State House in Nairobi. In doing so the government challenged the sector to work towards increasing its production so that in turn it increases its contribution to the GDP by 15% by the year 2022. In addition,…
By David Wanjala That the country is choking under the weight of corruption is no longer surprising. It has become a national pastime. We are lurching from one scandal to another–from the plunder of billions at the National Youth Service, the theft of Sh63million worth of fertilizer at the National Cereals and Produce Board to the looting at the National Youth Fund, not to mention what is going on at yet another fat government revenue stream, the Kenya Pipeline Corporation. Corruption has long been a torturous and disturbing national narrative with dramatic twists and turns. And it is growing bolder and…
BY LUKE MULUNDA Kenyan financial institutions are facing growing threat from a new trend of fraud perpetuated by customers, according to the PwC 2018 Global Economic Crime and Fraud Survey (GECS). The survey says consumer-related fraud has become the second most prevalent economic crime in the financial services sector, at 37% incidence rate, after asset misappropriation. PwC defines consumer fraud as economic crimes that occur when a client exploits the governance and control vulnerabilities of a company to commit fraud. The report identifies the crimes as “episodic fraud” which happens when the perpetrators find themselves in circumstances that present an…
When fraud hits, the consequences can be devastating. And that’s why for any organization – be it government or commercial enterprise – preventing is better than cure. Fraud comes in different sheds and companies need to arm themselves with tools and skills of guarding their operations from these fraudsters. Here are ideas from PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC). Don’t get blindsided by your blind spots: If you don’t know it’s there, you don’t look for it. If you don’t look for it, you don’t find it. If you don’t find it, you can’t make the business case to look for it. In this…
BY BENARD AYIEKO The analysis of the ‘big four’ plan in President Uhuru Kenyatta’s final term continues in this edition of the ‘Last Word’. In this month’s Issue, we focus on the manufacturing sector – my penultimate article of the four-part series. The government intends to create jobs for the unemployed youth by scaling-up industrial activities in the manufacturing sector. The main areas of focus being the blue economy, agro-processing, leather and textiles. The fishing industry is also one area whose potential largely remain untapped and suppressed to a double-digit. The sector’s contribution to the GDP has performed dismally over…
BY DAVID ONJILI Arsene Wenger takes a bow after 22 years. Finally, one of football’s most long serving managers, Arsene Wenger, announced on 20th April 2018 that at the end of the 2017/2018 football season he will be stepping down as Arsenal Football Club manager. This will bring to an end his tenure of 22 years at the helm of Arsenal, a journey that enabled him guide the club to 3 premier league titles one of which without losing a single match and seven FA Cup wins. While the club has gone fourteen years without winning the league title and…
BY JESSICA LUSSENHOP Lakeith Smith was 15 years old when he went along with four older friends on a burglary spree. A neighbour called police when the group went into a home in Millbrook, Alabama, and the responding officers surprised the teenagers as they were coming through the front door. The group turned and fled out the back door, and a shootout ensued. When it was all over, 16-year-old A’Donte Washington was dead with a bullet wound to his neck. It’s never been in dispute that a Millbrook police officer shot and killed Washington – officer-worn body cameras captured the…
BY MUKULU KIOKO “My own sex, I hope, will excuse me if I treat them like rational creatures instead of flattering their fascinating graces and viewing them as if they were in a permanent state of childhood, unable to stay alone – Mary Wollstonecraft, English writer, philosopher, and women rights advocate Last month, I watched in wonderment as people gave tribute to the late Winnie Madikizela Mandela. The star of the show, for me, was her daughter, Zinzi. She spoke with emotion and composure that was both moving and admirable. In her speech she said, “We (women) can be beautiful,…