KDF camp Attacked by Alshabaab millitants

Heavy fighting is ongoing after suspected Al Shabaab militants reportedly attacked a remote Kenya Defence Forces (KDF) base in Somalia near the Kenya border.

KDF says it has destroyed two vehicles fitted with explosive devices as the militants claim to have overrun the camp manned by Kenyan soldiers serving in an African Union force.

Details on the number of attackers or casualties remain scanty.

 

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The attack comes a year after the El Adde January 15, 2016 attack that left more than 100 Kenyan soldiers dead.

Details of the El Adde attack showed that militants attacked the KDF camp at 5:30 am attack on two camps in the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) base camp.

According to Chief of Defence Forces, Gen. Samson Mwathethe, vehicles that had been commandeered by suicide bombers were driven into the camp, followed by a number of suicide attacks.

The Kenya Defence Forces camp had a company of not more than 120 soldiers of which an unknown number was killed in the attack, others injured while others are missing.

The militant group, which once ruled much of Somalia, wants to topple the Western-backed government in Mogadishu and drive out the peacekeepers made up of soldiers from Kenya, Djibouti, Uganda, Ethiopia and other African nations.

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Waiyaki Way expansion into new superhighway to Rironi kicks off

The expansion of the 25km James Gichuru-Rironi road stretch on Waiyaki Way into a superhighway has started.

Chinese firm Wu Yi has been contracted by the roads authority to upgrade the road and has started uprooting trees to pave way for the expansion.

Yesterday, Wu Yi workers were in Kangemi, uprooting trees between the two lanes and levelling the ground.

“We have three years to complete this work and we are going to make sure we stick to the timeline,” a Chinese engineer told the Star.

Wu Yi won the Sh16.4 billion tender in July to expand the stretch to a sixlane highway within 36 months. The stretch starts from the James Gichuru Road junction to the Mai Mahiu turnoff on the Nairobi-Nakuru highway.

Kenha director general Peter Mundia said the project will be funded by the World Bank and the government under the National Urban Transport Improvement Project.

“The project is expected to ease traffic flow into and out of the city of Nairobi, and is one of the three

major projects earmarked to decongest the city along the Northern Corridor alignment,” he said.

Major works that will be done on the project will include construction of 44km of six-metre wide service roads, as well as the construction of 3.4m wide non-motorised transport lanes on either side of the entire highway to ensure road users’ safety.

“A new storm drainage system will also be built to drain excess rain and ground water from the road and sidewalks,” Mundia said.

He said the highway will have 13 bridges at interchange locations, 21 pedestrian overpasses and five underpasses.

The upgrade is part of a World Bank-funded mega roads expansion project to decongest Nairobi that involves conversion of the 45.2km road between the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport and Rironi into a superhighway.

“The other components, which will be implemented in due course, are capacity enhancement and reconstruction of the JKIA to Likoni Road junction and capacity enhancement and reconstruction of the Likoni Road junction to the James Gichuru Road junction,” Mundia said.

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NO BLACKLISTING CLIENTS DORMANT BANK ACCOUNTS ON CRB

Commercial banks have been cautioned against listing customers with the credit reference bureaus over accounts overdrawn due to transaction-related charges.

Banks will now only be required to forward information relating to actual loan defaults unlike previously where they blacklisted customers holding dormant accounts as they continued to be charged ledger fees resulting in them being in debit position.

“The Central Bank of Kenya has provided clear guidelines that it must be data that is arising from actual loan granted, not transaction-based fees that result in debit account – I believe the institutions are taking that into consideration,” said chief executive of Credit Information Sharing Association of Kenya, Jared Getenga.

Negative classification of customers who had been listed because of transaction-related fees had seen them denied loans by banks until they paid the fees and had to wait for a period of up to three months before they could access another loan.

Data released last week by not-for-profit Financial Sector Deepening (FSD) Trust Kenya showed that 22.3 per cent of accounts held by banks were dormant meaning the owners had not operated them for over six months. The main causes of the dormancy included loss of income, failure by banks to meet customer expectations and poor customer service.

Most Kenyans usually walk away from the banks without officially closing the account but withdraw all available cash as lenders also charge a fee for closing the accounts. Credit card applicants who had failed to pay the card processing fee averagely Sh500 had also been blacklisted.

President Uhuru signs banks interest rate cap into law

Commercial banks have lost their bid to do away with interest rate controls, after President Uhuru Kenyatta signed the Banking Amendment Bill 2015 into law.

The move effectively limits the interest rates charged by banks to four percent of the Central Bank Rate. With the CBR currently at 10.5 percent, banks cannot charge higher than 14.5 percent as interest on credit.

President Kenyatta noted with concern that despite previous attempts to dialogue and lower interest rates, banks had failed to live up to their promises with interest rates ever rising.

“Upon weighing carefully all these considerations, on balance, I have assented to the Bill as presented to me. We will implement the new law, noting the difficulties that it would present, which include credit becoming unavailable to some consumers and the possible emergence of unregulated informal and exploitative lending mechanisms,”” President Kenyatta said in a statement.

The National Treasury, the Central Bank of Kenya and the banks have all been opposed to the capping of interest rates arguing it would be counterproductive to the economy. Banks have at one point said that with interest rate caps, banks would be forced to turn away perceived risky borrowers, locking out millions from the credit market.

The head of state said the government would closely monitor emerging difficulties especially those considered most vulnerable from credit access.

“Whilst doing so, my Government will also accelerate other reform measures necessary to reduce the cost of credit and thereby create the opportunities that will move our economy to greater prosperity,” the president stressed.

nterest rates have averaged 18 percent in 2016.

The new law also prescribes penalties for bank officials who violate the requirement.

Netherlands closes down 19 prisons due to lack of prisoners

Netherlands will close 19 of its prisons over the next few years because the cost of maintaining them is too high. The reason why the prisons aren’t cost-efficient, however, is something of a national blessing: thanks to the country’s steadily declining crime rate, thousands of prison cells are going unused.

The news was first reported by the Telegraaf (link in Dutch), which obtained government documents disclosing the plan to close five jails. The documents also showed 1,900 prison employees would lose their jobs.

The reason for the closings is two-fold, reports Dutch News: according to Ard van der Steur, the Dutch minister of security and justice, judges are granting shorter sentences, meaning criminals spend less time in jail. But there has also been a decline in more serious crimes. In recent years, the Netherland’s crime rate has declined about 0.9% on average every year, according to Dutch News.

The Netherlands has been facing this good-to-have problem for years now: the country closed eight jails because of the falling prison population in 2009, and shut down another 19 in 2014. And other countries started paying attention: in 2015, Norway transferred more than 1,000 of their inmates to a jail in the Netherlands because it was seeing the opposite trend—there was not enough room for all its criminals in its jails.

The Netherlands isn’t the first country to close jails because it doesn’t have enough criminals. Sweden’s prison numbers fell by about 1% per year from 2004 to 2011. Then between 2011 and 2012, they declined by 6%. In 2013, the country announced it would close four prisons and one other correctional facility due to the unusual trend.

One explanation for the decrease in prison numbers, according to the Guardian, was the Swedish supreme court’s 2011 decision to give less harsh sentences for drug offenses, which could have led to inmates spending less time behind bars before going back into society.

Possible Internet shut down to hit Kenya in next 8 days

 

Businesses that connect to the Internet through the TEAMS undersea cable are set to experience down-times between today and July 28 as the operator embarks on maintenance works.

The East African Marine System-TEAMS- that is jointly owned by the government and the private sector yesterday said the shutdown is to allow for expansion of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) Port of Fujairah. The TEAMS cable connects Kenya to the international network via Fujairah in the UAE.

Besides the Government of Kenya, the other shareholders in the TEAMS consortium include Safaricom, Telkom Kenya, Liquid Telecom Kenya, Jamii Telecom, Wananchi Telecom, Access Kenya Group and Bandwidth & Cloud Services Group. The telecommunications firms that ride on TEAMS will be forced to look for alternative routes to cushion their clients from total internet outage.

Kiambu County launches free WiFi in 4 towns

Kiambu County Governor William Kabogo explained that the WiFi hotspots will help county residents get access to the information required for services such as applications for business permits among other services.

“The WiFi initiative is driven by the county’s mission to better use technology to improve service delivery for all Kiambu County residents,” he said.

The high capacity WiFi network will cover a 5km radius from the Central Business Districts of each of the county’s four largest towns, with a capacity of 10 Megabytes per second (Mbps).

Kabogo said the delivery of free street WiFi zones in Kiambu will enable rapid access to information vital for economic and educational development in the county.

Kiambu County ICT Director Douglas Njiraini said the Kiambu WiFi connection will be rolled out in phases, with the first phase being installations in Thika, Kikuyu, Ruiru and Kiambu towns.

“It is not just people in hospitals that will have access to the Internet, but businesses and offices around the point of connections will also benefit. These locations were chosen because they have the highest number of human traffic, highest concentration of businesses and offices, and thus they are expected to have the most impact,” he said.

The first of the new WiFi installations will be at Thika bus stop and the Level 5 Hospital; at the Ruiru sub-County Hospital and bus stop; in Kiambu town, near Kiambu Hospital; and in Kikuyu; at the sub-County offices, main stage, market and at Alliance Bus Stop to serve the main Kikuyu Mission Hospital, two universities, one college and 15 schools.

The rest of the county’s remaining sub-Counties, Limuru, Kabete Lari, Gatundu South, Gatundu North, Githunguri, Kiambaa, and Juja, will be connected in the second phase.

“The aim of this project is to promote the use of ICT among the people of Kiambu, encourage innovation, and bring services closer to the people, by improving service delivery through the Digitika Portal,” Njiraini said.

The Digitika Portal enables residents to log in and request services from the county as well as make online payments using M-PESA, Airtel Money, Visa or MasterCard.

The Head of Government Affairs at Liquid Telecom Kenya, William Oungo, said affordable Internet access should be seen as a basic need, necessary for the public to access information, adding that unemployed youths are locked out of accessing the Internet because of lack of disposable income to purchase data bundles.

The free hotspots now being set up in Kiambu are using the same technology as has been deployed in Nakuru for the Bilawaya project, initiated by the President’s Office and implemented in partnership with Nakuru county and Liquid Telecom Kenya.

The Bilawaya project won the ‘Best WiFi Deployment to Connect the Unconnected in Rural Environment’ award during the World Wi-Fi Day Awards held in Liverpool, in England, last month.

Research shows there is a direct correlation between Internet access and economic growth, with World Bank statistics showing that a 10 percent increase in Internet access results in approximately 1 percent of extra growth in Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per year.

Internet access has been widely tipped to be the key differentiator in Kenya’s economic performance, creating at least 1,000 jobs a month in the business process outsourcing sector since 2013, according to the ICT Authority of Kenya.

You Can Now Use Your Mobile Phone Number as A Postal Address in Kenya

With the advent of email, many people questioned the future of postal services in Kenya but it seems that Postal Corporation of Kenya has not only been able to hold its water but also capitalize on the emerging technological trends to propel itself forward.

The last bit of doubt got erased off my mind completely when postal corporation started partnering with emerging online shops like Jumia to deliver their customer’s purchases throughout Kenya and it seems that they are not done yet.

Postal Corporation has come up with yet another brilliant idea aimed at capitalizing the widespread use of mobile phones in Kenya to strengthen postal services in Kenya. Referred to as MPOST, this Virtual Postal Address System allows you to use your mobile phone number as your postal address.

All you have to do is register your mobile phone number with Posta and specify the area you reside e.g. Nairobi and your preferred postal code.  For example if you are in Nairobi you can choose 00100 for G.P.O if you feel it is the most convenient for you, 00618 for Ruaraka and so on.

And the best part, if you ever change your location permanently or temporarily e.g. for a holiday, you just need to update your postal code to reflect your new location and Posta will do the rest. When a letter or parcel is sent to you, Posta will notify you via SMS. You can then collect it from your preferred postal office.

How to Register Your Mobile Phone Number for MPost Postal Address

• Step 1: Send the word Mpost to 40777. This will connect you to the Posta mobile phone registration system.
• Step 2: Follow the prompts and fill in your name, ID number, and your current region of service (from among Nairobi, Mombasa and upcountry).
• Step 3: Agree to Posta’s terms of service by replying with the corresponding entry.
• Step 4: Complete the mobile phone registration process by sending 300 Kenyan shillings to Paybill number 506500 using the account number 07xxxxxxxx-Postal code. For example if your phone number is 0729444986 and your preferred postal code is 00217 (Limuru), your account number would be 0729444986-00217.