East Africa

Details: Julius Mbaluto; East Africa; 03 January 2023; 385

On January 2, a number of local gospel icons, and supporters of various gospel events, who were previously nominated for the Rise and Shine World (RSW) Awards, emerged winners.

RSW seeks to recognise and honour people in different categories for their work and efforts in spreading the word of God, and winners were announced ahead of the international annual ceremony and gala dinner for the RSW Awards which will be held on February 18, at John McVeity Centre, Australia.

Among them were Israel Mbonyi, who won the Africa Male Gospel Artiste of the Year, and gospel duo Vestine Ishimwe and Dorcas Kamikazi, alias Vestine and Dorcas, who scooped the award for Africa Best New Gospel Artiste of the Year. Last year, the duo had many successes to their name, and this year, their hard work continues to pay off as they beat other artistes from different countries.

RSW also recognised gospel digital platforms, like Rwanda’s All Gospel Today, a group of people from different churches, which won the Africa Christian Digital category, and the RSW gospel supporters’ award went to national carrier RwandAir in the Africa Airline Gospel Supporter of the Year category.

Other winners were Rev. Canon DR Antoine Rutayisire who won Role Model Gospel Leader of the Year, Apostle DR Paul Gitwaza who scooped Church Achievement Award of the Year and Rev Pastor Primitive Mukankera who won the Promoting Godly Parenting of the Year 2022 award.

In addition to other East African countries, Zimbabwe, Nigeria and South Africa also won in other categories. Other countries include the USA, Australia, Canada, India, New Zealand and UK, among others.

Rev Canon Dr Antoine Rutayisire

Apostle Dr Gitwaza

Pastor Primitive Mukankera

Vestine and Dorcas By Eliane Irakoze, New Times

Details: Julius Mbaluto; East Africa; 03 January 2023; 358

The crumbs that fall off the East African high table find their way into the stomachs of the thousands of folks who are invisible to the eating chiefs. ILLUSTRATION | JOSEPH NYAGAH | NMG

The advantage of a country that is not as big as the Democratic Republic of Congo or Tanzania is that you can buzz around it quickly. In three days, we dashed from the Uganda-Kenya border, north to the Uganda-DRC border, and west to the Uganda-Rwanda border, taking in as much of the Northern Corridor as we could.

Making this journey is a study of how East Africa’s long-distance truckers have shaped the routes they have driven for decades. Many towns on the Northern Corridor were born because truckers stopped there to rest. Little restaurants, tiny bars, and a thriving commercial sex industry often followed.

There are also the small things, often overlooked, that come to be — especially when the sanguine practical-mindedness of the long-distance trucker collides with the fluidity of the border peoples.

Lwakhakha is a trading town at the Kenya-Ugandan border. In the 1970s and 1980s, it was famed as an uncontrollable free cross-border trade (to the powers that be, smuggling) town. In recent years, the Uganda government has poured money into quite a good road to the border, and it has grown into a significant border crossing for the trucks ferrying goods from Kenya to South Sudan and the northwest Democratic Republic of Congo and returning from there.

One will notice young men clutching plastic bags lined up on the left side of the street to the border crossing into Lwakhakha on the Uganda side. A rush will break out when a fuel tanker approaches. One lucky lad will jump onto the truck and sit on the toolbox or any perch he can find as it drives along. Quickly, he will siphon fuel from someplace — it seems the tank — and jump off just as the truck hits the borderline.

It looks like theft until you realise you are the only one paying attention to it. The truck driver is seemingly unconcerned, only hinting he’s aware of what’s going on by slowing a little bit. The townspeople don’t pay attention, and the police at the borderline act like they have seen nothing.

Another fuel tanker comes, another rush, and another, and another. After a while, each of the young men has several polythene bags full of fuel that they will sell to the boda boda (motorcycle taxis), local workshops, and generator owners.

What is happening is that the folks on the lower rungs of the East African Community food chain are feeding on the leftovers of regional trade. The trucks will have delivered fuel to depots and filling stations in Uganda, South Sudan, and DRC and are returning with remnants in their tanks. Additionally, now that they are nearing home, they can afford to donate a litre or two from their supply to the East Africans who have been consigned by economic difficulties to be bottom feeders.

There is an elaborate network built around these leftovers on the Northern Corridor. From the northern Ugandan city of Lira to the northwest city of Arua, which is near the DRC border, as you drive in, every now and then, you will catch a few jerrycans placed discreetly on the side left, which the valves of the returning fuel trucks will be facing.

The operation at Lwakhakha will be repeated several times, with everyone taking their turn to suck a few helpings of the fuel remnants, leaving some for the comrades ahead.

In this way, the crumbs that fall off the East African high table find their way into the stomachs of the thousands of folks who are invisible to the eating chiefs.

It’s a subset of a vast system, some of it not so benign. On the way to Arua is Pakwach town, nestled along the western bank of the Albert Nile. For reasons hard to fathom, in the first half of the 20th century, before independence, colonial borders became set in stone. Many Kenyan Luos migrated to Pakwach, forming one of their largest communities outside Kenya. Some say they came to fish. Others that they came to build roads and ferries.

Apparently, Pakwach is a blurry borderline that marks a happy zone for the East African car theft network. When a car is stolen from Tanzania or Kenya, and it enters Uganda, you can recover it — until it crosses Pakwach. When it does, kiss it goodbye. It is almost certain to disappear in a vast underground universe stretching from the Uganda borderlands and covering the sparsely governed extensive territories of DRC and South Sudan. A DRC or South Sudan plate will be slapped on it, and it crosses the borders, where it is again registered.

As the now deceased Eriya Kategaya, who was Uganda’s First Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for EAC Affairs, liked to say, East Africa’s thieves formed a federation years ago as the politicians were twiddling their thumbs over regional integration. In that northern Uganda-DRC-South Sudan axis, they have created a vortex where things mysteriously disappear.

Proximity has also led to local subversion. There are weekly battles in Arua as the police and Uganda Revenue Authority chase down unregistered or Congolese-registered boda bodas. In Bududa, a busy town inside Uganda not too far from Lwakhakha, there are many Kenyan-registered boda bodas. There, they no longer wage war against them. There is a parallel universe there, where borders don’t exist. It looks like the future of East Africa 25 years from now. Charles Onyango-Obbo is a journalist, writer, and curator of the «Wall of Great Africans» Twitter@cobbo3 By Charles Onyango-Obbo, East African

Details: Julius Mbaluto; East Africa; 02 January 2023; 406

An apology for excesses during the colonial period in Congo or reparation payments are not forthcoming, but in an attempt to rescue some of the work of the Belgian parliamentary select committee (or commission in Belgian parlance) that looked at the issue Flemish green lawmaker Wouter De Vriendt intends to table a resolution containing the committee’s other recommendations.

It was clear from the start of the workings of the committee that Congo shouldn’t be looking forward to reparations, but lawmaker De Vriendt had expected there would be an apology for Belgium’s role in Congo’s colonial past. This would be an apology that went further than the voicing of regrets by Filip, King of Belgians, in June of this year during his visit to Congo. Mr De Vriendt claims there was growing consensus in the committee over an apology till “the leaderships of the liberal parties and several ministers’ offices intervened”. Last week Wouter De Vriendt also pointed an accusing finger at the palace claiming several MPs had been contacted by the palace with regard to reparations, apologies and other sensitive issues.

Mr De Vriendt’s allegations were denied and, if true, would form a pretty unprecedented interference by the palace, but the lawmaker is sticking to his guns, though he says he can’t provide cast iron evidence for his allegations.

The MP now intends to table a resolution in parliament including the remaining recommendations with regard to restoration and reconciliation. “I want to prevent the committee’s work having been for nothing” he told VRT.

The select committee formulated exactly 127 recommendations, if those on apologies and reparations are put to one side. 144 people and organisations shared their views with the committee. In Congo and in Rwanda and Burundi, the two countries administered by Belgium under an international mandate after the Great War, conversations were held with 150 people.

Remaining recommendations include the establishment of a knowledge centre on our colonial past, the honouring of people of the Métis group, (the children of Belgian fathers and African mothers removed from their mothers and often brought to Belgium), the earlier opening up of colonial archives, the erection of a monument to Patrice Lumumba, the first Congolese Prime Minister, thought to have been killed with Belgian complicity, as well as a new name for the Belgian Leopold II Order in the honours’ system.

Mr De Vriendt hopes the Belgian parliament will approve his resolution, which carries moral weight but provides no obligation, within weeks. VRT News

Details: Julius Mbaluto; East Africa; 03 January 2023; 385

Kenyans waiting for service at Helb offices BUSINESS DAILY

National Assembly leader of the Minority, Opiyo Wandayi, raised concerns over President William Ruto's plan to disband Higher Education Loans Board (HELB) and replace it with another body.

Through a statement, Wandayi questioned the move arguing that it will affect continuing students being financed by the venerable body.

He explained that HELB disbandment would force continuing students to defer studies for more than six months - a move he claimed exceeded an academic semester.

"As you disband HELB, what happens to the poor university students who are due to report for their new semester this month?

Ugunja MP Opiyo Wandayi. TWITTER OPIYO WANDAYI

"Do they also defer their studies for six months, which is historic?" Wandayi questioned.

On the other hand, Kileleshwa Member of County Assembly Robert Alai faulted the move arguing that it was a plan to halt funding to public universities.

"They won’t fund public universities and they will abolish HELB?" Alai questioned.

A section of Kenyans online also castigated the Head of State, arguing that abolishing HELB would affect funding for students from less fortunate families.

They asked the President to reform HELB in order to make it more accessible to Kenyans.

"After removing education capitation making Education so expensive, he now wants to abolish HELB which happens to be the reason most of us were able to go through college education," Richie wrote on Twitter while appealing to him to rethink his strategy.

However, others faulted Azimio for castigating Ruto, insisting that the President's plan to abolish HELB was meant to increase student capitation.

While speaking on Sunday, January 1, Ruto vowed to establish national skills and funding council to connect the two levels to provide a credit transfer framework and to support academic progression.

He added that National Education Fund will mobilise grants, bursaries, and scholarships from private and public sponsors to cover non-tuition costs.

"To bridge the current higher education funding gap of up to 45 per cent, the government will establish the National Skill and Funding Council that amalgamates HELB, TVET, and University Funding Board," Ruto stated.

"This immediately doubles the current Higher Education Loans Board funding from Ksh11 billion to Ksh22 billion and eliminates interest on HELB loans," he added.

Details: Julius Mbaluto; East Africa; 02 January 2023; 368

MSC announced the reshuffling of its Angola service, adding Pointe-Noire in Congo Republic (CR) and Matadi in Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) to the port rotation, from January 2023.

MSC believes that the addition of Pointe-Noire in the Angola service will add a significant advantage for Asia and Indian markets in the region.

The Swiss/Italian container line said the Congolese port will serve as a key transshipment hub for cargo destinated to Angola and Namibia in Africa.

Stopping the tranship via Lomé will reduce by 11 days the transit time to the main Angolan port of Luanda, and Namibe, as well as Walvis Bay in Namibia, according to MSC, which noted that covering Pointe-Noire on the Angola service, also represents new business opportunities for cargo coming from North Europe and the Mediterranean.

"Indeed, cargo from the main cities of these markets will transship via Lomé, Togo and be directly discharged to CR and DRC," said MSC, which highlighted, "the interconnectivity between Angola and Namibia, and its key trade markets is going to strengthen Intra-Africa and international trade."