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Kenya’s Ruto to lift logging ban. Here’s why

Published

1 year ago

July 3, 2023

Kenyan President, William Ruto has hinted at lifting the ban on logging which has been in place for almost five years.

Ruto, while in Molo, a town around 200km north-west of Nairobi, said the decision was “long overdue” and was aimed at creating jobs and opening businesses.

“We can’t have mature trees rotting in forests while locals suffer due to lack of timber. That’s foolishness,” he said.

“This is why we have decided to open up the forest and harvest timber so that we can create jobs for our youth and open up business.”

Kenya loses up to 70,000 hectares of forest each year to illegal logging. A recent report by the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) and Interpol, also says that weak Kenyan laws are largely to blame for the situation.

Climate advocacy group, Greenpeace Africa has criticized the policy plan amid fears it “could have devastating consequences for the environment”.

“In Kenya, forests are home to rare and endangered species, and millions of local people depend on these forests for their livelihoods, relying on them for food and medicine,” the organization wrote last month in a petition against the move.

“Since the Kenyan government imposed the ban on logging six years ago, significant progress has been made in forest protection and with combatting the climate crisis,” it said.

“Lifting the ban will undo all our hard work, as it will open the floodgates to commercial and illegal logging solely driven by profit.”

Kenya’s forest cover currently stands at 8.8%, while the forestry and logging industry contributed 1.6% to the Kenyan economy in 2022.

Meanwhile, the president has insisted on maintaining his goal of planting 15 billion trees over the next ten years.

Related Topics:Featured Kenya logging president William Ruto

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IMF mission concludes 4th loan program assessment in Egypt

Published

2 days ago

November 22, 2024

Ifeoluwa Dada

Following the completion of a recent visit to Egypt, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has announced that its mission had achieved significant strides in policy talks aimed at concluding the fourth review of the IMF loan program.

The review is the fourth in Egypt’s most recent 46-month IMF loan program, which was authorised in 2022 and increased to $8 billion this year following an economic crisis characterised by high inflation and chronic foreign exchange shortages. It may unleash more than $1.2 billion in financing.

Along with reaffirming its commitment to maintain a flexible exchange rate system, the IMF stated that Egypt “has implemented key reforms to preserve macroeconomic stability,” including the unification of the currency rate that facilitated imports.

Earlier on Wednesday, Egypt’s Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly said Cairo has asked the IMF to modify the targets for the programme not only for this year, but for its full duration, he added without giving more details.

“Discussions will continue over the coming days to finalize agreement on the remaining policies and reforms that could support the completion of the fourth review,” the IMF added in its statement.

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Kenya seeks $750m from World Bank, obtains $200m from AfDB— Official

Published

4 days ago

November 20, 2024

Ifeoluwa Dada

The head of debt management for the finance ministry told Reuters that Kenya had obtained a $200 million loan from the African Development Bank (AfDB) and was negotiating a fresh $750 million loan with the World Bank.

After being forced to abandon proposed tax rises costing more than 346 billion shillings ($2.68 billion) in June due to fatal demonstrations, the East African nation’s administration, which has been grappling with significant debt, has been frantically seeking fresh funding.

The Finance Ministry’s public debt management office director general, Raphael Owino, told Reuters that the IMF’s October clearance of the seventh and eighth reviews, which opened the door for a $606 million loan tranche, had aided the ministry’s talks for more loans.

“The World Bank is coming on board, riding on the back of IMF receipts,” Owino said. “The AfDB is already on board.”

The discussions for more assistance, which came under the World Bank’s “Development Policy Operations” (DPO) with the government, were confirmed by a representative at the organization’s Kenya office.

“The amount of the current (loan) is yet to be determined. The amount will also depend on the implementation of the policy reforms agreed upon,” the spokesperson told Reuters, adding that past DPO loans averaged about $750 million.

In May, the World Bank approved the latest round of DPO loans, totalling $1.2 billion.

According to a statement made last month by Finance Minister John Mbadi, Kenya has set a foreign borrowing goal of 168 billion shillings for the fiscal year ending in June 2025.