East Africa Economic Report

  Over the years, th is publication has  remained optimistic regarding  economic and infrastructure   development Lamu Port in Kenya: From concept to reality in East Africa. You  would be forgiven if you say I bucked the trend.  We were optimistic that promises will turn into reality . We broke the ground with incisive reports on infrastructure projects in the region , many of which were at design or early implementation stages. Contrary to journalistic cynical instinct, we remained optimistic even when the odds appeared to weigh against us. In the process, we gained insights not readily available in publications of this type.  Time has always been both my enemy and ally.I allow time to prove  me wrong or right. Looking back 10=15 years ago, time has not proven us wrong. Time to take stock of the progress of  progress in the region. W hen this publication was born in 2012, China was beginning to make inroads into Africa and it faced...

LAPSSET Corridor Eight years ago, this publication predicted that Lamu will become a major city in Kenya. Something of a Qatar of East Africa. This prediction was grounded on several factors to wit: the 32-berth Lamu Port; the then proposed 120,000 BPD refinery; LAPSSET; the proposed power generation plants to generate 1150 MW; a  Crude  Oil Pipeline from Kenya’s oil fields in  Marsabit, and possibly South Sudan. Also See    https://eaers.blogspot.com/2018/06/lamu-gunning-to-be-energy-hub-in-kenya.html We said that these projects will  change Lamu’s  ecosystem. But we never anticipated the Magnitude of the change that came eight years later. We did not imagine, in our wildest dreams, of a US$17 billion  Petrochemical Plant processing 700,000 bpd. Now that Lamu has been chosen to host the plant, the second largest such  plant in Africa, we update our prediction because the changed ecosystem extends beyond Lamu County. Then  new complex c...

The Equator bridge: Looking doable   The East Africa Petrochemicals project is serious. The groundbreaking ceremony is this week, just three months after it was announced. The US$17 billion, project, driven by Africa’s richest Man, Nigeria’s Aliko Dangote, is historic and a record breaker.   Karuma dam: First Act of defiance against the West It is the apex of the continuing narrative of Africa rising, and it has landed with a bang! Few investors elsewhere will match that record, Not the Chinese, not the West. Only African billionaires will  approximate that record.  We are witnessing Africa’s economic emancipation in real time!   And Kenya, will become the nexus  of massive investments, it appears, because money follows money. The location of the Plant, in Lamu County, is also the head of the massive( $25 billion) LAPPSET corridor. LAPSSET, for Lamu Port, South Sudan Ethiopia corridor is a multi modal transport corridor incorporating a Sea Port,  High ...

LAPSSET Corridor: New Impetus KENYA’S Long-term development Blueprint, Vision 2030, launched in 2007, is hurtling toward the end. And Kenyans are discussing a new blueprint- Beyond 2030. Now, it is time to review Vision 2030. Did it deliver? Is it a good foundation to build a new blueprint? Were there weaknesses? What were they? Can they be redeemed?  Vision 2030 “aimed to transform Kenya into a newly industrializing, middle-income nation providing high quality of life for all its citizens by 2030. It was premised on three pillars Viz: Economic, Social, and Political. Anchored on Enablers and Macro foundations.” The target is defined. W e can now review it. Did Vision 2030 deliver?  According to the scorecard published by the Vision 2030 Secretariat, by 2024 significant progress had been made in all the pillars except the Economic Pillar. The Political Pillar, the least technical of the three, was 88.2 percent enforced. The Social pillar, incorporating education, Health, Clean...

  A Passenger  SGR train: Five hours to  Nairobi from Mombasa Finally! Kenya and Uganda have tightened the first bolts on the construction of the “Lunatic Express 2.0.” This marks the end of a six-year hiatus on the project.  The “Lunatic Express 2.0”, otherwise christened the Standard Gauge Railway, which had stalled on Kenya’s town of Naivasha will now extend to Kisumu and Malaba on the Kenya-Uganda border. This is a section of the longer Mombasa-Kampala-Kigali railway, envisaged back in 2009 by the East Africa Community. The crossing into Kampala, Uganda is a major milestone on the project. The two countries are under pressure from other members of the community to complete this section so that they take it up from there. The US$ 5 billion, 500KM section is a game-changer in transport logistics in this region. It cuts travel time from Mombasa Port on the Kenyan coast to Kampala, 1200KM inland, to 24 hours - down from the current four-days to a week. ...

Nairobi Expressway: With the City CBD in the background e  When the American You Tuber, Ishowspeed, visited Africa last Month, live streaming his stunts, Americans were shocked. To them, Ishowspeed had demolished the narrative of an underdeveloped, poverty- stricken Africa.   The African story previously was a story of destitution, of people living in hovels, no water, no electricity, no cities, and no cars... blah blah! “Africa is a shithole continent,” Trump said. The Live streams of expressways, high-rise buildings, modern cars, happy, healthy, and energetic people, shocked Americans, -and destroyed the narrative. I hear the live streams have stirred interest on the continent, and tourism enquiries are rising. I leave that to tourist- arrivals data at the end of the year. My point here is to answer the question: How did we get here?    It’s a combination of factors, to wit: Geopolitics, the digital revolution, the emergence of China as the second-largest power hou...