East Africa Economic Report

Alternative Route Map: Which will it be ?  The French- Oil Major, Total SPA, has finally been allowed to buy the 25 percent stake held by Maersk Oil exploration international in Lokichar oil fields in Kenya.  But to get the government’s nod, Total Spa had to “commit itself to the export of Kenyan oil through the Lokichar -Lamu oil Pipeline only.”  That is a major retreat from Total’s position stated last August that it will lobby Kenya to evacuate her oil through the Tanzanian Port of Tanga. Total SPA, remember, engineered Uganda’s change of mind to evacuate its oil through Tanzania.  The shift, which tossed out of the window an earlier MOU between Kenya and Uganda to evacuate their crude through Lamu Port, soured diplomatic ties between Kenya and Tanzania. The shift also caused a fall-out between Tullow Oil and Total SPA which ended with Total elbowing Tullow out of Hoima oil fields in Uganda.  Given these circumstances in Kenya, Total was enteri...

 Presidents:  Magufuli and Museveni:  Friendship or deception?  Politicians in East Africa, lead in scandal Mongering, we can report.  They willfully distort facts to support fake corruption claims.  This is a malicious bid to sabotage government projects; bully “stubborn Officials” into submission and/or get contracts for their cronies or for themselves, we can report. A survey of the most berated projects between 2015 and 2017 has established that the corruption claims were fake, driven by malice and selfish political goals. In all cases surveyed, the allegations of corruption provided no concrete evidence and no one was ever prosecuted.  Instead, technical reviews established cases of malice and vendetta. There was no evidence of sincerity on the part of the critics either. The alleged cases were prosecuted in Press conferences and public rallies. Four issues emerged in our survey to explain the fake reports: Protection of person...

The region marked in red is waste of Good Money Tanzania should abandon its regional SGR ambitions for now. She should instead focus on and develop a domestic SGR.  The regional SGR is spending good money chasing after bad money. This is why; Uganda has chosen to build her Standard Gauge Railway link through the Northern corridor to the Mombasa Port. Uganda’s departure puts the viability of the Central Corridor and the Dar-es-salaam Port as a regional transport hub, in doubt. The feasibility study on the Dar-Es-salaam, Isaka, Kigali, Keza- Musongati ( DIKKM) Railway Project, as the Central Corridor line is called, shows that the traffic flow on the line is low and that, to make a minimum return on investment, it must ship 8.5 million tons per year. Tanzania on her own can generate an estimated 3.1 million tons of freight per year; Rwanda, including DRC 2.3 million tons and Burundi 3.1 million tons. These numbers are estimated at what is called the conservative l...