East Africa Economic Report

  Work on Nairobi -Naivasha section of SGR  Kenya last week shook off negative news about its economy to raise US$2 billion in the second issue of a Eurobond in four years.  The initial bond issued in 2014, was also met with bad news following an attack by “Al-shabaab” in Mpeketoni, Lamu, where 100 people were killed. The attack was seen in some quarters as an attempt to sabotage the issue, coming the day the issue opened. The Market shrugged off the bad news bidding $8 billion. This time around, the country shook off a downgrade of the bond by Moody’s and the withdrawal of a standby facility by IMF. The recent issue was oversubscribed seven times, with bids totaling US$14 billion. There is also a feeling that the bad news was also designed to sabotage this issue.  The success of the second issue has critics scrambling for metaphors.  if they had the sabotage of the second issue on the bad news, then they must be a disappointed lot. And now, the...

Lake Turkana wind power station Africa needs to spend a total of US$ 130-170 billion a year over the next seven years on productive and profitable infrastructure projects, says the Africa Development Bank. The expenditure in order of priority is US$ 35-50 billion on energy, $35-47 billion on transport, and $55-66 billion on water and sanitation.  Of the total capital needed, some $65 billion is already committed by governments and donors. That leaves a yawning gap of $68-108 billion dollars that must be mobilized from elsewhere. There is no shortage of funds looking for sound investments. An estimated $100 trillion are held by Institutional investors and Commercial banks and sovereign fund managers.  A small proportion of these huge savings is needed to develop Africa’s infrastructure.   A Solar Power farm  All Africa needs is to craft bankable resource mobilization strategies to tap into this reservoir in order to industrialize, create jobs and ena...