Ramah Nyang
@Ramah_Nyang • 223,614 subscribers
With bylines at @BloombergAfrica. | Business Journalist @cgtnafrica. | Moderator | Car Nut | Views here = mine.
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![Now that we’ve all had a few days to process the hype surrounding the proposed 650,000 bbl/d refinery in East Africa 🇰🇪 🇺🇬 🇹🇿, let’s take a long, hard look in the mirror. [1] Funding Gap: Where will Kenya 🇰🇪, Uganda 🇺🇬, and Tanzania 🇹🇿 raise the ~ $20 billion needed to build this facility when they already spend more on debt servicing than on healthcare or education? Just as critical - can they raise that capital, cheaply? [2] Diplomacy Deficit: Relations between these three countries are prickly on most days. Can nations that block agricultural imports, incinerate day-old chicks and limit the reach of each other’s airlines really cooperate on a project of this magnitude? [3] Successor Risk: With potential changes in government in Kenya 🇰🇪 (2027) and Uganda 🇺🇬 (2031), will the successors of William Ruto and Yoweri Museveni prioritize regional interests over national ones? “When Aliko Dangote built his refinery in Nigeria, he was essentially dealing with one country,” says Wangari Kebuchi, Founder & MD at Expertise Global . Given the clashing interests involved here, she warns that “discussions are going to be much more intense than what was faced in Nigeria.” What trade-offs are East African policymakers willing to accept? Do they have the policy discipline to execute this without wasting billions in taxpayer dollars, as they have in other, smaller infrastructure projects?](https://image.24vids.com/tw-2048712354519503326/amplify_video_thumb/2048516353867517952/img/LJ6pfecSkcjRntBg.jpg)
Now that we’ve all had a few days to process the hype surrounding the proposed 650,000 bbl/d refinery in East Africa 🇰🇪 🇺🇬 🇹🇿, let’s take a long, hard look in the mirror. [1] Funding Gap: Where will Kenya 🇰🇪, Uganda 🇺🇬, and Tanzania 🇹🇿 raise the ~ $20 billion needed to build this facility when they already spend more on debt servicing than on healthcare or education? Just as critical - can they raise that capital, cheaply? [2] Diplomacy Deficit: Relations between these three countries are prickly on most days. Can nations that block agricultural imports, incinerate day-old chicks and limit the reach of each other’s airlines really cooperate on a project of this magnitude? [3] Successor Risk: With potential changes in government in Kenya 🇰🇪 (2027) and Uganda 🇺🇬 (2031), will the successors of William Ruto and Yoweri Museveni prioritize regional interests over national ones? “When Aliko Dangote built his refinery in Nigeria, he was essentially dealing with one country,” says Wangari Kebuchi, Founder & MD at Expertise Global . Given the clashing interests involved here, she warns that “discussions are going to be much more intense than what was faced in Nigeria.” What trade-offs are East African policymakers willing to accept? Do they have the policy discipline to execute this without wasting billions in taxpayer dollars, as they have in other, smaller infrastructure projects?
Ramah Nyang73,632 просмотров • 2 месяцев назад
There’s fiscal indiscipline, and then there’s what Kenya’s Finance Ministry (The National Treasury) does - sneaking in a second Supplementary Budget just two weeks before the end of the financial year. The Executive wants to raise spending by KES 18.24 billion ($140.8 million). Where that last-minute money is going? 🏛️ State House Kenya: Requesting an extra KES 1 billion. 👤 The Deputy President: Seeking authorization for KES 200 million more. 🛡️ Internal Security Ministry: Demanding another KES 1.55 billion. 📚 Education Ministry (Ministry of Education, Kenya (MoE)): Requesting an additional KES 1.5 billion—all of it earmarked for “Quality Assurance and Standards.” This mismatch between spending forecasts and execution reality is nothing new. In 2022, the Treasury projected that the fiscal deficit for FY 25/26 would drop below 4%. Instead, it has ballooned to 6.4%, with next year’s forecast looking just as dismal at 5.5%. With a track record this patchy, can Kenya plausibly hold onto the B3 credit rating upgrade it got from Moody's Ratings in January? As David Rogovic told me, while that upgrade reflected "lower near-term default risk," the rating remains constrained by weak points impossible to ignore: a massive fiscal deficit, a persistent inability to rein in spending, and dangerously weak debt affordability.
Ramah Nyang19,477 просмотров • 29 дней назад
Kenya’s government is trying to move the goalposts after losing a 15-year legal battle. 🇰🇪 The Finance Minister wants to impose new taxes on interchange & merchant service fees (the costs behind every card swipe) to stop “tax leakage.” The banking sector (Kenya Bankers Association (KBA)) is pushing back hard. They argue proposals in the 2026 Finance Bill, which may nearly triple the tax cost in one scenario: ❌ Is nearly impossible to implement. ❌ Creates an uneven playing field with mobile money providers. ❌ Undermines Kenya's National Payment Strategy to go cashless. This comes right after the Supreme Court (THE SUPREME COURT OF KENYA) ruled against KRA Care on this exact issue. In December 2025, the court ruled that fees paid by an acquiring bank to card companies “are not royalties” and interchange fees are not “professional or management fees” under Kenyan law. Therefore, neither are liable to withholding tax. As Abdi Mohamed, Managing Director at Absa Bank Kenya, told me: tax policy shouldn't trigger unintended consequences that make financial inclusion “too expensive.”
Ramah Nyang13,547 просмотров • 29 дней назад
How did KOKO Networks implode as fast as it did during the first week of February? What does this collapse reveal about the volatile nature of the carbon credits business? More importantly, what does it say about Kenya’s actual attractiveness to the "green capital" that local politicians so frequently talk about on international stages? As David Ndii, former Chairman of #Kenya’s Council of Economic Advisors, bluntly put it: Kenya suffers from an “investor unfriendly NDC regime.” Mahlon Walo and I had this conversation on February 3rd. #CarbonCredits #ClimateFinance #GreenEconomy #KOKONetworks #EmergingMarkets #BusinessStrategy #EconomicPolicy
Ramah Nyang13,544 просмотров • 5 месяцев назад
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