Minor technical works delay W/Africa Polytechnics Games

The West Africa Polytechnics Games (WAPOGA) were postponed again to 17 September due to “minor technical adjustments on the sports fittings” to be achieved, the steering committee has said.

The Games were initially scheduled on 17 July, and then on 10 September in Yamoussoukro at the Institut National Polytechnique Houphouet-Boigny of the Ivorian capital.

This second edition of the WAPOGA is expected to bring together six polytechnics schools.

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API/Source.apa

South Sudanese govt apologizes over raid on Kenya by cattle rustlers

The Sudanese Regional Cooperation minister, Barnabas Marial apologized on Tuesday to the Kenyan government over last month’s attack in Turkana district in northern Kenya by armed raiders from Southern Sudan and kidnapped a Kenyan herd’s boy and several heads of cattle.

Speaking in Nairobi at the offices of Kenya’s minister for Internal Security, George Saitoti, Marial said that his government has already deployed security agencies to recover the cattle and the 18 year- old herd’s boy abducted by the Sudanese cattle rustlers widely known as Taposa raiders.

The raiders killed ten Kenyans including boys aged 13 and 12 and kidnapped the young man identified as Kakeru Amoi.

Already, the Kenyan government has written a protest letter to the Southern Sudanese government calling for the unconditional release of the youth.

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API/Source.apa

A Norwegian open-mouthed and big-headed coach sacked unceremoniously

Lyn asks Berg to leave

Henning Berg is no longer head coach for Oslo soccer club Lyn. Berg, who already has a new coaching job lined up with Lillestrøm, was asked to leave immediately.

Henning Berg is no longer head coach for Lyn. PHOTO: TERJE BENDIKSBY / SCANPIX

Berg’s contract ran until the end of this season, and he’d indicated a desire to ride it out. Lyn, however, is in serious financial difficulty and its board wanted Berg’s resignation earlier.

Kent Bergersen, assistant coach for Lyn, will take over as acting head coach.

“We discussed various solutions,” Berg said Tuesday. “There were, in my opinion, solutions that were better. I don’t agree with the board’s decision, but accept it. The club is in a serious situation. It’s decisive for the club’s future that I don’t coach it any longer.”

Berg is a former soccer pro himself, who played for both Blackburn and Manchester United in England. He also was a fixture on Norway’s national squad for which he played in 100 matches.

Berg will start coaching the pro team in Lillestrøm, just northeast of Oslo, next season.

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API/Source.aftenposteneng

 

Are Immigrants victims of murder in Norway? Couple found dead at home

A couple in their 30s was found dead Tuesday in the home they shared near the west coast city of Ålesund. Police say they didn’t die of natural causes.

The house where the dead couple was found. PHOTO: ARFINN MAUREN

The bodies of the woman, from Germany, and the man, from Hungary, were found after their seven-year-old son turned up at school alone Tuesday morning, reports Aftenposten.no.

Police went to the family’s home, a basement flat in a house at Sjøholt in the village of Ørskog, around 30 kilometers east of Ålesund.

The couple had lived in the area for several years, and their son had attended day care in Ørskog before starting at Sjøholt School.

Aftenposten.no reported that police had been called to the couple’s home earlier, but police said neither had been involved in any criminal offenses. Police say the deaths could have resulted from a “family tragedy,” which is the description often used in Norway for suicide or murder-suicide.

Both bodies were being sent to either Trondheim or Ålesund for autopsy.

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API/Source.aftenposteneng

Norwegians were forcing travellers to spend money at the airport by delaying flights intentionally ‘Tax-free trap’ set to fall

On the eve of its 10th anniversary, Oslo’s main airport at Gardermoen has found itself immersed in another round of criticism, this time for virtually forcing international passengers into its duty-free shops. Airport officials gave in to the critics on Tuesday.

The entrance to the international terminal leads passengers right into the duty-free shopping area, especially since the fence (at left) was erected. Now it will be removed. PHOTO: JON HAUGE

The airport has been bashed in recent months for everything from long lines at security checkpoints to high food prices. Not everyone thinks the airport has lived up to its ultra-modern design, and critics contend it has descended into tacky commercialism.

Last week Norway’s leading expert on consumer behaviour, Trond Blindheim, blasted airport officials for what he declared was a creative attempt to funnel passengers into the airport’s large duty-free shopping area.

In addition to locating the duty-free shopping area just inside the entrance to the international terminal, airport officials approved construction of a fence just to the left of the entry area, ostensibly as a place to park shopping carts.

Blindheim, principal of Oslo’s marketing college, noted that the fence also served to all but block off a corridor skirting around the duty-free area. That “forced” passengers into the duty-free shopping area, Blindheim charged.

Airport officials now agree, to an extent. “For a while there was even a sign saying it was prohibited to walk around the shopping area,” said Jo Kobro, information chief for the airport. “That was quickly removed.”

Now, he said, the fence will be removed and the terminal entry area expanded so that passengers can more easily avoid duty-free temptations if they so choose. Kobro claims that surveys show passengers want more shops, not less, at the airport, but concedes that spending time at the airport should be “a good experience,” not one in which passengers feel pressured into shopping.

“We now see that the passageway beyond the tax-free shop was too small,” Kobro said, adding that the fence was likely to be taken down before the end of the week. He stressed, though, that revenues from the duty-free operations are an important part of the airport’s overall revenues and contribute to keeping costs down.

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API/Source.aftenposteneng

Obama’s team protests over ‘Muslim’ report – Obama rejects muslims because he believes recognising them may destroy his chance to become US President

US Democratic Presidential nominee Senator Barack Obama. Photo/REUTERS 

CHICAGO, Tuesday – A spokesman for Senator Barack Obama’s campaign is taking the Chicago Sun-Times to task for reporting on a verbal slip Obama made referring to “my Muslim faith.”

The Democratic Party nominee for president was discussing false rumours on ABC’s “This Week with George Stephanopoulos” when he made the gaffe, the Sun-Times reported yesterday.

Mr Obama suggested that GOP rival Senator John McCain was behind false rumours that he is a Muslim. Mr Stephanopoulos then reminded him that Mr McCain denied spreading the rumours.

“You’re absolutely right that John McCain has not talked about my Muslim faith,” Obama said before Stephanopoulos corrected him.

The Sun-Times says the verbal slip unleashed a barrage of Internet attacks, becoming a magnet for comments on the YouTube.com video site.

Pretty irresponsible

“Printing a blogger suspecting that Obama is a Muslim is pretty irresponsible and below the standards that we’re used to out of the Sun-Times,” Obama spokesman Bill Burton wrote in an e-mail message to the newspaper.

Meanwhile, Mr Obama has accused Mr McCain and Sarah Palin of “shameless” dishonesty with their claim to be “mavericks,” different from the unpopular President George W. Bush.

“They are not telling the truth,” he said in an interview with MSNBC news yesterday after the Republican running mates advertised themselves in a television spot as the “original mavericks” who would stand up for hard-pressed voters.

“When you have somebody who was for a project being presented as being against it, then that stretches the bounds of spin into new areas,” Obama said in response to Palin’s boast that she had intervened to kill a controversial federally funded ‘bridge to nowhere,’ a project she initially supported.

The Obama campaign also unveiled an ad highlighting McCain’s lock-step voting record with President George W. Bush.

“Politicians lying about their records? You don’t call that maverick – you call it more of the same,” the announcer said, breaching one of the last taboos of US politics by accusing the Republicans of outright dishonesty.

Meanwhile, Mr McCain has gained huge support and now leads Democrat Barack Obama among white women voters since naming Sarah Palin as his running mate, according to a survey published on Tuesday. The Washington Post/ABC News poll found that much of McCain’s surge in the polls since the Republican National Convention is attributable to the shift in support among white women.

The race for the White House is now a virtual tie, with Obama at 47 per cent support of registered voters and Mr McCain at 46 percent, the poll found.

Before the Democratic National Convention in late August, Obama held an 8 percentage point lead among white women voters, 50 per cent to 42 per cent, but after the Republican convention in early September, McCain was ahead by 12 points among white women, 53 per cent to 41 per cent, the poll found. (Agencies)

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API/Source.nation.ke

The whistle blower on the secret sale of Regency Hotel Orengo appears before Cockar

Lands minister James Orengo appeared before Justice Cockar on Tuesday. Photo/CHRIS OJOW 

By Muchemi Wachira

Lands minister James Orengo on Tuesday presented himself to the Cockar Commission and denied being served with summons to appear before the inquiry.

Mr Orengo made his appearance in the morning when the commission’s 18th witness, Mr Kennedy Abuga, who is the Central Bank of Kenya legal director and board secretary, was testifying.

Mr Abuga was explaining how a memorandum of understanding between the governments of Kenya and Libya provided the opportunity for the bank to sell Grand Regency Hotel, when the minister suddenly walked in with his aides and expressed his readiness to give evidence to the commission.

Three attempts

Mr Orengo said reports that efforts to serve summons on him had failed were not correct and painted a bad picture of him in the public eye.

“No one has ever served me,” the minister told commission chairman retired judge Abdul Majid Cockar who had the previous day said they had made three attempts to serve the minister in vain.

Mr Orengo said he had been in his office where anyone could reach him, adding that there is no record of anyone making an attempt to serve him with the summons.

The minister said that it was only last month when he received a letter from the commission’s assisting counsel informing him that he was required to appear before the commission.

“I thought I would be served with summons. I have not seen them,” he said adding: “If I had been served with the summons, I would have come here running.”

Asked by Mr Justice Cockar when he would be able to make his statement, Mr Orengo said he would be able to do so at 10am today as he needed to retrieve some documents before giving evidence.

After Mr Orengo left, the commission adjourned and when it resumed, an assisting counsel, Mr Wilfred Mati, made an application for Mr Abuga to be stood over.

Would be fair

“It would be fair if we can stand him down so that we hear Mr Orengo first, just the way the commission had planned its proceedings. Then we will be left with three persons mentioned in the gazette notice,” Mr Mati said.

The three are Mr Abuga, his boss Prof Njuguna Ndung’u and former Finance minister Amos Kimunya.

Mr Justice Cockar concurred with the application ordering Mr Orengo to present himself on Wednesday.

He said Mr Abuga can continue with his statement on Thursday.

Earlier in his evidence, Mr Abuga said after the memorandum of understanding between the Kenyan and Libyan governments for the latter to buy the hotel was signed, CBK took the opportunity to sell the establishment to recover the Sh2.5 billion owed by Mr Pattni.

Meanwhile, the time frame for the commission to discharge its mandate ends today but, according to secretary Anthony Ombwayo, they had applied for an extension of time but will only know the outcome today.

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API/Source.nation.ke

Elevation of CBK’s Mwatela far from show of gratitude – There is a hidden agenda

By JAINDI KISERO

MRS JACINTA MWATELA, who was replaced on Tuesday as deputy governor of the Central Bank of Kenya, is an extraordinary banker and public officer. Her story and record of service at the CBK offers an illuminating study on what personal commitment to probity by a public official can bring to public office.

Observers who have been keenly following the shenanigans at the Central Bank of Kenya know very well that her replacement and promotion to the position of permanent secretary for the Ministry of Northern Kenya and Arid Lands was not inspired by a sense of gratitude to the 30 years of exemplary service she has given to the CBK.

The truth of the matter is that somebody wanted her out of the way at the central bank in a hurry. It is an open secret that she was not in good books with the clique that wields power at both the Central Bank of Kenya and the Treasury.

Outspoken and uncompromising on issues to do with procedure and probity, she found herself on the wrong side with powermen over the manner in which the multi-million second generation currency printing contract was handled.

Last month, she rubbed the powermen the wrong way by the evidence she gave to the Chris Okemo-led parliamentary committee on finance and public administration that was investigating the Grand Regency saga.

Within the Central Bank itself, it was an open secret that she was among a group the insiders at the bank would derisively refer to with the code name, “The Three Musketeers”. Mwatela was perceived as the inspiration to a group of three tough women in the top management of the bank, who refused to play to the whims of politicians and influence-peddlers at the Central Bank of Kenya and the Treasury on matters of procedure and probity.

With her exit, the three musketeers have more or less been dismantled.

The manner in which Mrs Mwatela was replaced raises several broader policy questions. Can we— really — claim to have an independent central bank?

Why does the Government pretend to subscribe to the principal of central bank independence, but in reality treat the affairs of this critical regulator of the financial system as if it were another ordinary parastatal?

If we indeed believed in an independent central bank, the Government should have left the recruitment of the second in command of this key institution to its board.

The issue of Central Bank independence is as old as central banking itself. We need to renew our faith in this principle so that we can keep politicians and the Government away from the Central Bank as far as possible.

IT IS FOOLHARDY TO ENTRUST THE power of issuing paper money to the Government. Goldenberg happened basically because we had a central bank that was willing to cede power to ministers and permanent secretaries at the Treasury.

Why are were driving in the reverse in terms of the need to achieve independence and autonomy of the Central Bank of Kenya?

Last year, the Treasury tried to introduce changes to the Central Bank Act with the aim of introducing a chairman appointed by politicians.

Treasury’s argument at that time was that the current arrangement, which allows the governor to hold the positions of both chief executive and chairman of the board was not in line with modern corporate governance practice. Clearly, the intention was to get the Central Bank to cede space to politicians.

Fortunately, that move did not see the light of day. What Kenya needs is a central bank whose commitment to price stability cannot be influenced by either short-term considerations of politicians or the borrowing appetite of those big spenders at the Treasury.

Inflation is the cruelest form of taxation on the people. Yet only an independent central bank, operating autonomously without the influence of politicians, can deliver monetary conditions for non inflationary growth.

We should not allow politicians to come near the conduct of monetary policy. Faced with hyper-inflation, authorities in Zimbabwe recently ordered the removal of zeros from their currency notes.

The idea that inflation can be brought under control by simply deleting zeros from the currency notes is utterly foolish. It is like believing that you spend less on the scratch cards for your mobile phone by buying more “bamba 20s”.

Monetary policy must be left to an independent central bank run by individuals who do not owe their positions to political patrons.

In 2003, David Mwiraria made a decision that led to the collapse of the government bond market when he announced in the Budget Speech that year, the reduction of the cash ratio from 10% to 6%.

By this move, the minister had freed Sh8.1 billion of liquidity into the marketplace. The 91-Treasury Bill rate went to 1 per cent. When the rates started coming up, it triggered market volatility as never seen before.

What is my point? That politicians must keep away from the Central Bank of Kenya.

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API/Source.nation.ke