HEAD OF ANGLICAN CHURCH SUPPORTS BBI:
Hon. Raila Odinga this morning held a meeting with the Most Rev. Justin Welby, the Archbishop of Canterbury who is visiting the country. The meeting was also attended by the Head of the Anglican Church in Kenya Bishop Jackson ole Sapit who was accompanied by other senior ACK clergy.
The leaders discussed the political environment in the country, with particular focus on the Building Bridges Initiative and the working relationship between President Uhuru Kenyatta and Mr. Odinga.
The Archbishop of Canterbury described the BBI report as “a remarkable document that can be used to “change the ethos and culture of the country.”
The top Anglican leaders described the “handshake” between President Kenyatta and Mr. Odinga, which gave birth to the BBI as “real statesmanship” with a “powerful transformational force.”
“A year before the 2017 elections, I had told the President that this country would be much better the day he and Mr. Odinga step back and agree to work together. It was the wish of the Anglican Church that the two work together. As a Church, we thank God that our prayers were answered and we remain convinced that posterity will remember the two positively,” bishop Sapit said.
Mr. Odinga briefed the church leaders on the journey to the working relationship with the president, the setting up of the BBI team and the on-going steps to involve more people in the preparation of the final document.
They discussed how to work with the church to help provide public education on the report in a non-partisan, non-political way.
Archbishop Welby noted that the bulk of the BBI report focuses on addressing socio-economic inequality as the source of the tensions and anger experienced in the country and appealed to Kenyans not to lose focus of those.
“There has been some focus on positions being created but we see that as part of the wider effort to create opportunity for more communities to come to the negotiating table and deal with imbalances,” the Archbishop said.
He asked the country’s leadership to establish ways that will enable the church to take up the role of highlighting the good things in the document.
He praised the country for embarking on the harder but more reliable way of uniting a country which is to create its identity.
“The BBI takes this positive route. The country should feel proud of what it has achieved,” Mr. Welby said.
He was due to meet other leaders on different matters.
End.
DENNIS ONYANGO
JANUARY 21, 2020.

REMARKS OF H.E. RAILA ODINGA, EGH, HIGH REPRESENTATIVE FOR INFRASTRUCTURE DEVELOPMENT, AU; AT THE FIRST REGIONAL MINISTERIAL MEETING
ON THE LAPSSET CORRIDOR PROGRAM 14TH JANUARY 2020 AT THE SAROVA HOTEL, MOMBASA;
Distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen.
Thank you for honouring our invitation on short notice.
Let me begin by wishing everyone a happy New Year 2020 and a prosperous new decade for Africa.
We are here to breath fresh life into a vision unveiled in March 2012 when the Prime Minister of The Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, the Late Meles Zenawi, The President of The Republic of South Sudan, H.E. Salva Kiir Mayardit and The Former President of The Republic of Kenya, H.E. Mwai Kibaki, recognised the importance of interconnectivity between the three countries to the rest of the Continent. As Prime Minister of the Republic of Kenya then, I was honoured to be part of that vision and at the event at which our three countries inaugurated the Lamu Port South Sudan Ethiopia (LAPSSET) Transport Corridor to provide seamless connectivity, enhance trade facilitation and logistics within the region and beyond.

Today, I invited you to convene in my capacity as the AU-High Representative for Infrastructure Development in Africa to appreciate the distance we have travelled and to re-evaluate, refocus and re-energise that vision of 2012 and give new impetus to the implementation of the LAPSSET Corridor.

We agreed back in 2012, and we agree today that realising the East-West Trans-Continental Beltway – connecting Lamu Port to Douala/Kribi (Cameroon) seaports via Juba and Bangui is critical to connecting our region to the rest of Africa and the world for easier movement of goods and services.

On the surface, our task is simple. It is to consider the Report of the LAPSSET Technical Committee meeting and give some detailed thought to the fact that the LAPSSET Corridor implementation is a Presidential Infrastructure Champion Initiative (PICI) project under the African Union with transnational and transformational components.

In the end however, what we do here today will go along way in triggering off a chain of events that are expected to revitalize the LAPSSET Corridor program and solidify a shared approach to the implementation of the LAPSSET Corridor Program.

It our expectation that at the end of our deliberations here, we will establish a representative Steering Committee as an umbrella body to coordinate the implementation of the corridor. We are also expected to come up with a roadmap towards the establishment of the Umbrella body.

This meeting is also expected to come up with a program for the review of the progress with regard to the establishment of an institutional framework/mechanism and establishment of the umbrella body.
On paper, and in this room, these may look like simple tasks of little significance in the grand scheme of things.

In the grand reality though, the meeting here is the stuff of history; it is the stuff of those events that triggers chain reactions that change the destiny of nations and regions.
Our nations will not be the same again when LAPSSET takes off fully as a regional and multinational enterprise.
I returned from China just the other day. They have a saying there that “if you want to get rich, you must first build roads.” This approach was a central pillar of Chinese economic advancement during the past four decades.
It is taking roots in Africa in the context of the African Continental Free Trade Area formulated in 2018.

What we append our signatures to here today will mark the start of this region’s contribution to Africa’s dream for better cross-border land transport that provides links between inland centres and the ocean ports, and services cross-border trade among countries and regions located far from the ocean ports.
It will provided the much needed route for specialized time-sensitive high-value products get a faster means of reaching distant markets.

Historically, Africa has had connectivity and traded with itself before even when the mode of movement was rudimentary and torturous. The lack of integration that followed is a product of post colonisation and post independence politics and not some inheritance from history.
That is why to reconnect, political goodwill and participation is critical and that is why the region’s political leadership is represented here.
It is my hope that from this meeting, we will come up with realistic recommendations, firm commitments to realising them and clear time frames for implementation.
I wish you fruitful deliberations

REMARKS OF H.E RAILA ODINGA, EGH, ODM PARTY LEADER AT THE JOINT ODM PG/NEC ON THE BBI REPORT; DECEMBER 17, 2019:

Members of Parliament; Governors, MCAs and members of the National Executive Committee.

We are coming to the end of an eventful and successful year for our party and the country.
I therefore want to begin by thanking all of you for the continued commitment to the party and to the country, which enabled us to register some of the gains we have made this year.
With your support and that of members of other parties who believe in the unity and stability of our nation, we successfully defended a seat we had to win, in Kibra.
Along with our partners in the pursuit of a better country, we successfully shepherded and saw the delivery of the report of the Building Bridges Initiative whose core task is to build on the gains of the dying decade and take us to new heights as we enter the second decade of the 21st Century.

Our main task here today is to put our leadership on the same page on the BBI and have you relay the same to our supporters across the country as we return to the people for Christmas and New Year celebrations.

From the outset, I wish to reiterate my firm belief that the BBI is good for our country. It is our second chance to do a makeover. I thank the international community; including the African Union, the US Government, the EU and the UK for the support they have given to the Initiative and for sharing our belief that it is a chance for a New Beginning for Kenya.

I wish to assure everyone that we mean well for our country and for the community of nations that value peace and stability across the globe. I hope we will continue walking and working together on these goals.

Kenya is on the threshold of a new beginning to realize the goals that have eluded us over the years. Some of these goals were captured in the Constitution we unveiled in 2010. We have had time now to see what is working, what needs to be tweaked and what needs to be overhauled. That is the journey we embarked on with the BBI and it is set to continue into next year.

We have not pursued the BBI dream at the expense of the dreams of our party. Our goals as a party and as a country are consistent with those of the BBI.

We recognise that parties and leaders exist to pursue the good of the nation.

Nations begin to die when parties and leaders begin to imagine that they are greater than the nation and that their personal and partisan ambitions should override the national goals.
No party or leader can be greater than the nation. Our nations do not owe us anything. Instead, we owe a debt to our nations.

As a party, it is in our DNA to take a stand on critical issues of the day. ODM never stands or sits on the fence. We never sway with the wind from this side to that when the interests of the nation are at stake.

That is what we have done with the Handshake and the BBI. We have taken a stand based on very clear understanding of what is to be achieved.

We have been able to merge our interests as a party with the broader interests of the nation and supported the BBI.

We are in this to redesign the architecture of our nation.

We are in this to figure out what makes us a nation and distinguishes us from other nations.

The BBI gives us a chance to come up with a Kenyan economic model to secure full employment for citizens especially the youth, protect Human Rights to counter systemic violations; end marginalization of regions and communities by taking more resources to the grassroots while holding leaders accountable for those resources and increasing cohesion in Kenya.

Nobody should have a quarrel with these goals. And these goals surely cannot pose a threat to anybody’s political ambitions.

The initial BBI report that we unveiled over two weeks ago has Kenyans asking that we have to mend our ways or we sink as a country.

Kenyans expressed concern that even as we seek to live together as one people, we lack common ideals and aspirations and the national bonds we have are based on ethnicity and locality. We cannot create a nation until we identify goals that we pursue together and work towards a future that demands our collective sacrifice.

Kenyans spoke clearly that our political and economic systems have failed, that we are running out of time and we have to change direction if we are to avoid a catastrophic future.

The youth in particular spoke strongly that they feel excluded in the affairs of our nation and Kenya seems to have no place for them.
The report tells us that there is deep mistrust for leaders, institutions, and systems. The country is suffering from a trust deficit and there is disrespect for the law at all levels. This disrespect is particularly evident with public officers.

Now these are fundamental misgivings being expressed by our citizens and they are not the only ones. We cannot wish away these concerns.

The BBI enabled Kenyans to voice these concerns that clearly threaten our nation. The same BBI gives us a chance to address these concerns.

From here one, what we should be debating is what to adopt, what to amend and what to discard out of the BBI proposals.

From here therefore, we will task ourselves to sensitise our people about the journey so far, the report itself and the likely scenarios in the days and months ahead.

We will need to be honest with our people and ourselves and stop misleading Kenyans about the contents and intentions of the report.
It is my appeal to all Kenyans to prepare to engage the BBI team that will be going around the country explaining the document with a view to having all shades of opinion captured. It will provide a chance to perfect further what we have.

We should treat this as a chance for the nation to talk to itself about its future. It is not and must not be a shouting or a mudslinging match.

Let us do something with the second chance the BBI has accorded us and not waste it in the pursuit of politics as usual.

Let’s take this Second Chance as an opportunity to throw off a legacy of corruption; tribalism, divisions, dysfunctional institutions and mistrust that have held us back for over 50 years.

It is my hope that as we retreat to our villages for the festivities of Christmas and New Year, we will get more sober, more honest and more concerned about the country and seek to mend our ways and birth a new nation.

I wish you and all Kenyans fruitful and sober deliberations, a merry Christmas and a Happy New Year 2020.

Let me begin by expressing my gratitude to the Institute of Directors of Kenya for the invitation to talk its members at this interesting time for our country and Africa.

Here in Kenya, we are enjoying a rare period of peace and stability and one that we should all make good use of as corporate sectors.

Across the world, there is agreement that Africa is the next investment and growth frontier. It is with the realization that Africa too is doing more to promote trade with itself and to attract more investment by focusing on infrastructure of transportation, energy and internet connectivity.

That is why in March last year, we created the African Continental Free Trade Area Agreement, which commits countries to remove tariffs on 90 per cent of goods, progressively liberalizes trade in services and addresses a host of other non-tariff barriers. That is a huge step given that intra-Africa trade level stands at just around 20 per cent, while Europe and Asia are at 69 per cent and 59 per cent, respectively.

This meeting therefore provides us with a timely opportunity to identify and discuss issues that affect our corporate sector as a country and develop appropriate ideas and solutions. Our ultimate goal is to enhance corporate governance that will enable businesses here improve their performance and in turn create jobs for our young people and contribute to our economy.

But it goes well beyond jobs and the economy. A strong and thriving corporate sector can be a valuable ambassador for our country in ways no diplomatic representation ever can. That is what global firms like Samsung, Toyota, Sony, Apple, Microsoft, among others, have done for their countries. Corporations have also become proven tools for mobilizing resources for national development especially in the era Private Public Partnerships.

Our ultimate goal must be to have homemade equivalents of these global corporations. It is therefore in our best interest as a nation to ensure a strong and thriving corporate sector.
Kenya remains a vibrant business hub and a regional financial centre. But we have tremendous space for growth by addressing certain basics, like creating a level playing field for all businesses, ensuring a clean and efficient government, creating a prolonged low and simple tax regime and ensuring the rule of law.

For companies to be successful, competitive and sustainable, we need a high standard of governance both in public and private sectors.
We need enhanced corporate transparency from businesses that helps investors to easily analyze the risk profiles and investment potential of companies, monitor their progress and performance, and take action when they believe that directors are not acting in the interests of the companies.

Helping businesses set up here is however just one small portion of a much bigger and complex picture. As we make it easy for corporations to set up shop, we must also attend to related issues like modernizing the corporate winding-up regime; including clear protections for creditors.

If we are going to be a strong and credible corporate destination, we must also work on clear corporate rescue procedures.

We need to come up with ways of ensuring that companies with long-term business prospects facing short-term financial difficulties are rescued. That works in the interests of creditors, shareholders and employees.

As we pursue trade and investment across regions, we must come up with how best ways to resolve cross-border corporate issues.
It requires that we strengthen our front-line regulators, in this case the Nairobi Securities Exchange and empower it to promote the corporate governance of listed companies. The regulator must have capacity for risk management and ensuring disclosure and the accountability of directors. In keeping with global trends, the regulator must incorporate the environmental and social disclosure requirements regardless of their place of incorporation.

It is also important for companies to ensure open and transparent engagement with shareholders to promote consensus-building, pre-empt aggressive shareholder activism and enhance corporate governance.

To reap the benefits of envisaged intra-Africa trade, we need to work together as governments and private sector to ensure win-win outcomes out of the African Continental Free Trade Area Agreement.

Seeking a win-win is important given that the agreement brings on board a diverse membership of least-developed, landlocked, small-island, and lower- and upper-middle level countries, as well as countries in conflict.

In the end, the answer to unlocking Kenya’s and Africa’s growth potential is not what they do in Beijing, Washington, DC, London or Paris. It is what we do here in Kenya and in Africa as business and political leaders.

Realizing these goals therefore requires that we build a new coalition in this country.
We require a new and strong coalition between the government, the corporate world, civil society and the faith-based communities to tackle the corruption and impunity that is holding our political and corporate sectors hostage.

We need a coalition that helps us realize a new nation guided by principles of dignity, prosperity and security of citizens as opposed to individual needs.

We need a strong collaboration for our country to achieve changes in our system of governance that will make us realize national rebirth and end the ethnic antagonism and divisive political competition that have become our way of life.

Not everyone agrees, but anyone with the interest of Kenya and that of future generation at heart cannot deny that Kenya has gone full circle with its divisions and that over the years, we have been witnesses to unity and hope being followed by discord and division between our independence and our last election. Nobody can deny that over the years, relationships between our ethnic groups and political formations have deteriorated and it seems to be getting worse with every general election.

No one can deny that from the high pedestal of unity that characterised our struggle for independence, we have increasingly and progressively sunk lower, and relationships between our communities and political formations have become that of aggression and antagonism. We cannot deny that for some time now, our country has been defined by corruption and violence and this is taking deeper roots locally and abroad and all these things affect businesses negatively.

We cannot grow and we cannot build a responsible corporate culture when people have to pay a bribe to start a business or get a tax compliance clearance.

It is my hope that we can work together and realize these high ideals that will ensure a sound environment for business to thrive. We need a strong and new coalition to stop our country from suffering same tribulations that we have lived with since 1963. It is good for the country. It is good for business.
Thank you.

I want to begin with some broad observations on what I see as the overall philosophy behind this book.
One is that the story of today’s strong and prosperous nations is that of starting over again, changing course and seeking rebirth.
Secondly, debate is a good and necessary culture and tradition that every nation that hopes to move forward needs to cultivate.
Nations move forward by constantly debating, challenging old assumptions, refusing to settle and always testing new frontiers and new possibilities.
Thirdly, we must discard fear and fear mongering as a way of dealing with our problems; what President Franklin Roosevelt called “nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.”
Nations need to constantly negotiate with citizens and even with themselves on how to move forward and be the best among others.
President J.F Kennedy summarized this mindset in his words; “Let us never negotiate out of fear. But let us never fear to negotiate.”
I believe this is the guiding philosophy behind this book.
In a country where politics is driven on the basis of attack, counter attack and more attack, it takes real commitment for a county governor to reflect on critical national issues and put them in a book.
We have to congratulate prof for this rare achievement that is not wholly unexpected.
We have had this tradition of leaders putting their thoughts into books to invite debate. Tom J. Mboya, Julius Nyerere, Kwame Nkurumah, Leopold Senghor, Jomo Kenyatta, Oginga Odinga all promoted the culture of debate on critical national issues through writing.
This pattern of debate, starting over and seeking rebirth is the story of the USA. It is the story of modern Europe.
As we all know, after the brutal civil war, the USA sought a rebirth that culminated in the 13th, 14th and 15th amendments to the Constitution.
The amendments outlawed slavery, made the newly freed slaves American citizens, granted them the right to vote, redefined the relationship between individuals and the State, and, for the first time, guaranteed the basic equality of all people, no matter their skin color, station in life or citizenship.
In Europe, after numerous ethnic and civil wars that ended up in two world wars, leaders went all out to make certain that there would not be a third war.
They agreed Europe must be reorganized in some sort of federation or union that could blunt the national jealousies and assuage the economic hungers that had been the precursors of both wars.
This book and this gathering falls in this great tradition of debate and rebirth.
At critical moments in our history, our citizens have got together and debated their future to find a way out.
Am glad that in this room there are men and women who have lived by these broad beliefs and can testify about their necessity.
Looking at the challenges the nation is going through, debating and reasoning are going to be critical.
Through this book, we are being invited to discuss soberly, honestly and candidly some of challenges we face as a country.
There is agreement that for far too long, our country has run on the Politics of Brinkmanship, which now needs to end.
And so some of our leaders and citizens are asking; is their need for amendments to the Constitution of Kenya? If yes, do we go Parliamentary or remain Presidential?
Should we introduce proportional representation as the electoral system or do we retain the current first-past-the-post simple majority procedure.
How do we strengthen and enhance the devolution system or are we satisfied with the system as it is today.
As Prof. Michael Chege writes in the Forward, our violent electoral conflicts every five years are ever about the presidential poll, and seldom or ever about elective positions further down the political hierarchy.
It is also established that electoral violence is more frequent under presidential regimes than parliamentary regimes.
People lose contests for parliamentary or county seats but it never degenerates into widespread violence or any at all. That is good enough reason for the country to relook the National Executive and fix the causes of passionate struggle to win it.
A Parliamentary system is viewed as a better way to raise the majority threshold in a country where tribes view each other with suspicion in the contest for power.
Parliamentary system is generally suitable for plural societies; that is societies in which the political landscape is composed of diverse cultural, religious, ethnic, racial and regional interests, and that is what Kenya is.
But it is not just about the Executive. We are also struggling with how to ensure national cohesion, provision of sound leadership and creating institutions that can stand up for the nation even under the greatest of pressures.
In a nutshell, we have the challenge of how to re-strategize as a country and start over for the future as many successful nations have done.
In our country today, we have strived to create this forum for reasoned debate through the Building Bridges to a New Kenyan Nation.
That team is tackling nine key areas including Ethnic antagonism and competition, lack of national ethos, inclusivity, devolution, divisive elections, safety and security and corruption.
All these critical question that require genuine debate.
They require structured debate without fear.
Unfortunately, such efforts like this by governor Nyongo and the BBI are being hindered by the culture of hatred for debate and preference for fear and fear-mongering.
Debate is the tested way to ensure politics of reason overcomes the politics of fear, whose result often is hatred and division, which, unfortunately, is getting mainstreamed in this country.
And debate is the way to create a well-informed citizenry.
As former US Vice President writes in The Assault on Reason, “If leaders exploit public fears to herd people in directions they might not otherwise choose, then fear itself can quickly become a self-perpetuating and freewheeling force that drains national will and weakens national character, diverting attention from real threats deserving of healthy and appropriate fear and sowing confusion about the essential choices that every nation must constantly make about the future.”
As a country, let us not threaten our citizens against debating their future.
We must guard against fear-mongering and embrace any effort that encourages debate about our current state and our future.
This book is one such effort, as is the BBI.

REMARKS OF H.E. RAILA ODINGA; EGH, AT THE OPENING OF THE 42ND SESSION OF OATUU GENERAL COUNCIL;
Stanley Hotel
Nairobi-Kenya
20th September 2019

It is a great honour for me to join you at this important conference where you focus on advancing Social Justice, promoting decent work and evaluating the role of Trade Unions. As you are all aware, Kenya has a history with the Labour Movement both in Africa and globally. We have a history of established trade unionists who have made a mark across the globe and the current efforts led by brother Francis Atwoli follow this great and established tradition. We support his efforts.
This conference is taking place at a very trying and changing time in the world of labour and work in general. But it is also happening at a very hopeful moment for Africa. Africa is today one of the fastest-growing regions in the world. Our middle class is rising and is projected to grow to more than one billion consumers in the decades ahead.
It is happening partly because of our workers and the economic and political reforms we have pursued in the last two decades. We are also meeting at a time the Continent is prioritizing continental integration and trade as the key new drivers of economic growth as envisaged in the Africa 2063 agenda that we are all committed to.
That commitment is seen in the recent formation of the African Continental Free Trade Area and the new focus on intra Africa trade. The economic take-off we envisage will however not be realized without adequate attention to our workers and the work environment. It must therefore create more impetus for a deeper look into our world of work and the plight of our workers.
That means our workers will need an even stronger and louder voice in the coming decades. It means labour leaders will have to consistently remain on the frontlines of championing the interests and the concerns of the workers and ensure they live and work in dignity.
The challenges ahead call for greater collaboration between Africa’s labour movement and our government to address a number of issues. Our countries need to standardize rules governing the movement of workers; including issuance of work permits and treatment of migrant workers to avoid developments like those recently witnessed on the Continent.
We need to make it easier for our skilled workers to work in and for Africa. Today, partly because of low pay but also because of unclear rules governing acquisition of work permits, a number of our skilled workers find it easier to find work in the western world and only come back home to retire, if they ever return. We must reverse this trend.
Standardization of rules will also have to include reforms that help Africa trade more with itself so that we don’t have to keep looking overseas for trade and skilled labor. It is a challenge our labour leaders must consistently tackle by working in close consultations with our governments. When we trade more, we create work for our people.
Labour movements will also have to work with governments to ensure a speedy modernization of our customs and border crossings to make it easier for us to trade with each other, for workers to move from country to country and for investors to set up shop and provide jobs.

Clear rules of engagement will enable us see each other as partners rather than competitors in the grand plan to make Africa great and competitive.
Often, the unfortunate happenings of struggling Africans turning against fellow struggling Africans are never government policies.
Such happenings result from frustration with the inadequacy of our economies and the smallness of the ugali.
Such acts need to be condemned strongly and punished. However, rather than lead to condemnation of each other, withdrawal from and retaliation against nations where they occur, these acts should be reason for greater collaboration so that our nations are able to cook a bigger cake together. They should be reason for individual nations and regional economic communities to invest more in their economies and greater education of our people to be their brothers and sisters keepers.
Thank you all.
I wish you fruitful deliberations.

KAMPALA, SEPTEMBER 16-18TH 2019.
It is my great pleasure to speak at this important conference on Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs).
Our presence here today is an indication of just how things and thinking are changing in Africa.
There is optimism in the continent’s future and new thinking on how to finance the opening up of Africa and all its regions to business, travel and trade. Our countries increasingly recognize the importance of infrastructure to their economic growth and are actively exploring solutions to fund the required development.
There is a new appreciation by our governments that infrastructure bottlenecks will restrict our growth aspirations and are therefore working to provide the infrastructure community with strong value propositions for investment.
As we seek to develop infrastructure, we acknowledge the inadequacies of the traditional mode of infrastructure financing.
To this end, I congratulate the Government of Uganda for this conference that is a clear manifestation of the new thinking to align Africa to the rest of the world with regard to financing infrastructure and related public services.
As a critical gateway to the Continent, eastern Africa needs to position itself to play a significant role in infrastructure financing and development.

We therefore need to begin thinking of innovative financial markets, strong legal system, progressive regulatory framework and ease of funding for purposes of infrastructure.
As you are all aware, strengthening regional integration is identified as a priority and one of the key new drivers of economic growth in the Africa 2063 agenda that we are all committed to.
The formation of the African Continental Free Trade Area and the new focus on intra Africa trade has created more impetus for more investment in regional infrastructure development.
With the creation of the continental free trade area, we entered a new era of infrastructure development.
The new era forces us to provide a diverse set of infrastructure assets on a grand regional scale as an immediate and urgent priority and challenge.
To achieve this goal, we must do what others cross the world have done before or are doing today; which is using Public Private Partnerships to deliver infrastructure and related public services.
Traditional public funding sources for infrastructure are falling far short of the investment needs, hence the necessity to mobilize private funds.
To succeed, we need to put and pursue all options for PPP on the table, like contracts for private-sector-run road maintenance services and Build-Operate-Transfer or BOT agreements.
To date, we lack clear PPP policy as regional bloc. We also suffer low capacity and lack of institutions responsible for driving PPPs and clear laws and customs governing PPPs especially on a regional scale.

There is also the problem of low quality and age of infrastructure, which discourage serious investors from entering PPP deals with us, alongside bureaucratic procedures and fragmented decision-making.
And we suffer from the all-time old problem of Corruption.
For PPPs to take roots and work, governments must take the lead and create necessary conditions and enabling environments.
It is the responsibility of governments to plan and prioritize individual infrastructure investments that are meant for PPPs, in line with policy targets.
This means we need to prioritize reaching broad agreements as a region on what aspects of infrastructure development to prioritize whether it is roads, energy, railways, pipelines, waterways and airports.
Success with PPPs requires that we arm ourselves with policy actions from participating governments as well as a strong high-level political backing.
High level political backing is critical. The World Bank reports that when the N4 Toll Road linking South Africa’s most industrialized, but effectively land-locked northern and eastern regions of Gauteng and Mpumalanga provinces to the Mozambican port of Maputo was completed, it was recognized as a pioneering accomplishment.
It was the first toll road concession signed in Sub-Sahara Africa. It was also the first cross-border transport PPP, and only the second regional PPP in any sector.
Most important is that the project was successful because of high-level support that came directly from the presidents of the two countries.
Our governments need to work together with the private sector and development partners to establish technical assistance facilities dedicated to the identification and preparation of projects.
As a region, we need to develop a short list of well-prepared projects ready for take up on PPP basis.

Luckily, the African Union Commission has prioritized lists of such projects under the Program for Infrastructure Development in Africa (PIDA) that aims at interconnecting, integrating and transforming the continent. PIDA projects are good candidates for PPP on regional scale.
The World Bank in its PPI report indicates that Africa is doing badly with regard to PPPs.
The World Bank’s PPI Database has recorded only seven regional infrastructure projects on the African continent since 2000. Five have been transport projects, while; two have been natural gas transmission projects. There is room for us to grow in this sector.
We must work on limiting risks for PPP projects through adequate project selection as well as fair, transparent and competitive bidding process.
Risk mitigation must also include guarantees that Governments will honor their contractual commitments throughout the project lifetime.
Working as a region instead of individual countries, it could become easy for us to tap into the assets managed globally by institutional investors, such as pension funds, insurance companies and sovereign wealth funds for infrastructure projects.
I therefore welcome this initiative by Kampala in the hope that it could be the start of an era of thinking and planning regionally for effective infrastructure development.
I thank everyone for attending and wish you very fruitful deliberations.

REMARKS OF H.E RAILA ODINGA, EGH AT ANNUAL JOURNALISM EXCELLENCE AWARD
(AJEA 2019); AUGUST 9, 2019:
I am honoured to join you at this event where we take stock of the state of our media and reward excellence in journalism. I am equally happy to meet so many friends from this profession in this congregation.
Media Accountability and Good governance, which am informed is the theme for this year, makes for an interesting subject at a very interesting time for our country. These two are at war as we speak.
There is a quiet transition taking place in our country. Many are yet to come to accept or terms with it. It is one of the interesting things happening in our country that Kenyans are counting on the media to capture and explain, accurately and accountably. We are also in the middle of a tug of war on corruption and envisaged constitutional reforms.
We have a corruption war in which suspects have tried to control and shape the narrative and even provide some kind of live feed. Their narrative is that the war is a witch hunt. In an atmosphere that is increasingly getting too charged and too emotional too early, we have seen a war being waged on the reputations of journalists and entire media houses.
So, despite the general calm, we are actually in the middle of a toxic engagement that can be confused and confusing.
I want to begin therefore by acknowledging our media for the courage to steer the conversation back to what really matters. We have seen the media do some exemplary reporting particularly on the emotive subjects of corruption and governance.
Where we have been baited to discuss witch hunt or no witch hunt, the media have pushed back and refocused the debate to the issue of whether we have corruption or not in the first place and whether there is abuse of power and office in this country or not. It is a commendable effort that we have to acknowledge. That did not begin today though.
Over the decades, our media has distinguished itself through bold coverage of issues ranging from corruption to governance to politics and human rights.
That bold exposition has triggered debate that made Kenyans participate actively in the affairs of their country and prevented us from sliding to the abyss like many others in Africa.
You have sustained the crusading tradition that helped this country overcome the single party era and also made us realize a new constitution.
We have been through Goldenberg, Saba Saba riots, the Anglo Leasing and now the dams scandal to mention a few of the mega corruptions that the media have boldly shaped conversation on. It is a glorious tradition that you must continue and safeguard against those who want to trash and trample on it.
Like everywhere else, the media in Kenya are far from perfect. They make big mistakes. Sometimes the mistakes seem deliberate or sponsored to use a Kenyan word while others look like normal human error. Whatever the case, any mistake by the media, no matter the cause, often has grave ramifications. I therefore want to encourage you to always realize that as journalists, you are writers of the early drafts of history.
Historians, biographers and future politicians and other leaders in all fields will draw heavily from the early drafts that you write today.
It is a heavy responsibility you must bear with extreme care, without emotions or feelings.
Like every other public figure, I have occasionally felt maligned and misunderstood by the media.
But I reject the attempt to generalize that into some kind of vendetta and a permanent war against the journalists.
I remain opposed to any kind of threats to or any organized campaign against the credibility of the media or individual journalists.
But let us face it. I know that our media feel embattled right now because of the atmosphere of mistr…