KENYA - Kenya Bureau of Standards (KEBS), the government’s standards agency’s Managing Director Charles Ongwae has been arrested hours after the body confirmed that imported contraband sugar was contaminated with copper. According to an article published by the Daily Nation, the standards boss was arrested alongside quality assurance and inspection director and head of the…
KENYA - With a long term goal of ‘creating jobs, transforming lives and sharing prosperity’, the 2018 budget centred at the government’s Big 4 Agenda of growing The contribution of manufacturing GDP from 9% to 15%, but consumers may be required to pay more due to proposed amendments to the VAT Act 2013, considered to…
TANZANIA - The government of Tanzania has proposed changes to its Cashewnut Industry Act (Cap, 203), scrapping the 65% of the crop export levy remitted to farmers through the Cashewnut Board of Tanzania (CBT). Amendment to the law will see the export levy collected in the consolidated fund, instead of the current situation where some…
SOUTH AFRICA - Nestle South Africa has launched a zero water dairy manufacturing facility in Mossel Bay, Western Cape that will see the Swiss multinational company educe the factory’s water consumption by more than 50% during the first year of implementation. Equipped with new water recovery, treatment and recycling technology, the facility will reuse the…
EGYPT - The government of Egypt has announced the decision to import milled and paddy rice to increase supply of the commodity as well as prevent potential price shock to consumers. A June 13 USDA report indicated that grain hoarding, which resulted in the decline in the volume of rice being offered to the country’s…
NIGERIA - Nigeria’s President Buhari is set to commission Africa’s first automated rice seed and seedlings factory in Calabar, Cross River State as part of the country’s initiative to agricultural diversification. The factory is located in the Cross Rivers rice city and according to New Telegraph, the rice project is expected to boost the state’s…
ZIMBABWE - The Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) has released US$20 million for importation of wheat from Canada and Germany to supplement the insufficient national wheat stocks. This was as requested by millers following poor harvest in the drought-hit southern African country. The amount will be used to pay for 200,000 tonnes of wheat procured…
NIGERIA - The premium African news media and investment company, Footprint to Africa has invested more than US$16 million for new yam and plantain processing plants in order to enhance food security in Nigeria. The initiative is part of plans to bridge Nigeria’s food gap as well as achieve the government’s diversification agenda for the…
GHANA - Ghana has established a new plant, Aspuna Flour Mill and Processing Factory in Duwasu, Kombo, West Coast region that will process cassava into flour and starch, reported a Ghana Newspaper, Foroyaa. While the cassava flour produced will be sold in the local market and surplus exported, the starch will be exported to attract…
BOTSWANA - Botswana continues to import 170,000 metric tonnes of maize annually as it has always run out of corn due to insufficient local production, according to an article by AllAfrica. Speaking in an interview, Botswana Agricultural Marketing Board (BAMB) chief executive officer, Mr Leonard Morakaladi noted that on annual basis the country needed 190…
