kwft

KWFT

By Albert Bwana

KENYA WOMEN HOLDINGS TO SELL SHARES IN KWFT TO MEMBERS

Kenya Women Holding (KWH) is set to offload 25 percent of its stake in Kenya Women Micro-Finance Bank to its more than 600,000 members countrywide.  

This has been approved and is in compliance with Central Bank of Kenya’s regulation that KWH reduces its share holding in the bank to 25 per cent. Kenya Women Holding currently holds a 55 percent stake in the bank, which has an asset base of Sh23 billion and net worth Sh4 billion in equity.

“This is also in fulfillment of a promise that we made to our members in 1992 that if we work hard and grow, then they will have an opportunity to own the company,” said Dr. Jennifer Riria, the Group CEO of Kenya Women Holding.

According to Dr. Riria, the move has also been approved by the members at the Annual General Meeting held in Nairobi on Saturday and will be sold by the end of the year. However, they are yet to determine the value per share.

Kenya Women Microfinance Bank, popularly known as KWFT, was started as a wholly-owned subsidiary of Kenya Women Holding. This has been reduced to 55 percent. 25 percent stake is jointly owned by Norwegian Microfinance Initiative (NMI) and Incofin of Belgium.

 The staff has a stake through the Employee Share Ownership Program (ESOP) vehicle while past directors have a small stake too.

According to Mwangi Githaiga, the Managing Director of KWFT, the bank has a presence in 45 counties and is in the process of setting shop in the remaining two – Mandera and Garissa. 

KWFT operates in rural, remote and poor urban areas and has an extensive countrywide network with 236 offices in 45 out of 47 counties. 70% of KWFT clientele are in rural areas and 25% in urban

 Offences

Nairobi, Wednesday  July 23rd , 2014 KNA by Edwin and Albert.

Minor offences lead to court cases

Several Nairobians have been charged with minor offences at city hall court, Nairobi.

A man was charged selling oranges along the streets of Thika Road and throwing litter everywhere. Mr. John Kamau was arraigned before the magistrate and was fined ksh. 3000 for both offences.

At the same courts, several people were charged with numerous offences from selling porridge without a license, Matatus picking passengers along the street, working without a health certificate, loitering on the streets at odd hours of the night, operating a barbershop without a licence, hawking in town and operating in a restaurant without medical certificate.

By laws are found under the local government act of 2007. The bylaws are classified into different offences and they are: food and sanitation where selling or hawking is done without a medical certificate, licensing ;operating a business without a license from the city council, market and trade places; disturbance of business and not paying of cess tax

In the bylaws they indicate imprisonment for the minor offences a minimum of one month and penalty of 2000/=. Physical planning indicates that building with approved plans and changing residential areas to commercial areas leads to imprisonment of 6 months or a fine of 100,000/=

The public health act deals with premises where summons are issued to check areas to see if the standards required are met. James Ochieng, law clerk at the court said, “If one is ordered to appear before the court and fails to, then a warrant of arrest is issued and if he or she abides there are summons.”

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Education

Nairobi, Wednesday 23rd July 2014 by Albert Bwana

1st Ever National Open University to be opened

 The ministry of Education is in the process of finalizing structures that will enable accreditation of the 1st ever university to offer lessons and examinations on line by the end of this year.

The National Open University of Kenya (NOUK) will highly depend on technology to offer services to students and other clients.

The Open University will enable students to access lessons and learning materials as well as instructions from lecturers online

Speaking during the National Open University of Kenya (NOUK) workshop for finalizing the accreditation documents the Principal Secretary in the ministry of Education Dr Belio Kipsang said that the accreditation memo has been signed by the cabinet secretaries in the ministry of Education and the ministry of Information, communication and technology.

            Kipsang said that the university would increase access to education and make it affordable to Kenyans from across the country and this region in general. He further added that parents will no longer need to rent hostels for their children hence reduce on cost.

            “Once an idea has come no one can stop it, I am privileged to be in a generation of good things such as the new constitution” Kipsang said.

             Chairman of the Technical Accreditation committee Prof Peter Kinyanjui said that using the Open and Distance learning method enables one to take maximum advantage of the computer technology in learning.

              Prof Kinyanjui noted that the workshop is expected to define and finalize on the whole process and that he hoped that the 1st programmes would be offered by September this year.

             Technological Committee Expert Dr Henry Ronoh said that technology will make it possible for students to learn at their own pace. He said the mode of study will enable disabled students to learn without many issues

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