4th December 2003

Firm launch Aids therapy programmes

SEVEN major international companies with operations in Africa said they will expand HIV treatment and prevention programme in an effort to boost the fight against the disease.

The companies – AngloAmerican, Chevron Texaco, DaimlerChrysler, Eskom, Heineken, Lafarge and Tata Steel – will run the programme with their own money and funds from the Geneva- based Global Funds to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, said the Global Business Coalition on HIV/AIDS in a statement.

The programme will help build health care infrastructure in Africa, where 30 million of the 40 million infected worldwide live. Health care infrastructure in many parts of the continent is notoriously weak.

“We came to Africa to increase private-sectors engagement in the war on HIV/AIDS, and this announcement is exactly the kind of innovative idea we want to promote,” US Health and Human services Secretary Tommy Thompson said in a statement.
“Leveraging the resources of companies in the way is a great new opportunity for communities to realise the opportunity of the Global Fund,” Thompson, who is on a four-country tour Africa, said.

Conservation partnership to help restore Shimba Hills forest

A joint project is set to demonstrate how corporate organisations can team up with conservationists to protect the environment.

Organised by local communities, the Worldwide Fund for Nature and Bamburi Cement, it intends to rehabilitate the degraded Kwale’s Hills forests.

Also participating are the Kenya Wildlife Service and the Forest Department to help maintain and restore the area’s ecological functions – an important habitat for elephants and other important animals and plants.

The Shimba Hills project will run to 2006 and involves establishing farm forestry activities and developing sustainable alternative livelihood projects.

Even the formulation is novel. It is designed to meet the needs and aspirations of the fund and Bamburi Cement. For the Wildlife fund, Shimba Hills form a part of Eastern Africa’s important coastal forests, internationally acclaimed as an important centre of high diversity of unique plants and small animals. For Bamburi, the forests are the main reservoir for plants and animals used in quarry rehabilitation. Thus both organisations are highly motivated to support local stakeholders and partners to successfully undertaken this project.

The Shimba Hills forest restoration initiative is a result of an ongoing partnership between the funds and Lafarge, at the global level, and fund’s Eastern Africa section and Bamburi Cement in Kenya.

Recently, Bamburi Cement and other companies have enlisted in the fund’s Eastern Africa Corporate Club a membership programme for companies that wish to support nature conservation.

The Shimba Hills project will seek measures to reduce the human-elephant conflict that is a feature of this area. Initiatives also to be undertaken to improve community livelihoods include assisting schools to become self-sustaining in firewood and water. An initiative dubbed the “Green Schools Project” seeks to change the lifestyles of people by establishing sources of fuel wood and water close to their homes.
Planting fruit trees and those that can be used for fuel in schools will provide a future source of firewood for communities.

This project will also install rainwater-harvesting systems and equip the schools with tanks for storing rainwater. The project, to be piloted in Kwale District will also be replicated in Kajiado, Mombasa and Eastern Province.

Bamburi Cement, in its conservation partnership with the wildlife fund, is also spearheading formulation of environmental standards for the cement industries in East Africa. Bamburi has been working with others to formulate a standard toll ensure sustainable cement production. These standards have been submitted to National Authority for approval.

“Partnership must be carefully nurtured and managed for them to be effective and sustainable in the long term,” says Ms Sabine Baer, Bamburi’s ecosystem manager.

CEMENT Firm invests Sh700 million in new plant

A cement firm is investing Sh700 million in a clinker plant, and selling 33 per cent of its Tanzania plant.

Athi River Mining’s investment should double its cement production capacity and substantially reduce it production costs.

Tanga Cement and Cement Distributors Ltd will acquire Athi River’s lime plant for $1 million (about Sh78 million). A new subsidiary to handle its products is being set up in South Africa.

Increase in cement capacity would represent a major shift in its portfolio which is currently only on 50 per cent cement. Previously, the firm has been getting clinkers from Bamburi Cement, after it closed its old technology plant at Kaloleni, amidst allegations of pollution.

Managing director Pradeep Paunrana told the Press after an investor briefing that the firm was believed domestic cement consumption will increase.
Sh500 million of the capital outlay will be covered by a term loan, with another Sh200 million generated through internal cash flow in the coming two years. It expects to glean earnings of Sh150 million yearly.

The new rotary kiln is to be commissioned in 2006. Some 250 jobs will be created while its turnover will double to Sh2.2 billion. On the South African project, he said it would give them toehold to import, pack and process Athi River Mining’s products in Africa’s largest economy.

“Initially, the volume of business in South Africa is expected to top $1 million, and we have ensured that we have the capacity to double our production as the market is double that of Kenya.”