Political tensions ahead of the fresh presidential election have claimed several business projects and events as investors take caution.
As a result, many business trips, conferences, tourism adventures and investment projects have been postponed or cancelled all together, awaiting a resolution to the current political stalemate.
The latest casualty is the postponment of inspection of the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport by the United States in preparation for direct flights from Kenya to the USA.
Kenya Investment Authority managing director Moses Ikiara recently said a number of foreign projects that were planned to take off in Kenya this year have since been put on hold.
He added that this year has seen the number of foreign interest in projects increase by up to 47 per cent, but investors prefer to wait for the election outcome.
A United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) meeting was to be held between October 10 and 11 in Nairobi, during which a results-based roadmap on reducing new HIV infections and scaling up prevention programmes was to be launched. This never took place.
Another business project that will wait is the Fenix International partnership with Equity Bank to power homes through home solar kits financed through regular payments via mobile phone Equitel. The Digital Media Africa 2017 conference that was to happen in Nairobi next month has also been pushed to next year. A message from Ralf Ressmann, executive director of Europe and Africa, said the news about the situation in Kenya has unsettled some of the conference speakers, partners and participants.
“As the event is pretty close to the next election, with no way of knowing what the post-election climate will be, we have agreed today with our partners at the Nation Group to postpone our gathering,” he said in a notice on the association website.
The World Hindu Economic Forum (WHEF) slated for Nairobi is another meeting of global status that got cancelled, due to the election season. A notice on the WHEF website reads, “We regretfully inform you that due to re-elections in Kenya and resultant political uncertainty, the World Hindu Economic Forum which was to be held from 17 – 19 November 2017 in Nairobi has been cancelled.”
This would have been the first such meeting in Africa. The last such forum was held last year in California, USA. A Swedish firm, VR Holding AB, that was interested in putting up a wind power plant in Malindi at Sh253 billion has since relocated to Tanzania, citing frustration by Kenyan authorities.