It was early October and Wanja Mwaura, 32, was on her way to the market in Lower Kabaete, not far from Nairobi, when she heard someone shout out her name.

She looked up and was surprised to see a tall man with bulging eyes, an emaciated frame, dirtied black overalls and an equally stained thick woollen hat, sitting on the side of the road. She did not recognise him.

But when Patrick “Hinga” Wanjiru, 34, introduced himself, Wanja says she found herself in shock. Standing before her was a friend she had known since she was seven years old.

“Patrick, or Hinga as we called him, and I had met at primary school in 1992,” says Wanja, who is a nurse from Kiambu County, just outside the Kenyan capital.

“Hinga used to be a great soccer player all throughout school. We nicknamed him ‘Pele’.”

Hinga was estranged from his parents and lived with his grandmother in a squat. When she couldn’t afford to pay his school fees, he was forced to skip classes. Eventually they were evicted even from the squat.

But against all the odds, Hinga did well in his exams, until his grandmother died – then he dropped out of school and his life began to take a downward trajectory.

Hinga started abusing drugs, first marijuana and then heroin. He spent hours sifting through garbage to find things he could sell on the streets.

Hinga and Wanja lost touch.

When they met again, more than 15 years later, Hinga had been homeless for more than a decade. He looked nothing like the childhood friend who had once been known as “Pele”.

Sensing Wanja’s dismay, Hinga reassured her that he had only wanted to say hello. She asked him if she could buy him lunch. At a local cafe, she ordered the dish she remembered had been his favourite years earlier – pork ribs and mashed potatoes. She said he appeared distracted, unable to finish sentences.

“I gave him my mobile telephone number and told him to call me if he needed anything,” Wanja says.

Over the next couple of days, Hinga borrowed phones and would regularly call his childhood friend, often just to hear her voice for a chat. He told her that he was committed to getting clean from drugs.

“I decided then, that something needed to be done to help him,” Wanja says.

Taking to social media, Wanja appealed to her friends to see if she could raise funds for drug rehabilitation.

“Rehab here is very expensive and I had no ways of raising funds on my own,” she says.

“We set up a crowdfunding page, but we only managed to raise around 41,000 Kenyan shillings (£300) initially. However the cost of nine days rehabilitation at Chiromo Lane Medical Center in Nairobi was more than 100,000 KES.

“I wasn’t sure how we would be able to cover this.”

But Wanja had promised to help Hinga, so she took him to the centre anyway, unsure how they would cover the cost.

A spokesperson for the rehab programme says Hinga was a dedicated patient, who committed fully to the nine-day detox.

Within days Hinga had gained weight and his concentration improved. Wanja took to Facebook to speak about her pride at her friend’s transformation in such a short period of time.

“A week ago Hinga and I couldn’t hold a normal conversation without me trying to hold his head up with my hand in order for him to concentrate. Today we can have a normal conversation with him confidently looking at me,” she wrote.

Mombasa businessman Fauz Khalid spotted Wanja’s public post on Facebook and said he wanted to share the story on a wider platform. He posted the photos on Twitter and his post has now been shared more than 50,000 times.

After that, the Kenyan media began to cover the story and Chiromo Lane Medical Center agreed to waive the entire fee for Hinga’s treatment.

Wanja says this was “a blessing”, but she was keen for her friend to undergo a more sustained recovery, and is now raising funds for him to follow a 90-day programme at The Retreat Rehabilitation Centre, where he is currently staying.

Heroin in Kenya

• It is estimated that between 20,000 and 55,000 Kenyans inject heroin but Kenya does not have a government-funded rehabilitation facility
• According to the International Drugs Policy Consortium, heroin was used in first in cities which were transit points (such as Mombasa) before spreading to Nairobi and other parts of the country
• The National Campaign Against Drug Abuse, a Kenyan government research body, says it is monitoring 25,000 intravenous drug users around the country – the number of people who snort heroin could be even higher, according to the Anti-Narcotics Unit officials
• Most of the world’s heroin is produced in Afghanistan, and reaches markets in Europe and North America via Central Asia and the Balkans – but the quantity of heroin seized off the coast of Kenya and neighbouring Tanzania has increased exponentially in the last eight years, leading the UN to conclude that the “Southern Route,” is growing in importance

“Unfortunately, there is still great stigma around drug abuse in Kenya,” Wanja says. This may be one reason why the government doesn’t provide free drug rehab treatment.

“Rehabs are expensive and out of reach for many people, not only in Kenya but also the greater part of Africa. I am committed to crowdsourcing so I can support my friend at this time,” says Wanja.

“Wanja is an angel sent from God. I owe her my life. She has stuck with me more closely than a brother or a sister,” Hinga tells the BBC.

On Twitter several users echoed this sentiment. Abraham Wilbourne‏, a financial analyst from Nairobi, told Wanja “You have a seat in heaven!” Many called her a “mashujaa”, which means “hero” in Swahili.

“People say I changed Hinga’s life, but he changed mine too.” says Wanja. “I realise now that a small act can change a person’s life.”

–

Source: BBC

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The first phase which involved the injection of two (2no) 200kVA transformers and improvement in the LV network focused on Bekwai Zongo.

Sefwi Bekwai is one of the revenue centres in the Sefwi Wiawso District of ECG. The community benefited from the rural electrification project in 1982, and since then has not seen any major network improvement and extension to meet the increasing demand for electricity supply.

Over the years, the community has seen a lot of infrastructural development, and numerous commercial activities.

Unfortunately, Bekwai Zongo, which is the commercial hub of Sefwi Bekwai has been served by just a 100kVA and 200kVA transformers and the network in that area has been prone to illegal interconnections.

There was therefore the need to improve the electricity supply system in the area to meet the power needs (suppressed load) of the people.

The Regional General Manager, Ing. Jacqueline Ofori-Atta, noted that the project will ensure safe and reliable electricity supply to customers in the area.

She disclosed that the Bekwai project was one of several ongoing projects to improve reliability of power in the distribution network in the Western Region.

The project cost about GH¢508,323.46 with an installation component of GH¢56,873.70.
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By: citifmonline.com/Ghana

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The latest development announced by the Ghana Statistical Service (GSS) on Wednesday means that the value of goods and services produced in Ghana in the first quarter of this year grew by 6.7percent compared to the first quarter of last year. This however revealed a decline in growth as GDP had increased by about 9 percent from first quarter of 2012 to first quarter of 2013.

The total value of Ghana’s goods and services is at GHS 25.73 billion, which includes revenue from oil.

This figure however indicates a drop from about GHS 25.82 billion recorded in the last quarter of 2013.

Non-oil GDP for the first quarter however was GHS 23.03 billion also recording a decline from GHS 23.96 billion recorded in the last quarter of 2013.

Services sector continued to be the largest contributor making up about 51.2 percent of GDP. This sector however recorded the lowest growth rate of 4.6 percent.

The Agricultural sector which contributes about 14.9 percent to GDP in the first quarter of this year recorded the highest year-on-year growth rate of about 12.7 percent.

Industry however, recorded a negative year-on-year growth rate of about 1.1 percent. Industry currently contributes about 34 percent to GDP.

The main contributors to this year’s first quarter GDP were Livestock Production which expanded by about 25.7 percent, fishing activities which grew up about 20 percent, and the Financial and Insurance sectors which grew by about 20 percent compared to the same period in 2013.  The others were Community, social and personal activities which was up by 10.7 percent and Information and communication increased by 10.3 percent.

However manufacturing declined by about 19 percent.

Deputy Government statistician, Baah Wadieh explained that “we have realized that for some time in manufacturing for example, we have been experiencing a lot of power and water problems, competition from outside with cheaper goods, and some major industries closing down.”

According to him the decline in public administration by about 8 percent was because “they are mainly funded by government through the budget and they have not received enough funding compared to the first quarter of 2013 and so their activities are virtually minimal.”

The GDP for the first quarter however grew by 2.6 percent compared to the last quarter of 2013. The key drivers for this quarter-on-quarter growth were Forestry which increased by 19 percent, Fishing activities expanding by 14.1 percent, mining and quarrying activities increasing by 8.4percent and Livestock production which grew by 4.5 percent.

Some other industries however declined. Public administration’s GDP declined by 7.3 percent compared to the fourth quarter of 2013. Real estate also declined by 5.1 percent, Manufacturing by 0.1percent and Financial and Insurance activities which declined by 3.9 percent.

By: Kwaku Anim Boadu/citifmonline.com/Ghana

Follow @boaduanim

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