What First Lady Margaret Kenyatta Is Up To

We have not seen much of Kenya’s First Lady Margaret Kenyatta but it turns out she has been pretty busy.

She was recently in Mandera where she officially launched National Bank’s Northern Kenya greening initiative

Speaking at the event, Mrs Kenyatta expressed her surprise and delight at the bank’s achievement, with over 2.5 million trees planted around the country. The bank’s effort, the First Lady said, is going a long way to mitigate effects of climate change.  Kenya’s forest cover had reduced to 1.7% by 2002 following a period of environmental degradation and has been gradually improving, reaching 6% in 2012. 

“It is such efforts as this one by NBK that are helping the government move closer to the 10% forest cover goal recommended by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).” she said.

 “I am indeed proud to unveil in Mandera two developments courtesy of the National Bank of Kenya: their tree planting programme in Northern Kenya, and the Mandera National Amanah branch (the Islamic banking division of National Bank of Kenya) which will increase access to banking services for Kenyans in this region,” said Mrs. Kenyatta.

NBK’s Kenya@50 tree planting programme has been amassing a forest of 100,000 trees with every branch it launches since the new management took over in 2013. During the two and half years, National bank added 25 new brick and mortar branches, one of the fastest growth rates in the industry.

NBK’s Managing Director and CEO, Munir Sheikh Ahmed said: “We are committed to ensuring that the change happening inside National Bank under our transformation plan is embodied in the environment around us through the tree planting cause. We are alive to the higher calling of National Bank as a bank that carries a lot of Kenyans aspirations,” he said.

A homegrown lender founded 5 years after Kenya’s independence, National Bank of Kenya, is widely associated with Kenyans pride and self determination.

Launch of the Mandera branch, NBK 80th branch, comes at a time when the bank is reaping a dividend from a phase of massive technology investment, streamlining operations and adoption of the universal bank model which has resulted in increased profitability. With the bank set to announce its third quarter 2015 results this month, Its half year 2015 profits were at Ksh. 2.5Billion compared to 2.43Billion shilling for the full year 2014 and 1.8Billion shilling in full year 2013.