Author: Francis Muli

Kenyan lawyer Paul Gicheru, accused of corruptly influencing International Criminal Court (ICC) witnesses, has surrendered to the authorities in Netherlands. A warrant of arrest was issued against Gicheru, and Philip Kipkoech Bett was issued in March 2015 by Pre-Trial Chamber II of the International Criminal Court. A similar warrant of arrest was issued against Walter Barasa in August 2013. The three were accused of  witness interference and bribery among other claims of impropriety, which allegedly led to suspects recanting evidence and becoming hostile in a case that roped President Uhuru Kenyatta and and his Deputy William Ruto. President Kenyatta and Ruto…

Sports betting company Sportpesa held billions of shillings in its accounts by the time its licence was revoked in July 2019, some belonging to Kenyans while another chunk belonged to the company. Since then, billions have been wired to offshore accounts and may never be recovered, one of the shareholders has revealed. In a statement, Paul Wanderi Ndung’u, who owns 17 percent of Sportpesa parent company Pevans East Africa Ltd, said that Kenyan shareholders were probably swindled by foreign investors who colluded with the current CEO Ronald Karauri. He says that according to an audit, within three years, Pevans East…

This week’s bulletin on CyberSecurity by the National Computer Incident Response Team (CIRT) highlights how to keep your Operating system (OS) safe. The OS is the most important software that runs on your phone or computer. It manages your device’s processes, software, hardware and also the memory of the device. Examples of common operating system are: Windows, Linux, Ubuntu, MacOS and ChromeOS. For the phone, common OSs are Android and iOS. Read: How To Use Google Meet Common OS Attacks Remote Code Execution (RCE): This happens when cybercriminals run a random malicious code on your device. By doing so, the…

Universities have been asked to take the online classes more seriously as more employers have started scrutinizing the quality of e-learning, a state official has said. Speaking at a forum held by the Commissioner for Higher Education (CUE), the principal secretary for University Education and Research Simon Nabukwesi said that students seeking admission for online learning should be subjected to the same recruitment method as those joining regular classes. “They want to see a return on investment made in university education,”Nabukwesi said on employer expectations. Read: UoN Law Students Sue Institution Over Online Classes, Exams Officials from various universities who…

Safaricom Foundation through its economic empowerment programme has partnered with Hand in Hand Eastern Africa (HiH EA) NGO to support 400 self-help groups with access to microloans. The foundation will invest Ksh12 million in the project with the aim of supporting over 5,000 enterprises. This is part of the foundation’s support to those affected by the economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. The project which is in its second phase will be rolled out in Busia, Kajiado, Migori, Baringo, Nakuru and Nairobi counties. During the first phase which was launched in 2015 over 5,900 new enterprises were created and incubated with…

Nine people have been confirmed dead after matatu and lorry collided head-on along Kaloleni-Mazeras highway in Bondora, Kilifi. According to Kaloleni Member of Parliament Paul Katana who spoke to Nation, the accident happened at Bondora at about 3pm as the matatu headed to Kaloleni town from Mombasa County collided with a lorry headed to the opposite direction. “The accident happened two kilometres from where I was – on the border of Kaloleni and Rabai. The lorry and the matatu collided head-on. The nine bodies have been taken to Makadara mortuary ,” said Mr Katana. The accident has been confirmed by…

The country could go back to lockdown due too escalating Covid-19 infections, President Uhuru Kenyatta has said. Speaking at the All Saints Cathedral in Nairobi County where he joined Anglican faithful in marking the 50th anniversary of the Anglican Church of Kenya (ACK), President Kenyatta said that the government could “soon” impose a lockdown in case Kenyans continued to ignore Ministry of Health guidelines. “We’re going through that very difficult time of saying ‘now what do we do again, do we close up?’ We shall be coming back to that…not today, but soon…but when I see this, it says  that…

Citizen TV presenter Willis Raburu has disowned the failed Gengetone Festival in Machakos that had disappointing attendance over the weekend. Taking to his Instagram, the bubbly presenter however admitted that it was a lesson learnt, terming it as a “rare teachable moment”. “The Gengetone Festival was not my event. I attended basically as an emcee and as an upcoming artist,” he said. According to Raburu, the photos circulating online were taken before the event started officially, and he was “just hyping the moment”. He reveals that the event was poorly organised, and even when the time the main performers came, they…

Six nominees for ambassadorial jobs faced an uphill task last week to defend themselves before MPs over old age. Five of the nominees are 60 years old, while one is 49 years old and they appeared before the Defence and Foreign Relations committee for vetting as is the norm. The five, who are 60 years old include former Kenya Navy commander, Ngewa Mukala (Khartoum, Sudan), Jean Kimani (UN-Habitat), Benson Ogutu (Moscow, Russia), Catherine Mwangi (Pretoria, South Africa) and Samuel Nandwa (Juba, South Sudan). The 49-year-old is former BBI joint secretary, Martin Kimani, nominated to the United Nations, New York. The MPs felt…

Whatsapp is now delivering roughly 100 billion messages every day, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg revealed during the third quarter’s earnings call this week. The popular instant messaging app first recorded more than 100 billion messages sent on Christmas Eve in 2019. Apparently, that is the day Whatsapp always tops its engagement figures and in previous years, the day when the app experiences hitches. 2019 saw all the 100 billion messages go smoothly without any hick-ups, perhaps due to the fact that the company anticipated and prevented any issues. Read: WhatsApp Resumes Development Of “Vacation Mode” Feature As of 2016, both…

The International Finance Corporation (IFC) has extended a Sh3.2 billion debt funding to Kenya’s Agri-tech start-up, Twiga Foods. The funds will be used to complement 300 irrigated medium-scale contract farmers who will add to Twiga Foods’ smallholder supply base. Twiga joins other recipients including Tier 1 commercial banks such as Kenya Commercial Bank who have benefited from IFC’s global SME finance facility offers unfunded risk sharing facilities (RSFs) Read: Kenyan and Nigerian Start ups secure Funding from Hong Kong Based Accelerator Twiga’s funding will be used to support at least 300 medium scale farmers to help supplement the company’s smallholder…

Global digital healthcare giant, Vezeeta, has launched an app to enable Kenyans access doctors using their smartphones. Patients will now be able to go one the app, search for a doctor and book an appointment. Vezeeta is available for Android on Google App store and for iPhone on Apple App store. It offers 24 hours a day medical access in all the 47 counties. To book an appointment, simply download the app on your mobile phone, sign up and select the medical specialty of interest, region and insurance cover. This will filter out a list of doctors from where you…

Xiaomi, the Chinese Tech company, sold about five million smartphones more than Apple in the third quarter, a report by the International Data Corporation (IDC) has revealed. The Chinese tech company rose to take Apple’s spot as the world’s third largest seller of smartphones after Samsung and Huawei. Xiaomi sold 46.5 million devices, at least five million more than Apple, whose figures were affected by the late launch of the iPhone 12, the IDC report said. Read: Samsung Beats Huawei to Lead in Global Smartphone Sales in August Samsung got back to the top spot, beating Huawei who had clinchethe…

Less than a year since the NIC and CBA banks merged to form the NCBA bank, the new entity has announced plans to retrench a number of employees due to difficult financial times. In a statement to the employees, Group Managing Director John Gachora said that the redundancy will be done through voluntary basis (Voluntary Exit Program) of forced exits (Redundancy Program). “Today, I announce that we are embarking on a process to reorganize our workforce which will result in reduction of staff headcount. The COVID-19 pandemic, which is the most harrowing health and economic crisis of our lifetime, has…

Kenya is participating in Oxford University’s global clinical trials for a Covid-19 vaccine candidate, the Kenya Medical Research Institute (KEMRI)has said. 40 Frontline workers from Kilifi have already begun testing the vaccine. The vaccine candidate, named ChAdOx1 nCoV-19 was developed jointly with Astrazeneca and is being evaluated in Britain, Brazil, South Africa and Kenya. “To ensure that Kenyans can benefit… if it proves to be successful, it is important to assess its performance among Kenyan volunteers,” the Kenya Medical Research Institute (KEMRI) said in a statement. Read: Safaricom And Samsung Extend Communication Support To Frontline Health Workers KEMRI says the…