Author: Francis Muli

Housing and Urban Development Permanent Secretary Charles Hinga has warned local chiefs and village leaders against favouritism and corruption as they implement the Kazi Mtaani Programme. The PS said he had received reports that the chiefs were awarding sought after jobs to ‘outsiders’, allowing them to take up spots meant for locals. PS Hinga urged Kilifi residents to forward the names of the ‘outsiders’ who had been hired and assured them that on completion of the exercise, the names of the beneficiaries will be published. He said that if there were any names of ghost workers, the chiefs and leaders…

Kenya has secured a Sh 6.4 billion loan from Korea’s Import Bank which will be channeled towards building special lanes for high capacity buses that will connect the Eastern Bypass to Thika road. The project will be undertaken with the hope of restoring Outer ring road’s glory which in its original plan was to position it to become the highly sought solution for Nairobi Eastlands where a huge population of the city’s residents reside. The road has experienced increased traffic jams since the upgrade and subsequent opening of the road. Pipeline estate and Kariobangi junctions which are both dotted with…

Huawei’s 5G wireless and core network equipment (5G RAN gNodeB, 5G Core UDG,UDM,UNC,UPCF) and LTE eNodeB has passed the GSMA’s Network Equipment Security Assurance Scheme (NESAS). GSMA NESAS boosts the industry’s confidence in telecom network equipment, making it a practical choice for the industry and an important consideration for all regional markets, to jointly promote the development of more aligned mobile communications market. NESAS is a standardized cybersecurity assessment mechanism jointly defined by GSMA and 3GPP, together with major global operators, vendors, industry partners and regulators. It provides an industry-wide security assurance framework to facilitate improvements in security levels across…

The Covid-19 pandemic has prompted more Kenyans to make online orders and increased digital transactions. Delivery companies including Jumia, Glovo and Uber Eats applied a number of Covid-19 precautionary measures as part of their protocol during the period. The companies advocated for cashless payments increasing the number of card and mobile payments by 50 percent. Grocery orders also saw a 30 percent rise as more people chose to stay indoors during the period. More Kenyans have become more adaptable to e-commerce and overall digital services since the first case of Covid-19 was reported in the country on March 12. Glovo…

Chinese company, Transsion, has reported a 33 percent jump in its net profit in the first half of 2020 amid reports that thousands of Tecno Mobile phones it manufactured for the African Market came pre-installed with malware. Transsion reported a 32 percent increase in its smartphone shipments year-on-year during the same period. The Shenzhen based manufacturer dominates both the middle and lower sector of the African Phone Market. Transsion maintains that the malware only affected one model under the Tecno Mobile brand and that they had already fixed the problem by releasing security patches, which users can download, and install…

The World Bank has suspended the ‘Ease of Doing Business Report’ following a number of irregularities that have been reported in the Doing Business 2018 and Doing Business 2020 reports. In a statement, the global lender said that the changes in the data were inconsistent with the Doing Business methodology. The report has been in existence for over 17 years now, and has been an important tool for countries seeking to measure costs of doing business. “We are conducting a systematic review and assessment of data changes that occurred subsequent to the institutional data review process for the last five…

The Africa Telecommunication Union(ATU) has launched the ATU Africa Innovations Challenge 2020; a competition designed to identify and support young African innovators who have developed mobile applications useful for benefiting the fight to contain COVID-19 and possibly other emergency situations in Africa in future. According to the ATU Secretary General Mr John Omo, top prize winner in the competition is expected to carry home a cash award of USD 5,000 (Ksh500,000) aside from being engaged in other mentorship and partnership programmes. “This challenge will be instrumental in recognizing, testing and highlighting disruptive innovations and new business models that have the…

Google has announced that its video chat app, Google Duo will now be available on Android TV. The chat app will be positioned as a native app allowing users to launch video calls right at the TV screen. Earlier this week, the tech giant announced that Google Meet users could now project their video conferencing meetings on their TV screens using Chromecast. The new update on Google Duo will be available on Beta in the coming weeks. Users will be able to launch one-on-one and group video calls in the new update. “If your TV doesn’t have a camera built-in,…

Google has disclosed that YouTube removed about 11 million videos during the second quarter compared to six million videos at the beginning of the year. The tech giant said it had updated its automatic systems to be stricter because they were short-staffed due to the Covid-19 pandemic. This means that the system could also have taken down some videos in error. The company also said that it had put in place stricter automatic measures in factors to do with “violent extremism” and “child safety”, which of course led to increased video take-downs. As a result, child safety was the top…

Kenya Airways (KQ) has recorded a Ksh14.3 billion in the first six months of 2020, representing a 67 percent rise from Ksh8.5 billion loss recorded in the first six months of 2019. Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, most of its flights were grounded leaving only a few charter planes and cargo flights in operation. The number of passengers reduced by 55.5 percent to 1.1 million compared to 2.4 million in the first half of 2019. As a result, KQ revenues reduced to Ksh30.2 billion in the period under review from Ksh58.5 billion in the first six months of 2019. Read:…

Telkom Kenya has embarked on a new business strategy following announcement of failed merger talks with Airtel Kenya early this month. The company has restructured its business model to leverage on the growing digital penetration in the country. Telkom now seeks to expand its 4G network using their existing spectrum to throw their focus into consumer and data business under the leadership of two of its managing directors, Steve Okeyo and Chris Senanu. Okeyo will handle Telkom Consumer data and financial services while Senanu is the new Managing Director, Telkom Digital. His office will handle new technologies such as Internet…

Former Kenya Ports Authority (KPA) Managing Director Daniel Manduku has been arrested hours after the Directorate of Public Prosecutions (DPP) ordered his arrest. Manduku is accused of approving the procurement of concrete barriers at the Inland Container Depot, Kilindini Port and Makongeni Goods shed without an approved budget and procurement plan for the financial year 2018/19. Manduku is also said to have made an overpayment of Sh244, 837,908 to contractors for work not completed. In his statement, Director of Public Prosecutions Noordin Haji said that there is enough evidence to charge the former MD and KPA works officer Juma Chigulu.…

Detectives probing the death of Kevin Omwenga have recovered two more guns in the house of businessman Chris Obure. The police recovered a pistol and a shotgun hidden in a safe in the office at Senteu Plaza on Galana Road during the Wednesday raid. K24 reports that DCI boss George Kinoti has written to the Firearms Licencing Board seeking to know the status of the firearms. “We are investigating to establish the truth. This is shocking and cruel,” Kinoti said. This comes days after Obure’s Ceska pistol was used to shoot Omwenga on Friday night in the presence of his…

In your day to day life, you might have come across many situations where you were helpless to complete a particular task. It might be due to your busy schedule or you simply might not be having the required expertise or experience for that task. We all face such situations and hope for someone to help us out. Wouldn’t it be easier if you could simply outsource your tasks? George Karimi and Winnie Kung’u were thinking to solve the same problem when they co-founded SwiftAide. SwiftAide is a community platform that connects people who need to outsource tasks and find local services, with people who are looking to earn…

Google Maps has added some new updates to make the saved places more useful. The saved tab now allows you to bookmark favourite places and sort them under different categories such as “want to go”, “favorites”, “starred places” or “custom lists”. These can include restaurants, parks, clubs and malls. The new update will help you sort out the locations especially since we tend to save them continually. It will help you to access your lists based on how recently you saved it and how close your current proximity to the place is. Most people turn on their device’s location and…