Author: Francis Muli

Magnate Ventures Ltd has been accused of evading tax by under-declaring the number of billboard it owns in the country. According to an anonymous whistle-blower who has written to the Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA), Magnate Ventures has been evading taxes for the last seven years. “Magnate Ventures Limited owns over one thousand (1,200) billboards countrywide. However, in a deliberate attempt to gain a tax benefit Magnate Ventures Limited has been declaring that it owns about one hundred (100) billboards in Nairobi county while the true position is contrary to their declarations,” write the whistle blower. The company is owned and…

Early this week, this blog published a story alleging that National Oil General Manager George Kubai is the father to Joan Kubai, the lady who flaunted family house on social media. However, it has emerged that the two are not related in any way, as affirmed by the family of Mr George Kubai, and he does not also own a house in Runda as earlier alleged. Mr Kubai previously held the titles of Senior managerial positions in Airtel Kenya, Pan Africa Insurance, Equity Bank Limited and Nairobi Bottlers. Mr George Kubai was appointed the new Chief Executive Officer National Oil…

Health Cabinet Secretary Mutahi Kagwe today addressed the nation from Makueni county where he congratulated the county for its preparedness in handling the Covid-19 crisis. He said that so far 257 health care workers had been exposed to the virus, 4 of them from Makueni County. Makueni is placed number 12 among the counties that have been affected by the Covid-19 virus. He thanked the healthcare workers, KMTC and the entire board who had offered their facilities for quarantine including a 300-bed capacity facility at Makindu as an isolation centre for Kenyans infected by the Covid-19. Kagwe reported that out…

Breshy Worships, a new gospel sensation has released a new single and visual praise song, Umeinuliwa Juu. Umeinuliwa Juu is the first single from her upcoming album due for release later in the year. Speaking about the song, Breshy explains that the song was inspired by what God has done in her life, despite being at rock bottom sometime in her life. “Umeinuliwa Juu is a song about praising God for the things he has done in my life and that of every other person. It is meant to inspire and encourage anyone going through sickness, depression, loss of jobs…

Safaricom has launched a new Android TV box, that will enable Safaricom Home Fibre customers to stream all their TV channels and internet entertainment on any television. The box will allow viewers to stream shows and movies from content providers such as YouTube, Netflix, ShowMax, Hulu, Sling and other Android TV Applications. Using the box, you can also wirelessly project smartphone and laptop screens to the TV through screen casting. The “plug and play” box will retail at Ksh6,999 across all Safaricom shops and the online shop Masoko, with no monthly costs. Read: Thirty Students Graduate from Safaricom Youth Orchestra…

Facebook is considering integrating WhatsApp into Facebook messenger. “In particular, Facebook is creating some tables in a local database in order to manage messages and services with other WhatsApp users,” reads a post on WABetaInfo. Although the integration is deemed to be quite complicated, the service would work by using Facebook Messenger’s code to allow the messaging app understand if Whatsapp contacts are blocked, push notifications sounds, details of Whatsapp chats such as message counters, phone numbers and whether the chat is archived. Facebook’s current coding properties do not allow Messenger access to content in chats, membership of a specific…

Amendments made to the Finance Act 2020 will postpone the imposition of new tax on at least 31 goods from July 1 to January 1, 2021. Price increases for goods such as bottled water, beer, juice and fuel will be delayed for six months to offer a reprieve to Kenyans who are already reeling from the realities of lay offs, pay cuts and shut businesses following the Covid-19 pandemic. The adjustment, announced during the reading of the 2020/2021 budget is in line with the requirement for excise duty to be revised upwards in tandem with the rate of inflation in…

Postmortem of the bodies of two children who were found dead in a car parked in Athi River Police Stations was ‘inconclusive’, meaning pathologists were unable to tell the cause of death. Addressing journalists today, chief government pathologist Johansen Oduor said that the bodies had decomposed so much, making it difficult to point out the cause of death for Alvina Mutheu, 3, and Henry Jackton, 4. “We tried looking for any injury which can give us a clue as to what caused the death but we didn’t see any injuries so as at this moment we are unable to say…

The U.S. is considering banning TikTok and other Chinese apps. This was revealed by US Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo in an interview with Fox News. “We’re certainly looking at it,” Pompeo said during, he added that the administration was taking the issue  “very seriously.” “With the respect to Chinese apps on people’s cellphones, I can assure you the United States will get this one right.” He added, “I don’t want to get out in front of the president, but it’s something we’re looking at.” Pompeo’s remarks come after rising sanctions against China from the U.S. after Donald Trump repeatedly…

Telkom and Loon today announced the availability of mobile Internet service via the Loon technology to Kenyans, starting July 2020. The milestone comes as the project partners approach the completion of their network integration tests, that have seen them successfully assess service quality across their infrastructure and respective networks. In one field testing session in late June, Loon registered an uplink speed of 4.74 Mbps, a downlink speed of 18.9 Mbps, and latency of 19 milliseconds (ms). In this and subsequent testing, the service was used for applications such as email, web browsing, data calls e.g via WhatsApp, video calls,…

IMAX 20th Century (Anga Imax Cinema) in Nairobi’s Central Business District (CBD) has been put up for sale over rent arrears. In a notice placed on the local dailies by Ideal Auctioneers, the auctioneer said that the hammer for the famous IMAX 20th Century theatre will fall on Wednesday July 15, at 11am. “Under instructions received from our client, we shall sell by public auction the undermentioned goods on Wednesday 15th July, 2020 at 20th Century Plaza, Nairobi CBD at 11am,” announced the auctioneers. The sale, according to the auctioneers, will include a huge assortment of movie theatre equipment such…

The Nairobi City Council has an easy to use revenue collection system known as the Internal Revenue Management System (IRMS) that was introduced in June 2019. The system allows users to pay for parking using a short code (USSD). The system is used to pay for parking, rent arrears, land rates, single business permits, construction permits and advertisements among others. Nairobi Parking Rules, Regulations and Offenses. It is an offense to reserve a parking space or place a reserve sign post without consent from the City Council. It is an offense to park in a designated parking space without paying…

Egyptian ride-hailing app SWVL has reported a security breach in its system, forcing it to log out all registered users. “We wish to inform you that our team recently identified a security breach that involved unauthorized access to our systems,” they said in a notice. According to the company, they first noticed the breach on July 3rd 2020. They are investigating the breach that compromised user registration details including names, email addresses and phone numbers. SWVL indicated that they took a number of measures when they learned of the breach. They regenerated all access keys to their systems, logged out…

In the past few weeks, Google has removed about 25 apps from Google play store. The tech giant always strives to ensure the safety of your phone by listing safe to use apps in the play store; however, some harmful ones inevitable find their way to the store and ultimately, to the users. Apart from Google, cyber security companies like Evina also check and test various apps to detect any malicious malware that could be used to harm or steal your information. Below is the list of 25 apps that have hence been deleted by Google. However, if you had…

Central Bank of Kenya (CBK) has refused to cap the Ksh1,000 and below free M-Pesa transactions per user to five per day. Safaricom had petitioned to the CBK to cap free transactions between two numbers to five, arguing that customers were splitting high-value money transfers of as high as Ksh60,000 to transactions of below Ksh1,000, allowing them to enjoy a free services at the expense of the telco. Safaricom also wanted CBK to reduce the free transaction from bank accounts from Ksh1,000 to Ksh500. Safaricom estimates that it had been losing approximately Ksh1.7 billion worth of revenue every month between…