Author: Francis Muli

Close to 105,000 people in Homabay, Kisumu, Siaya and Busia counties who have been severely affected by the ongoing floods will benefit from items worth Ksh14.7 million from the Safaricom Foundation. The Foundation has partnered with Kenya Red Cross to distribute kits with basic household essentials, reusable face masks and three months’ supply of sanitary towels. The household essential kit includes Tarpaulins, a Kitchen set, Blankets, Jerricans Sleeping mats, Soap, Mosquito nets and an easy-to-use water disinfectant. According to the Kenya Red Cross, the floods have displaced at least 34,000 households and there are about 196 camps, largely schools and churches,…

Smartphone affordability remains one of the major contributing factors hampering digital inclusion in some African countries. Speaking during an online Mobile Broadband Inclusion discussion organized by Huawei this week GSMA Head of Sub-Saharan Africa, Akinwale Goodluck said the issue of smartphone pricing remained a barrier to internet adoption. Goodluck said while consumers across the continent wanted to have access to quality smartphones, with speedy internet connectivity, affordability was still an issue. “There are a lot of initiatives going on as different stakeholders are trying to sell a 50-dollar smartphone and some places more aggressive, a 20-dollar smartphone. Governments have a…

Members of the Safaricom Youth Orchestra are set to receive music lessons through e-learning, following a handover of 4G enabled mobile handsets from Safaricom. With the COVID-19 pandemic affecting the physical practice sessions, the over 80 students who make up the orchestra will now receive music instructions from home, with the first online class set for May 16, 2020. The orchestra draws together 45 percent of its students from public schools, 30 percent from the Ghetto Classics programme, and 25 percent from private school. Safaricom has also partnered with Eneza Education, Longhorn Publishers and Viusasa to provide free access to…

MTN Group Ltd has reducing its expenditure for the full year in an effort to preserve cash and maintain networks during the COVID-19 crisis. Africa’s biggest wireless carrier by sales will invest $1.1 billion in 2020 instead of an earlier $1.5 billion, the Johannesburg-based company said in a statement. The company is working with a medium-term growth estimate and said that it is committed to an asset-disposal strategy that kicked off in 2019. Worldwide, Telecoms have proved resilient to the COVID-19 crisis as most governments have enforced stay at home measures which have necessitated working and entertaining from home to…

A middle-aged man in Tanzania was arrested at his lover’s place wearing his father-in-law’s army uniform which he stole to deceive his friends. The 34-year old man identified as Mrisho Ibrahim is a barber in Kimandolu area in Arusha, and at the time of arrest, he was lying to youths how he could secure them jobs in the army. He was arrested at Kamachumu area in Muleba District while dressed in Jeshi la Wananchi Tanzania (JWTZ) gear. At the time of the arrest he had gone to visit his side-lover in Western Tanzania. “When he arrived in Muleba, Kagera, and…

Safaricom has introduced a feature that alerts you when someone tries to register a new SIM card with your ID number, in a bid to curb fraud. In the new feature, when someone tries to register a new line, you will receive an SMS notification through the number 707. In case it is not you, you will reply with No, and the registration will be stopped. https://twitter.com/SafaricomPLC/status/1261253047768027137 Recently, there have been increased cases where fraudsters use ID details collected from rogue M-Pesa agents and other avenues to steal from customers. The new development will come in handy for customers to…

Whatsapp, one of the most popular messenger platforms in the world, provides a great platform for businesses to connect with their customers. They have now made things a bit simpler for businesses as they will be able to link their Whatsapp business and Facebook platforms to sync info and run Facebook ads that also click to Whatsapp. Businesses that use the Whatsapp business can sync info from their Facebook pages such as opening hours, location, website links and much more. If you would like to link your pages, go to business settings on your Whatsapp and tap on linked accounts.…

The Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA) has moved to the High Court to appeal against a decision by the Tax Appeal Tribunal to let go off economist David Ndii in Ksh2.8 million tax row. In 2017, the taxman was in a tussle with Ndii over millions of tax arrears, including a Ksh8.4 million resulting from income tax and another Ksh2.9 million from VAT. The Ksh2.9 million was later reviewed down to Ksh2.8 million. The Ksh8.4 million was settled out of court, while the Tax Appeals Tribunal threw out the case on Ksh2.8 million on grounds that the taxman used the wrong…

Chama Cha Mashinani (CCM) Party Leader and former Bomet governor Isaac Rutto has admitted to meeting President Uhuru Kenyatta, and now says they forged a deal. In a statement to newsrooms shared by his aide Kiprotich Samoei, Rutto says that his party has agreed to work with the President, and it could be on board by next week. “The Party Leader Hon Isaac Rutto met with the President H.E Uhuru Kenyatta and agreed in principle that the two parties work together in the interest of peace, cohesion and development in the country,” read the statement in part. Kahawa Tungu on…

Facebook and a group of telecom companies including MTN, China Mobile International, Orange, Vodafone and  Global Connect are working together to build the most comprehensive undersea cable to serve the African Continent and the middle east region where almost half a billion people are yet to be connected to the internet. The task has been assigned to Nokia-owned cable systems provider, Alcatel Submarine Networks with building the underwater cable. Facebook claims the cable will be nearly equal to the circumference of the earth t 37,000 kilometres or about 22,991 miles. It is however not clear how much Facebook and the…

Oil tycoon Yagnesh Devani will be extradited from the United Kingdom to Kenya to face Ksh7.6 billion Triton petroleum scandal, after close to 10 years of litigation. Devani faces 19 charges of fraud, with allegations that his firm Triton Petroleum disposed of 96,000 tonnes of fuel mortgaged to Emirates National Oil Corporation (Singapore) without its permission. “Accordingly, and for the reasons given, I would allow the appeal and would determine that Mr Devani’s extradition to Kenya would not breach his article 3 rights,” ruled Lord Justice Underhill. Devani, 55, was arrested by London’s Metropolitan Police in 2011 on suspicion of…

Airtel is prepared for a new round of price wars with Safaricom as it looks to increase its local market share. Airtel Africa, Airtel Kenya’s parent company, said in a briefing that it was not going to relent on the aggressive pricing practices that have resulted in it charging lower prices on data and voice, in comparison to its competitors. According to regulatory data, the telco’s share of Kenya’s voice traffic stood at 29.2 percent in the three months leading to December compared to Safaricom’s 67.1 percent. Read: Competition Tribunal Eases Merger Conditions For Airtel and Telkom Airtel has used…

Google has designed a new tab grouping feature for chrome users. This will help you better organize the number of tabs you have open at any given time. The feature is already available in the chrome beta version and will roll out more broadly to the desktop versions of chrome next week. You can make a group by right clicking on one tab and assigning it a name and a colour. You will be able to see the colour of the group under all the tabs that are included in that group. You can also drag your tabs from group…

As most cities start lifting the stay at home order and most people report back to work, Uber has come up with a number of changes on its Taxi-hailing and on-demand food delivery service. The changes have been prompted by the COVID-19 pandemic and the measures are to ensure the safety of the driver and the rider. The changes include a checklist for all users, a facemask verification feature for drivers and the number of passengers in every vehicle. “This is not a problem that can be solved by the drivers or only by the riders, it is everyone’s responsibility,”…

The Mount Kenya University (MKU) has extended all contracts for all staff in and outside Kenya month by month until the university re-opens, consequently halting negotiations for new employment agreement. In a memo,  MKU chairman Simon Gicharu said the move was aimed at helping the finance department process payments for staffers whose contracts had expired, and could not be paid by the University. “Covid-19 has affected normal operations where internal processes are followed to validate the renewals and there is a standing policy that inhibits the directorate of finance from processing salaries for the affected staff whose contracts have expired,”…