Author: Francis Muli

Airtel Africa has announced 11.2 percent revenue growth for the financial year ended March 2020, which stood at $3,422 million as compared to $3,077 million recorded in the year ended March 2019. The company recorded a $408 million profit after tax, a 4.4 percent drop from $426 million recorded the previous year attributed to increased tax charges from $78 million the previous year to $190 million, and also cash devaluation. The company also attributed the drop to a one-off deferred tax recognition in Nigeria in the year ended 30 March 2019 and a lower exceptional item gain in the current…

The Jubilee Party has expelled nominated Senators who snubbed a Parliamentary Group meeting called by President Uhuru Kenyatta on Monday. Those expelled include Falhada Dekow Iman, Naomi Jillo Waqo, Victor Prengei, Mary Seneta Yiane and Millicent Omanga. Party Secretary General Raphael Tuju says they were expelled for gross insubordination, gross misconduct. He says that despite the Senators receiving invitation messages, they did not even bother to send apologies for not attending meeting. The Party has also announced that it will take action against rebels in parliament including recall. “If they have any illusions that we will make the mistakes made…

The court of appeal has dismissed an application filed by the Kenya Revenue Authority seeking to compel Google to reveal the identity of hackers who breached its system. In its ruling, the Court of Appeal threw out the taxman’s suit on grounds that they were late in filing court documents. KRA filed the petition in 2018 after hackers breached their systems and made off with sensitive data. KRA sued Google Kenya, Google’s local subsidiary, in a bid to compel them to reveal the identity behind a Gmail account that was alleged to have been involved in the breach. A few…

While more than two thirds of the population are connected to the internet in North America and Europe, access levels remain below a third in Africa, India and much of the sub-continent, a new study shows. The study by Huawei on mobile and internet penetration shows that there is still a wide usage gap in Africa, with penetration rate estimated at 24 percent in the continent. Mobile internet users in Sub-Saharan Africa were about 239 million in 2018 with a projection of 483 million users by 2025. Unique mobile subscribers who do not necessarily use the internet were at 456…

Twitter has told its employees that they can work from home forever, if they wish. In a statement, the social media company said that it was among the first to implement the WFH (Work From Home)  model due to the Covid-19 pandemic, but did not anticipate being among the first to return to offices. The company said that if the employees’ roles and situations allowed them to work from home forever, then they would make it happen. “If not, our offices will be their warm and welcoming selves, with some additional precautions, when we feel it’s safe to return,” the…

Cash in circulation in the country dropped to Ksh241.96 in February, data from the Central Bank of Kenya (CBK) has shown. The cash in circulation dropped by Ksh23.9 billion from Ksh265.87 in February 2019, a close to 10 percent drop. In January, Ksh242.06 billion was in circulation, a Ksh20.32 billion or 7.7 percent drop from Ksh262.38 billion in January 2019. At least Ksh7 billion cash was rendered useless by September 2019, during the phase out of the old Ksh1000 currency notes. The Ksh7 billion was never returned to the CBK. At that time, the cash in circulation dropped to Ksh207.07…

Google play music is only available until the end of this year, and then it will be discontinued. This means we shall only have YouTube music as Google’s only music streaming service. Luckily, with just a few taps, you can transfer your music library, purchased songs, recommendations and your personal uploads to YouTube before that happens. You do not have to lose any of your music when Google play shuts down. You can transfer music from an android device, iPhone or from the web. It does not matter which method you use as you will be able to transfer all…

Uber has made an offer to acquire grubhub and could seal the deal as soon as this month. The offer is said to be an all stock takeover that would see Grubhub get absorbed into Uber’s larger operation. Grubhub is currently valued at $4.5 billion. Uber currently operates uber eats, which is a Grubhub competitor in many countries. In a 2019 report, Uber had 20 percent of the delivery app market while grub hub had 30 percent. It is no surprise that Uber wants to invest more in the food delivery as its main business has taken a big hit…

Former Senate Majority Leader Kipchumba Murkomen and former Senate Majority Whip Susan Kihika have moved to the High Court to block their ouster. The case has been certified as urgent and will be heard on Thursday to determine their fate. The two were removed from their positions yesterday in a Parliamentary Group meeting for Jubilee senators held yesterday at the State House in their absence. The changes were instituted today by Senate Speaker Kenneth Lusaka, who announced that there were 20 Jubilee Mps in attendance. “The minutes showed 20 senators attended the meeting and resolved unanimously to remove Murkomen as…

Hope FM is now available to DStv and GOtv customers on all packages. Hope FM will be available on DStv channel 896 and channel 304 on GOtv beginning May 12, 2020. Hope FM is a 24-hour Christian radio station that started broadcasting in 2003 and broadcasts in English and Kiswahili languages. Hope FM programming ranges from a vast mix of praise and worship gospel music, both local and international, interactive discussions on biblical, inspirational talks, commentaries, current, social, real life issues and advertising services as well as the latest in news, sports and the happenings within the global church. Some of its…

Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) Secretary General Edwin Sifuna has told off Elgeyo Marakwet Senator Kipchumba Murkomen following his ouster as Senate Majority Leader, saying he (Murkomen) is reaping what he sow. In a tweet replying to Murkomens cry for justice, Sifuna accused Murkomen of being one of the proprietors of impunity, when they cheered on when Miguna Miguna was being exiled amid 15 court orders stopping the same. “Get in line behind Miguna Miguna. He has 15 Court Orders from the High Court . You have one from a Tribunal. You fed the monster of impunity gleefully. You forgot once…

Twitter will now add labels to tweets that are deemed to be confusing or misleading in regards to the Corona virus pandemic. Twitter had previously announced that it would be removing tweets that spread false information about the Covid-19 and that could have a direct negative impact on users and their safety. The new label will be applied on tweets that are deemed ‘less severe’ but “where people may still be misled or confused,” the company said in a blog post. The labels on the tweets may read “some or all of the content shared in this tweet conflicts with…

Instagram Lite has quietly vanished from the google play charts and users are being redirected to the main Instagram app. The two year old version from Instagram was developed to target emerging markets and has been active in Kenya, Peru, Mexico and the Philippines. Existing users of the lite version are being redirected to the main app with a message that ‘Instagram is no longer supported.’ “We are rolling back the test of the Instagram Lite app.” A Facebook spokesperson said, “You can start using the latest version of Instagram instead to connect with the people and things you love.”…

Twitter has begun rolling out a tweet scheduling feature that has been in the works for a couple of months. The feature was on demand for a long time with various social media managers using third-party components such as hootsuite and tweetdeck, which Twitter acquired for $40 million in 2011. The feature comes in handy for brands managers and corporate companies who wish to make strategic announcements and schedule certain messages for their twitter audience. It is also useful when sharing links to news articles in other websites. The scheduling feature is accessible by clicking on the three dot icon…

China’s Wuhan City, the epicentre of Covid-19 outbreak, is planning a mass testing exercise that will see its 11 million residents tested in 10 days. An internal document shared online and sources quoted by Reuters indicate that every district in the city has been told to submit a detailed testing plan by Tuesday. https://twitter.com/MacaesBruno/status/1260047724155736066 The Wuhan health authority could not be immediately reached for comment, Reuters said. So far, China has 82,919 confirmed cases of Covid-19, 78,171 recoveries and 4,633 deaths. Read: Hackers Leak 25,000 Email Addresses, Passwords From WHO, Gates Foundation and Wuhan Lab China reported a second day…