Author: Francis Muli

The government has extended the school holiday by one month effective from the opening day, May 6. This was announced by Education Cabinet Secretary Prof George Magoha during the daily briefings of Covid-19 status in the country. He said that the government will not push the National Exams. “At this point the government has not decided to postpone both the Kenya Certificate of Primary Education (KCPE) and the Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE),” said Prof Magoha. Prof Magoha also announced that the time lost for learners during the Covid-19 pandemic period will be recovered for all learners. Email your…

Residents of Transmara area of Narok County have surrendered six firearms and 16 rounds of ammunition in an ongoing disarmament operation. The guns were presented before Deputy County Commissioner Hassan Noor at Moita chief’s office in Transmara. The guns included an M16 rifle, one G3 and four AK47 assault rifles. “Even those other weapons, bows and arrows, surrender them to us so that we can believe you are ready for peace in Transmara,” said Noor. Read: Stand-by KDF Soldier Shot Dead By Police In Suspected Robbery Case The operation was necessitated by a long standing conflict between Siria and Irruasin…

The Communication Authority of Kenya (CA) has been allowed by the Court of Appeal to install a mass surveillance system that will be able to spy on your phone conversations. The ruling delivered last week overturns a ruling by High Court Judge John Mativo, who had outlawed the installation of the controversial Data Management System (DMS). According to a three-bench jury that included William Ouko, Daniel Musinga and Martha Koome, there is no evidence that the system is meant to spy on consumers. Initially, former CA Director General Francis Wangusi had told the three telcos in the country, Safaricom, Airtel…

Current Capital Markets Authority (CMA) chairman James Ndegwa has appointed Paul Murithi Muthaura, the former CMA CEO as the chief operating officer (COO) of ICEA Lion Insurance, a firm associated with the former. The post was recently created to accomodate the lawyer, who has been out in the cold without a job since he left CMA in December 2019. Mr. Muthaura takes the reigns at ICEA Insurance, having had no insurance or any private sector operations experience. Under his regime, CMA is considered to have recorded some successes such as listing of the NSE and bringing orderliness to brokers. However,…

USIU Africa has partnered with Safaricom to launch subsidized mobile data bundles for students and faculty in efforts to ensure that the quality of online interaction remains uninterrupted. Students who already enrolled online for the service can now subscribe for the data bundles at subsidized rates. Upon subscription, students will get a confirmation message and a link to the educational data pass. When you click on the link, you will be redirected to the University’s eLearning portal to begin using the educational data pass. All schools were closed in March following the global Covid-19 outbreak and due to this, many…

Illegal sugar imports from neighbouring countries like Uganda are said to have flooded Western Kenya, even as the government authorities concentrate on fighting Covid-19. The illicit trade is said to have been orchestrated by unscrupulous businessmen and some authorities, and started even before opening of the customs window. “It is unfortunate that those importing sugar want to kill the local industries. At this rate, we will not have money to our pay farmers,” says Nzoia Sugar Company chairman Joash Wamang’oli as quoted by the Standard. The government released the custom import licenses for importation Friday last week, April 17, but the…

National Water Harvesting Authority CEO Geoffrey Sang was earlier today arrested by detectives from the Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) over alleged involvement in a Ksh231 million dam scandal. Kahawa Tungu learns that Sang was arrested over a suspected dam construction scandal by detectives from Serious Crime unit of the DCI. The detectives from DCI headquarters raided his office Friday morning and collected a number of documents from his office at the National Water Plaza, Dunga road Industrial Area. The Chairman of the Authority Erick Okeyo confirmed that detectives visited their offices but was not aware of the details. “Detectives…

On April 10, a discussion in a French TV suggested that tests for Covid-19 vaccines should be done in Africa, “where there is no treatment, no masks and no intensive care”. The sentiments were uttered by Jean-Paul Mira, head of intensive medicine and the intensive care unit at Paris’ Cochin hospital. “If I can be provocative, shouldn’t this study be done in Africa, where there are no masks, no treatment, no intensive care, a bit like it is done in some studies on AIDS or among prostitutes. We try things because we know they [sex workers] are highly exposed and…

Private investigator Jane Mugo has come out to spill the beans, alleging that he was betrayed by people close to her. In a long Facebook post, Ms Mugo says among those who betrayed her is Deputy Inspector General of police Edward Mbugua, who is her ex-boyfriend. Ms Mugo says that she met Mbugua while he was in Kirinyaga, working as an OCPD. He says Mbugua decided to betray her in 2019 after he recovered two passports of her client Dillip Bakrania from the Nairobi County Commander Bernard Nyakagwa, in a case where Mbugua was implicated. Contacted by this writer, Jane…

Tullow Oil has sold its business entity in Uganda to Total, including the East African Crude Oil Pipeline. Tullow owned about 33.3 percent stake in Uganda’s oil sector, which will cost Total  $575 million (approximately Ksh62 billion). According to a statement from Total on Thursday, the French company will pay  $500 million (Ksh54 billion) at closing and $75 million (Ksh8 billion) when the partners take the Final Investment Decision to launch Uganda’s oil project. “We are pleased to announce that a new agreement has been reached with Tullow, for less than $2 a barrel in line with our strategy of acquiring…

Troubled retailer Choppies will not be able to access its accounts in Kenya, following a ruling by the High Court that upheld locking of the accounts by the Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA). In a case filed by the Botswana-based retailer, High Court Judge David Majanja refused to give an order to unfreeze the accounts, which have been frozen by KRA following a Ksh173,388,416 tax dispute. The court was informed that Choppies had started disposing its assets and had closed several branches in preparation for an exit from the Kenyan market, which would see the tax man lose the aforementioned amount…

Samsung is trying to create an image sensor that surpasses the resolution of the human eye. Our eyes have a resolution of around 500MP and Samsung aims to create a 600MP camera sensor.According to Samsung’s head of Sensor business team, Yongin Park, Samsung usedits nonacell technology which works by increasing the amount of light absorption that pixels are capable of. “Compared to previous Tetracell technology which features a 2×2 array, the 3×3 pixel structure of Nonacell technology allows, for instance, nine 0.8μm pixels to function as one 2.4-μm pixel,” said Park. This will also address problems often caused by low…

Airtel Kenya has introduced community championship initiative where customers will get 5 percent cashback as airtime via MyAirtel App and USSD options whenever they buy airtime for themselves or their friends and families. This extra airtime can also be shared or sold to others through Me2U thus allowing customers to earn more money. The service is open to all current Airtel prepaid customers and even new customers who join the network For instance, a boda boda rider can purchase airtime for his colleagues or passengers and with every purchase, he gets the 5 percent cashback as airtime. He can further…

Amazon Web Services (AWS), Cape Town region has gone live today,  April 22, 2020. AWS administrators can now enable the Cape town Region their account on the AWS portal. The region has been named ‘Africa- (Cape town)’ and labelled ‘af-south-1’ AWS regions have a number of data centres named availability zones. The zones provide cloud computing services to the region and nearby edge networks. They are also connected with redundant, ultra-low-latency networks. The availability of Amazon Cape Town Region on AWS is great news to the South African developers as they do not have to use cloud storage and computing…

The Nairobi Hospital has announced commencement of COVID-19 testing known as PCR SARS COV-2, at a cost of Ksh10,000, Kahawa Tungu has learnt. In a statement, the CEO Dr Allan Pamba says that they have been authorised by the Ministry of Health to conduct the tests. “This is after rigorous training and collaboration by the Centre of Disease Control (CDC) and approval by the Ministry of Health, following validation by the National Influenza Center (NIC) Laboratory,” said Dr Pamba. According to Pamba, the testing facility which is located at the Main Hospital on Argwings Kodhek Road has the capacity to…