Author: Francis Muli

Kenya Plantation and Agricultural Workers Union has revealed that Unilever Kenya, a subsidiary of Britain’s Unilever Plc is set to fire at least 11,000 employees in Kenya. In a statement, the Union’s assistant secretary-general Meshack Khisa said Unilever’s decision to send workers home amounts to involvement in unfair labour practices and corporate greed, promising to fight for the workers to the end. “We strongly condemn Unilever Tea Kenya for engaging in corporate greed and jeopardising over 11,000 unionised workers’ jobs through a separation exercise that only targets unionised employees,” read the statement in part. According to a memo sent to workers…

A new email scam has hit the internet, mostly targeting PayPal users in a bid to install malware on their computers and phones. The malicious email is disguised to look like an official communication from PayPal, and even appears to be sent from the address ‘service@paypal.com’. According to technology experts, the malware only hits Windows machines, with Mac, iPhone and Android users unaffected by the virus — even if they open the fraudulent email. Users who open the email, which is often sent with the subject line ‘PayPal account warning’, are prompted to open an attached Word document laced with malware. “To protect…

24-year old Joana Ruvimbo Mamombe is set to be Zimbabwe’s youngest Member of Parliament after she garnered the majority vote in Harare West constituency. “History has been made in our Constituency, I am forever indebted! Thank you Harare West residents. We made it,” she posted on social media. In a Facebook post on Sunday before the Monday General elections, Mamombe expressed her hope to win the seat, which has been formerly held by Jessie Majome. “Lord, we have done everything humanly possible! We now ask for your Divine intervention! Thank you friends and family for the unwavering support. To my fellow #HarareWest residents let’s finish…

Joseph Mucheru, who at one point worked for former President Mwai Kibaki as his press man has successfully challenged the Management of Jomo Kenyatta International Airport in court after being arrested in the airports ‘Restricted Area’ for overstaying in the parking lot. Mucheru was arrested after he allegedly refused to bribe officers at Terminal 1A of the airport. “I detest corruption. I refused to bribe at the JKIA airport, and for that I was arrested and arraigned in court for allegedly ‘overstaying’ at a restricted parking lot. I challenged the legality of the charge and thanks to my able legal…

Telkom has escalated its data war against Safaricom and Airtel after launching a KSh150 million data Centre in Nairobi’s Upper Hill. The centre is set to up its network quality, colocation and hosting services, internet connectivity and local loop connectivity. According to the developers of the facility, it is capable of hosting all Telco’s infrastructure for both local and international clients. It has three diverse fiber routes serving the site to ensure uptime through redundancy to three different exchanges of Westlands, GPO Nairobi and South-Hill Exchanges in Nairobi. The data center sits on a 1160 m² space, with an ability…

Kenya Power has been paying billions of shillings to a well-knit cartel that is Kenya Wood Preservers Association (KWPA), that supplies all Kenya Power’s treated wooden poles. According to details that leaked from the cartel, Kenya Power first restricts its tenders to them to bar out any ‘outsiders’ from applying for the same. In an article by the Standard, membership to the association costs a company Ksh50,000 renewable annually. “Eligible tenderers: All local manufacturers of wooden poles who are members of Kenya Wooden Preservers Association and do not have an outstanding order for 11m and 12m treated wooden poles. Note that…

Online chatting platform Whatsapp has rolled out group voice and video calling feature that enables up to four users to video-conference, simultaneously. According to WhatsApp, both one-to-one voice and video calls and group voice and video calls are end-to-end encrypted, so you can be rest assured that there’s no downgrade in terms of security. “You can make a group call with up to four people total – anytime and anywhere. Just start a one-on-one voice or video call and tap the new “add participant” button in the top right corner to add more contacts to the call,” announced Whatsapp. Read: Whatsapp Limits Forwarding…

Middle class earners will pay 54 per cent more in the new power billing structure released by Kenya Power. Homes that consume 50kW of electricity per month will pay Ksh1,067, up from Ksh695. This is based on all the charges loaded on power bills, including 16 per cent VAT and adjustable costs (fuel, forex and inflation charges). However, after Kenya Power removed the monthly standing charge of Ksh150, Kenyans who spend less than 10 units a month will pay less as well as the rich who spend more than 1500 units a month. Read: Go To Hell, CS Najib Balala…

Before the dust settles on the SIM swap scammers, another clique of young ‘elite’ cartel of youngsters has emerged, entailing university lads aged between 18 to 20 years scamming event organisers by selling fake tickets in high profile events. On Saturday during the Hype Fest in Ngong’ Racecourse, eight youngsters were caught selling fake ticket tags for the event after one of them bought the ticket and gained access to the original ticket. The lads would then retreat to a Toyota Premio they pack in the event parking lot and photoshop as well as print new tags which they sell…

The supremacy battle between South Africa’s Multichoice (owners of DStv, Gotv & Showmax) and American over-the-top media services provider Netflix has gone a notch higher after Netflix published an ad dissing the tedious process of installing DStv, and how the signal can be lost easily. In the ad that has left tongues wagging, a man who works for Netflix going about the process of installing DStv (disguised as Netflix), and then goes on to say that unlike their competitors’, their service is hassle free. “It is quite technical and detailed. First you have to do a full site inspection,” says…

A new online retail shop, Hashmart, has entered the Kenyan market, heightening completion for customers in the growing virtual space market. Hashmart, which was started in 2017, is positioning itself to supply premium brands, unlike other online shops that sell a wide range of products. Its product portfolio includes electronics and accessories as well as lifestyle collections. Hashmart managing director Mansoor Hussein said unlike most retailers in the market which deal in all types of products, Hashmart selects trending products to make shopping easy for customers. “We are very deliberate in our sourcing of products for both quality and affordable…

In 2014, Paul Okoth Rege bought an eighth an acre at Oldonyo Ridge from Property Reality Company (PRC) at Ksh134,000. His heart throbbed with joy as he knew he would be one of the few land owners at the outskirts of Nairobi. At first, he was told that the land was ‘only a few metres from the main road’, only to realise later that there was not even a footpath leading to the parcel of land. To make it worse, the land was not demarcated with any beacons, making it difficult for him to trace the boundaries of his land.…

Mookh Africa, a Kenyan online selling platform has been named as the overall winner of Visa’s first ever Sub Saharan Africa (SSA) Everywhere Initiative, taking home a total of Ksh5 million. The initiative is a global program aimed at helping startups and designed to encourage the development of the next generation payment technologies. The winning solution beat 11 other finalists selected from 238 submissions to emerge as the champions. Mookh Africa developed a social business payments solution which makes it easy for people in Africa to buy and sell on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. Once the seller creates an online store…

Tullow Oil has halted its oil exploration operations in Turkana as well as trucking operations due to security issues. The news were announced by Tullow Chief Executive Paul McDade who spoke to Reuters. Turkana residents started protests due to insecurity issues, vowing that operations at the oil field would not go on until the government resolved the insecurity issue. President Uhuru Kenyatta flagged off the pilot scheme in June, which currently trucks around 600 barrels of oil per day to Mombasa by road. Read: Tullow Oil To Use Ksh400 Billion To Fully Actualise Turkana Oil Exploration “What you saw locally…

Detectives from the Directorate of Criminal Investigation this evening have arrested two wanted Safaricom staffers in connection to the SIM swap fraud that has become rampant in the country. Mr Douglas Kiplimo Too and Ms Linda Najoli Idali, both employees of Safaricom were arrested in Eldoret. Read: How Safaricom Staff And CID Aid Mulot SIM Swap Scammers The two had been put on the wanted list by the Directorate of Criminal Investigation in Molo, Kitale and Garsen for assisting fraudsters with information that helped them swap SIM cards for subscribers. This puts the total number of those arrested in connection to…