East Africa
Mining Sector Set to Lead Economic Recovery in Zambia
Sourced from Lusaka Times. Despite a challenging business environment in many sectors across the globe, Zambia’s wealth of natural resources continues to open the door for new investors and opportunities. As the world begins its recovery and gradual reopening in the face of the pandemic, traditional industries require energy, innovation and reinvention. ZCCM Investments Holdings Plc. – the mining conglomerate whose major shareholder is the Government of the Republic of Zambia – is signalling its intention to take on a leadership role in Zambia’s recovery with its announcement this week that they are partnering with a new strategic mining play – Array Metals. This company has an estimated inferred resource by JORC standards of 3 million tonnes of gold ore in Mumbwa, with 2.53.5grams per ton...
DHL Debuts Digital Road Freight Platform in Uganda
Image sourced from Transport Advancement DHL Global Forwarding – an international provider of air, sea and road freight services – has launched its digital road freight platform Saloodo! to shippers and transport providers in Uganda, connecting the country to its growing digital network on the African continent. With a total road network of over 129 000 kilometres, it is no surprise that almost 95% of cargo freight in the country relies almost entirely on road transportation. However, similar to the situation in the rest of sub-Saharan Africa, there remains infrastructural challenges – a top priority to address as laid out by the Ugandan government in its National Development Plan II and Vision 2040. A 2016 World Bank report found that imports of transport and logistics services make up 55...
MTN Zambia Invests $9.8 Million in Network Upgrade Operation
Image sourced from Pinterest. MTN Zambia has announced that it will be investing $9.8 million to boost network capacity and enable high-speed data services on 337 3G and 4G (LTE) network sites across Zambia. The site-by-site technical roll-out, which focuses on areas with the highest demand pressure, started in the Copperbelt northern regions followed by Lusaka. MTN says its customers will experience the benefits of the increased capacity immediately and that the upgrade is expected to finalise in August. The improvements are done by adding additional carriers on existing 3G and 4G network sites and upgrading current 3G sites to 4G. It also includes the activation of the 800Mhz 4G spectrum which was released by ZICTA recently. /* custom css */ .tdi_3_654.td-a-rec-img{ text-align: left; }.t...
Andela Partners with Microsoft to Launch Azure Training Program
Sourced from Tech Gist Africa. Microsoft 4Afrika and Andela have partnered to implement the ALCwithMicrosoft Azure Training 2020 to up-skill developers in Kenya and Nigeria through an immersive program where selected developers will work to learn basic skills in Azure, via the LinkedIn Learning platform. The program is focused on training software engineers in learning the basics of Azure, a public cloud computing platform created by Microsoft for building, testing, deploying, and managing applications and services through Microsoft-managed data centres. The ALCwithMicrosoft Azure Training is open to anyone looking to grow their Azure software development skills and excited to learn with a community of technologists. At the end of the program, developers are expected to: Have a proficiency...
COVID-19: TransUnion Provides Key Info to Kenya’s Financial Services Providers
Global information and insights company TransUnion says Kenya’s financial services providers and consumer credit market will have to drive a robust, proactive response to the COVID-19 crisis if they are to manage the risks to the industry, with the pandemic expected to have a major impact on the country’s economy and the consumer landscape. Past crises and initial data suggest there will be ‘a significant reduction’ in the quality and volume of credit in Kenya as consumers and businesses grapple with lower income. What will define the COVID-19 pandemic for the consumer credit market is how banks and lenders respond to the challenges it presents, says Billy Owino, CEO of TransUnion Kenya. To help the consumer credit market respond to the crisis, TransUnion this morning launched its COVID-19...
Nigeria increases coronavirus testing above 27, 000
The Federal Government on Monday said the country has ramped up testing for the coronavirus to 27,078. Osagie Ehanire, the Minister of Health, disclosed this in Abuja at the Presidential Taskforce (PTF) briefing on COVID-19 in the country. Ehanire said this has yielded about 4,399 cases in 35 states with a gender ratio of 30 per cent to 70 per cent of men and women. He said 778 persons have been discharged with 143 deaths. The minister added that personnel in federal hospitals participated in a multi-national teleconference with medical and academic experts in Beijing on the COVID-19 treatment strategy of China. “Our COVID-19 response must become a concerted national collaborative drive to become more effective. “This requires synergies across all tiers of government levels which should be...
Power restored in Kenya, Uganda after nationwide outages
Power has been restored in the East African nations of Kenya and Uganda after they were hit by nationwide outages in the morning, the countries’ electricity providers said. The Kenya Power and Lighting Company said in a statement that only the Kenyan coastal cities of Malindi and Lamu remained without electricity on Saturday afternoon. The company noted that its technical teams were working to repair the fault. Earlier on Saturday, Kenya Power said engineers had identified a technical fault at a section of the main high voltage transmission power line that services the capital Nairobi. The fault on this “critical line” led to the overloading of other power generators countrywide and is suspected to have caused the nationwide blackout, the firm said. In neighbouring Uganda, the national ele...
Ericsson Appoints New Head of South and East Africa
Ericsson has announced the appointment of Todd Ashton as the Vice President and Head of Ericsson South & East Africa. Prior to assuming this role, Ashton served as the Head of Ericsson Malaysia, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh and Global Customer Unit Axiata within Ericsson in Market Area South East Asia Oceania & India. “We are committed to our customers’ success in Africa while also building a strong position in the continent as the market evolves to 4G and 5G. Throughout his years of experience, Todd has demonstrated strong leadership and has been successful in driving growth in very competitive environments. I am confident Todd has the right background and experience to lead the customer unit and deliver on our customers’ commitments,” says Fadi Pharaon, President of Ericsson Middle E...
