Category: East Africa

Uganda Telecom Limited (UTL) that has been limping for years, will be rescued by government, that will take over its full management immediately. Minister for Finance Matia Kasaija confirmed that Libyan company UCOM, a subsidiary of majority shareholders Libyan Post, Telecommunication and Information Technology Holding Company (LPTIC), would no longer be able to finance UTL.…

Insurance group Sanlam Kenya has defended its withdrawal last month of a profit warning published on December 30, saying it was in reaction to new guidelines issued by the regulator. The insurer on Thursday announced a near-tripling of its after-tax profit to Sh70.6 million from Sh27.3 million in December 2015 after adopting a liberal accounting…

Safaricom has appointed former Information PS Bitange Ndemo to its board, seeking to tap his broad knowledge as a government technocrat and university lecturer. Vivek Badrinath, Vodafone’s regional chief executive for Africa, Middle East, and Asia-Pacific, also joins Safaricom as a director to represent the interests of the British multinational. The former Orange Group executive…

The escalating cost of electricity is one of the major challenges that investors in the dairy industry are grappling with. Aside from being expensive, the power supply has been unreliable with increased interruptions due to huge demand. Over the recent past, the country has been faced with rescheduled power supply forcing processors to look for…

British exploration firm Acacia Mining has discovered gold deposits worth an estimated Sh165 billion in Kakamega County, boosting Kenya’s rising profile as a mineral-rich economy. The estimated deposits of about 1.31 million ounces of gold, at 12.1 grammes per tonne, could be one of the exploration firm’s highest grade projects in Africa if proved to…

Mortgage lender Housing Finance Group (HF) has been ordered to pay a borrower Sh45 million as compensation for selling her home after levying irregular charges and penalties on a loan she took in 1998. Justice Eric Ogola has ruled that HF was wrong to sell Scholastica Nyaguthii Muturi’s two parcels of land after the stockbroker…

Barclays Africa will continue using the Barclays brand in its operations outside South Africa, including in Kenya, for three years following the reduction of Barclays Plc’s shareholding of the lender below the 50 per cent mark. Barclays Africa will also receive “certain services” from Barclays Plc “on arms’ length basis” for a transitional period, up…

Proposals by Airtel and Telkom Kenya that could have seen Safaricom forced to charge its customers higher rates than its rival telecommunications providers have been rejected by consultants hired to assess competition in the sector. Airtel and Plum Consulting (on behalf of Telkom Kenya) had separately written to the Ministry of ICT last year asking that…