Year: 2020

East Africa continues to draw attention due to its high growth rate. The positive growth has been projected by both national and multilateral agencies like IMF and World Bank. The growth is expected in both agricultural and manufacturing sectors with great support from the service industry. To harness the power of all this growth is a budding bourse across the region. In this issue, we focus on how the stock markets are expected to behave this year.

The Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales (ICAEW) released a report at the end of 2019 which showed that East Africa’s economy is expected to continue expanding at an average of 6.3 per cent in 2020, with that of Rwanda expected to lead at eight per cent from 7.8 per cent. Kenya’s economy is expected to expand in the margins of six per cent while that of Uganda and Tanzania is …

In mid-January, US based financial whistleblower and research organization Hindenburg Research released a report titled’ The Phantom of the turn-around’ in which it questioned the operations of Opera, the Chinese owned browser whose popularity in Africa has remained high. What has followed is a series of class-action lawsuits by a dozen law firms in US and UK against the browser.

The research firm accused Opera of “developing predatory short-term loans in Africa and India, deploying deceptive ‘bait and switch’ tactics to lure in borrowers and charging egregious interest rates ranging from 365-876%.” This, the company says is going against Google policies of charging fair rates on short term loans.

According to financial firm Hindenburg Research, Opera has launched at least four payment apps under various developer accounts. There’s Okash and OPesa in Kenya, CashBean in India, and OPay in Nigeria.

It noted that Opera has scaled its “Fintech” segment from …

Cellulant Corporation – the pan-African technology company based in Kenya is known for developing revolutionary technologies to empower African commerce. Such a technology include blockchain-based Agrikore and Tingg, which are now being used across Africa as well as being imported to countries like Afghanistan.

These technologies have empowered Africa’s agriculture sector in the assurance to leverage on technology to help block inefficiency and wastages in Africa’s agricultural value chain courtesy of its improved payment and marketplace solutions, Tingg and Agrikore.

The Agriculture market in Africa, despite its $330billion size in 2015 and projected to grow to $1Trillion by 2030 is not organized. Agrikore provides this on its block-chain core. It makes this wealth addressable & accessible to all through a comprehensive system consisting of the technology, business processes, and operating models that deliver a systematic organization of the actors in Agriculture in a manner that is extremely de-risked and investable …

Africa’s economic growth remained stable in 2019 at 3.4% and is on course to pick up to 3.9% in 2020, and 4.1% in 2021 as revealed in the African Development Bank’s 2020 African Economic Outlook.

The bank said that the slower than expected growth is partly due to the moderate expansion Africa’s Big five such as Algeria, Morocco, Egypt, Nigeria and South Africa – whose joint growth rate compared with the average of 4.0% for the rest of the continent was at an average rate of 3.1%.

In 2019, investment expenditure for the first time in a decade accounted for over 50% of GDP growth compared to consumption.

The bank noted that the shift can aid in sustaining and potentially speeding the future growth in Africa, increase current and future productive base in Africa while improving the productivity of the workforce.

Also Read: Africa can no longer be ignored- AfDB

Angola’s reforms in the oil sector including at national oil company Sonangol , are already yielding positive results, with 30 per cent of the company set to be privatized by 2022.

Sector reforms are set to be supported by an investment campaign drive by Africa Oil & Power including the Angola Oil & Gas Conference & Exhibition on June 2020, at the Talatona Convention Center.

The conference will be a global drive which will present opportunities to a targeted audience of relevant investors.

H.E. Diamantino Pedro Azevedo, Angola’s Minister of Mineral Resources and said that the government had made noteworthy progress in its efforts to restructure the oil and gas sector.

Also Read: EU and UNCTAD seek more coffee aroma from Angola

Angola’s initial achievements include significant reduction of costs at the national oil company (NOC) Sonangol which has led to the government decision to list up to 30 per …

Airtel was ranked as the leading data speed provider with slightly above 14 megabits per second (Mbps) a report from the latest Quality of Service study (QoS) released by the telecom regulator.

According to the Uganda Communications Commission, the Quality of Service study (QoS was carried out to determine telecom performance in success, blocked call rates and dropped call rates and data speeds described as throughput (speed).

The report indicates that telecoms in Uganda registered the highest speeds in rural areas and slower speeds in the urban and peri-urban.

Also Read: Data, mobile money steer Airtel’s revenue growth

From the study, the Airtel network was the quickest in nearly every jurisdiction.
For instance, in an area where Airtel had an average speed of 14mbps, MTN was slightly above 4mbps and 3mbps.

Last year, Airtel Africa embarked on an exercise aimed at boosting the company’s infrastructure to upgrade its internet. The …

Liberia, Africa’s oldest republic has been endowed by abundant renewable energy that could enhance power generation, and African Development Bank (AfDB) just approved a $34.74 million grant and loan to boost renewable energy access as well as investment in the country.

According to AfDB statement, during the first project (Renewable Energy for Electrification in Liberia) over $ 33 million—in grant from AfDB and strategic climate fund scaling-up renewable energy program, will be targeted at supporting renewable energy sector.

Further, the approved funds will go towards construction of a mini dam on the St. John River in Nimba County in northeastern Liberia and the development of the Gbedin hydropower Falls with a total capacity of 9.34 megawatts of power, to be transmitted through an 8 km, 33kV line connecting 7,000 households.

According to US Agency for International Development (USAID), Liberia has one of the lowest electricity access rates in the …

Commercial banks in Kenya have been on the limelight with accusations of abetting money laundering and being involved in national corruption scandals. Such was the case several banks which in 2018, CBK accused them of participating in payments for the National Youth Services (NYS) scandal.,

In this case, the director of public prosecution announced that he was considering prosecuting 20 senior officials in five banks, which they believe aided the laundering of at least Ksh1 billion ($10 million) looted from the National Youth Service (NYS) between January 2016 and April 2018.

These commercial banks have however developed mechanisms to conform to anti-money laundering laws developed in Kenya.

Revenue from data and mobile money drove Airtel Africa’s operations, boosting the company’s overall revenue by 9.9 per cent.

The Airtel’s revenue grew to $2.5 billion for the nine months ended December 31 from $2.2 billion in 2018.

According to data from the telecom, Airtel Africa realised a 3.9 per cent increase in voice revenue, 39 per cent in data and 40.4 per cent in mobile money during the period.

“We are also increasingly seeing the success of our strategy to lead in the roll-out of modernised 4G networks, with more than 40 per cent increase in data revenues for the quarter… our mobile money offer as well as increasing the distribution footprint have helped gain further acceptance of Airtel money,”  said Mr Raghunath Mandava, chief executive officer, Airtel Africa.

Also Read: Telkom dislodges Airtel with Kenya’s lowest call charges across networks

In the nine months ended December 2019, Airtel …

At least seven million people in Uganda will still be living in extreme poverty by 2030, according to a study by Brookings Institute.

The study contained in the Foresight Africa 2020 reveals that Uganda will not able to achieve the number one Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) which seeks to eliminate extreme poverty by 2030.

The study highlights priorities for Africa in 2020 to 2030. Dr Brahima Coulibaly, the Africa Growth Initiative at the Brookings Institution senior fellow and director, said by 2030, Africa will have 397.9 million people living in extreme poverty, out of which 7. (spoonerberries.com) 6 million will be in Uganda.

Also Read: Will events in Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania, bring financial and political freedom this decade?

He said that by 2030, all Sub Saharan Africa countries, are expected to make some progress towards SDGs. However, by 2030, 18 countries out of 44 will get less …