Author: Joseph Kangethe

In Africa, South Africa has the biggest Airbnb market, accounting for half the listings in Africa.
In 2021, Airbnb registered 2.9 million hosts, with 100,000 of those coming from Africa. Approximately 14,000 hosts are now joining every month. It has reported 7 million listings and has spread to over 100,000 cities in 220 countries and regions.
South Africa boasts 43,400 listings and an income of above US$95 million; Morocco has 21,000 listings and an income of above US$22 million; Kenya has 5900 listings and a US$3.9 million income. …

• Kentucky Fried Chicken, alias KFC, has suffered a potato shortage at its outlets in Kenya
• The company said there had been delays in the delivery of potatoes from its overseas suppliers, forcing the company to put alternative food items on the menu in place of the French fries
• These sentiments from the CEO on his reluctance to buy local potatoes got Kenyans angry

Fast-food restaurant chain Kentucky Fried Chicken, alias KFC, has suffered a potato shortage at its outlets in Kenya. There have been delays in the delivery of potatoes from its overseas suppliers, forcing the company to put alternative food items on the menu in place of the French fries.

The chief executive of KFC in East Africa, Jacques Theunissen, told Business Daily on January 3 that the shortage of fries, locally known as chips, has been caused by a mishap in the global supply of potatoes.

Jacques said …

The question is, what if one day you went to pay for expenses with your card or mobile app and it returned an error message? Or was your service provider that issues your money declared bankrupt? Scary, right?
Recently, customers have been converting their regular traditional money into e-money. Service providers have enabled the transfer of electronic money to banks, from person to person, and for making payments.
For regulators and supervisors that control the protection of consumers’ e-money and digital currencies, coming up with legal bindings and restrictions in the fast-changing sector has become very challenging. These regulators and supervisors must devise ways to protect customers from a possible system failure and ultimately prevent them from losing their funds.…

According to the United Nations, water transports approximately 80 per cent of the total international trade volume. The Suez Canal has cemented its importance in the world.

The waterway transports approximately 12 per cent of global trade. 7 per cent of the world’s oil passes through the connection between the Mediterranean Sea and the Red Sea.

The canal began operations in 1869. It has been a source of foreign exchange and national pride for Egypt. It brings about US$6 billion to the country every year. In 2021, 1.27 billion tonnes of cargo were shipped through the canal. …

In his ruling, Judge Bloem said that Shell had failed to prove the safety of the project against the claims made by environmental experts and the local community, and that there had been a substantial flaw in the consultation process with the locals in the Wild Coast.
Protests against Shell exploration have gained 85,000 signatures with over 35 fuel stations dumping the company.
The local communities expressed their disappointment, saying that their customary rights to the land where they fished and did their religious activities had not been respected. Shell quietly announced the commencement of the seismic survey on November 4, 2021.…

Whether Nigeria and Ghana will abandon their digital currencies and jump on the Eco train is an unclear narrative, but it appears unlikely because of the significant investments put into them and the optimism by the governments to embrace digital transformations.

Nigeria had banned cryptocurrency transactions in February last year which increased the popularity of the eNaira as an alternative for cross-border trade and remittance inflows.

eNaira critics say that the solutions being offered by the digital currency are already existing in online banking and bank card transactions. …

Future plans for the company include starting work on another Ethiopian project. The firm has also signed a contract worth US$7.9 million to drill three geothermal wells in Djibouti. 
KenGen, in its attempts to boost its revenues, has eyes for similar deals in Tanzania, Uganda, Rwanda, Sudan, South Sudan and Comoros. This is where the company may floor Kenya’s monopoly power utility company.
There has been disorder after KenGen previously rejected a plea from Kenya Power to avoid paying a penalty of US$9.36 million which had accumulated due to late sales payment. …

A dollar is trading at 16.67 Kwacha and 13.35 Seychelles rupees as at December 31. Both countries were among the three worst performers in 2020.
This has fueled speculation from corporate participants and currency retail traders on when exactly to exit foreign currency risks for dollar hoarders or whether to buy the Kwacha as a safer haven store for value.
President Hichilema’s government is in the process of reworking as much as $17 billion in external public debt. He has submitted an endorsement request to the IMF as his administration advances talks with creditors from US$3 billion in Eurobond holders to US$5.8 billion owed to the Republic of China. …

The report revealed that President Sissoco Embaló had single-handedly negotiated and signed the agreement in October 2020, which stated an uneven share of any future revenues from oil and gas exploration in the sea area located between the two countries.
Guinea Bissau’s prime minister, Nuno Nabiam, as well as the country’s parliament, did not have any hint about the deal. The O Democrata report must have triggered the government as it released the details of the agreement on December 14th.
Armando Lona, Editor of O Democrata, said that the agreement provided for the share of future oil and gas revenues between the countries, but the ratio was unfavorable to Guinea Bissau. Lona declared the agreement illegal, saying that the President had bypassed the public on an issue of national significance…

Even though the country knows that diamonds are a finite resource, it still holds the world’s richest mine and is the biggest producer of gem diamonds. The country has become something of a role model for good development, powered by diamond mining.
20 percent of Botswana’s gross domestic product comes from this one commodity.
It propelled the country from the second poorest country in the world in 1966, at US$70 per person per year, to a middle-income country in 2021. Botswana estimates the diamond economy will start dropping in 2030. …