Author: Joseph Kangethe

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.

Huawei puts China in a data superiority position in its involvement in countries’ sensitive information. 

China is establishing dominance in digital models. In June, Nigeria banned and dumped Twitter in the country, and has drawn parallels with China in their censorship model development. 

According to Abishek, the data centre in Senegal is one of the many being built by Chinese firms to help Africa keep up with social and economic changes that are pressuring the infrastructure on the continent. 

The government of Kenya’s involvement has borne fruit. This Christmas week, KQ has increased the frequency of flights to the United States from two to four a week.

Bookings have picked up and the cost of a one-way ticket has risen from US$ 900 (KSh90,000) to US$10,00 (KSh101,305). This comes as a relief to the Kenya Airways Chairman, Michael Joseph, who had earlier said in an interview with a local station in Kenya last year that the pandemic would continue to affect demand for air travel for the next two to three years.

The airline said they had increased the number of direct flights to New York to enable families to reconnect and unite during this festive season.

The UN says that e-government holds an explosive potential to ensure public institutions deliver public services in an effective, accountable, efficient and transparent manner.

Africa is showing the greatest growth in developing e-government in service delivery. United Nations member states In Africa with a low e-government development index (EGDI) have since reduced from 26 in the year 2016 to seven last year.

However, there is no single country in Africa that has high EGDI values.

Microfinance institutions are trying to cope with the changing times as the market is moving to fast delivering digital systems of money transfer.

Chinese investors in lending apps

A couple of lending apps in Kenya cannot be mentioned without referring to Yahui Zhou, the chief executive of Kunlun Tech. Company Limited.

Zhou is famous for two things; his gaming company and his very expensive divorce settlement; he gave his ex-wife shares of Kunlun Tech worth US$1.1 billion.