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The Latest Daily PodCast can be found here on the Front Page of the site http://www.rich.co.ke |
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M.G Vassanji's The Magic of Saida Africa |
M. G. Vassanji: I would describe it as a love story that in its development and description tells other stories. It is set in Kilwa, the ancient town on the east coast of Africa, which is associated historically with slavery, international (Indian Ocean) trade, and twentieth-century colonialism, as well as Swahili culture and poetry. This history is manifest in various forms in the lives of the people. The story of Kilwa is therefore also the story of the two childhood sweethearts in the book. Thus, the boy Kamal is mesmerized by the history narrated by the old poet of the town.
Vassanji: Sometimes, it's hard to remember. I think I had the town of Kilwa in mind, having read about it. It has a certain romance to it, being ancient. It's one of the oldest urban settlements in sub-Saharan Africa. The Arab traveler Ibn Batuta mentions it in the fourteenth century; the English poet John Milton mentions it. It's older than Delhi. Its descriptions in old Portuguese texts are fantastic. Then there was the mystique of magic--which is very strong in Tanzania. I got fascinated by Swahili culture.
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When a person dies, Warren believes, some extra-physical element of them remains, dwelling in the place where they passed @theintercept @rdevro Africa |
“In those 120-degree temperature days without rain, a body, within a few hours, has a rock-hard nose, earlobes, and fingertips. We routinely have to soften fingertips with a solution we have here, so we can put ink on them to print them,” he explained. “That happens within a few hours. Within a few days, all the moisture is out of the body, and it’s wicked into the desert sand.” This process, Anderson said, leaves an outline of the deceased. “You can imagine the chalk that we all see on television, police crime scenes and things like that. There’s an actual decomposition fluid outline — if a body lays there and isn’t disturbed by animals — that stays in the desert for years.”
Mummification and human outlines in the sand might make finding and identifying dead bodies straightforward, if not for the second force at work in the desert: scavengers. Vultures, coyotes, and insects are all present in the Sonoran Desert ecosystem. “They start with the fingers and the face,” Anderson said, “the two areas that, routinely, we use to identify people. Those are gone in one day.” Not only that, he added, but animals routinely tear off arms and legs and other body parts. “A coyote mother could carry that back to her den,” Anderson said. “And coyotes are known to range for five or 10 miles.”
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U.S. Deploys Forces to Mideast to Deter Iran @WSJ Law & Politics |
The Pentagon is sending a carrier and its accompanying ships as well as what is known as a bomber task force to the region in coming days in response to “a number of troubling and escalatory indications and warnings,” National Security Adviser John Bolton said in a statement Sunday. “The United States is not seeking war with the Iranian regime, but we are fully prepared to respond to any attack, whether by proxy, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, or regular Iranian forces,” he said.
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05-DEC-2016:: "We have a deviate, Tomahawk." Law & Politics |
From feeding the hot-house conspiracy frenzy on line (‘’a constant state of destabilised perception’’), timely and judicious doses of Wikileaks leaks which drained Hillary’s bona fides and her turn-out and motivated Trump’s, what we have witnessed is something remarkable and noteworthy. Putin has proven himself an information master, and his adversaries are his information victims.
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Kidnapping: A Very Efficient Business @nybooks Law & Politics |
In Argentina in the early 1970s, leftist guerrillas started snatching executives of multinational companies and demanding ransoms. This culminated in the payment of $60 million to the Montoneros, a Peronist guerrilla group, for the release of the brothers Juan and Jorge Born, executives at the grain-exporting firm Bunge & Born and the sons of its president. The ransom seems noteworthy for its heft—at about $275 million in today’s money, it stands as the largest one paid in a conventional kidnapping case. (In 2017 Qatar reportedly paid $1 billion to an al-Qaeda affiliate and Iran to win the release of a royal hunting party.) But perhaps what makes the Born case more unusual in the history of the ransom trade is the fact that Jorge himself negotiated the price while captive. He had intimate knowledge of the company’s finances and thus had a precise sense of how much money could be raised—though not, crucially, how much ought to be paid. The deal he struck was delivered to Born père, who had refused the initial demand of $100 million, as a signed memorandum.
As Argentine ransoms soared, insurers at Lloyd’s of London were beginning to rake in premiums from a peculiar product. Kidnap-and-ransom (K&R) insurance had existed since 1932—it was developed in response to the abduction and killing of Charles Lindbergh’s twenty-month-old son—but it didn’t take off until the 1960s, following a series of kidnappings of businessmen and their families in Europe and Latin America. Companies started buying coverage for those employees most likely to be targeted, and the market boomed. Had Bunge & Born purchased coverage for the brothers, it would have been reimbursed for at least a portion of the payout.
Joel Simon in We Want to Negotiate: The Secret World of Kidnapping, Hostages, and Ransom, which includes a concise survey of the K&R industry. And parties who paid too much might be targeted again: in 1983 the wife of Teddy Wang, a Hong Kong property tycoon, paid $11 million for his return; in 1990 she paid $60 million—but that time he was not released, and his body was never found.
In the mid-1970s, Julian Radcliffe, a young insurance broker in London, helped fix this flaw. He came up with the idea for Control Risks, a security consultancy that, as part of the Lloyd’s K&R package, would advise policyholders on how to prevent kidnappings and assist if one occurred. Potential insured parties would be thoroughly vetted, and those who passed muster would be rewarded for the implementation of specific security measures (such as hiring guards or varying routes to work) with reduced premiums—a way of mitigating the classic problems of “adverse selection” (the tendency of those likely to experience a loss to seek coverage) and “moral hazard” (the lack of incentive to avoid risk where there is protection against its consequences).
In the event of a kidnapping, consultants—mostly former military and law enforcement—would advise relatives or employers on the negotiations. Someone from the hostage’s family or company would be appointed to do the talking; otherwise, the kidnappers might realize they had an insured hostage and increase their demands. Once a price was agreed upon, specialists would deliver the ransom and retrieve the hostages. This quickly became the new way of doing things.
Around 90 percent of all kidnappings are successfully resolved, meaning the hostages return alive, usually through ransom—an “astonishing success rate,” remarks Anja Shortland in Kidnap: Inside the Ransom Business. And the odds are considerably better if specialists are involved: more than 97 percent of cases handled by professional negotiators are resolved successfully, almost always through ransom.
With its record of success, the industry is flourishing. More than 75 percent of Fortune 500 companies have K&R policies, and premiums are worth $250 to $300 million a year.
When kidnappers keep hostages for days, weeks, or months, most invest in keeping them alive (a corpse is not worth much, except in the Iliad) and in decent health. Captives with medical conditions are usually allowed to receive medications; in 2010 al-Qaeda let a French woman with breast cancer take chemo drugs. Somali pirates are governed by a strict code of conduct that fines guards for hurting hostages; there’s even a printed “Pirate’s Handbook.” They have been known to send their counterparties receipts for items, such as bottled water, procured for the proper maintenance of the captives.
“There is a pace, a rhythm to these things,” one consultant told Shortland. If the initial demand is $1 million, and recent cases in the area have been settled for around $10,000 in around five days, then “an initial offer of $5,000 might be a good start” and “more money will be ‘found’—though in decreasing increments,” petering out around $10,000. But if precedents are around $100,000, “a paltry initial offer of $5,000 could be perceived as an insult and put the hostage’s life at risk.”
The course of a negotiation can also be affected by external factors, such as media exposure. Shortland recounts the 2011 abduction by Somali pirates of the crew of the Danish-owned merchant ship Leopard. The pirates demanded $10 million for the crew, and the company that owned the ship claimed it was on the brink of bankruptcy. The pirates went down to $6 million. But then a Danish tabloid and TV channel revealed that the shipowner was a multimillionaire who was living large while his crew suffered. The pirates immediately increased their demand to $15 million, and as public anger in Denmark grew against the “callous” owner, the pirates leaped to $35 million. The case was finally resolved, after 839 days, for $6.9 million, raised from several sources. The hostages sued the media outlets for worsening their ordeal. And Somali pirates’ appetites were whetted.
In Mexico, kidnappers used to target the ultrarich, but many have shifted focus to the middle class. The trade has been “democratized,” a Mexican crisis responder told The Economist. Social media have created a new way to shop for victims who are not tabloid princesses and scions of industrial families but who look flush and might be handily location-tagged on Instagram or lured on Tinder. Kidnappers who lack resources or skills, or who simply want to make a quick buck, may avoid the challenges of hostage-keeping altogether. In countries such as Brazil, Ecuador, and Tanzania, the norm has become the “express” kidnapping: victims are taken to an ATM, forced to withdraw the daily maximum (twice, if the detention straddles midnight), and released. Some kidnappers don’t even bother with the kidnapping. In a “virtual” or “phantom” case, the criminals send a ransom demand while the unwitting “hostage” is in the cinema or on a hike (and thus cannot be contacted), or else they call and threaten the victim, telling him not to talk to anyone for a given period of time, during which they extort his family.
The history of modern kidnapping-for-ransom is dominated by cases involving high-profile victims; those of lesser standing are always likely to be overlooked. In 1932, the same year the Lindbergh baby was abducted, a nineteen-year-old, well-to-do English woman named Muriel “Tinko” Pawley was taken hostage, along with her three dogs, by bandits in northern China. Tinko had grown up mostly in China and married an Englishman who worked for the Asiatic Petroleum Company. The kidnappers demanded a huge sum of money and sundry supplies, and threatened that failure to comply would result in Tinko’s ears being cut off and her dogs killed.
This bizarre case—Tinko wrote to friends requesting lipstick and threatened the gang leader, in fluent Chinese, with both personal haunting and the transformation of his ancestors into turtles if she were killed, and was finally released in exchange for gold, opium, and some stylish brogues—was a sensation in the British press. Evelyn Waugh even wrote a short story based on it.
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Sudan faces fuel crisis and worsening cash crunch @ReutersAfrica Law & Politics |
Cars queued at almost every petrol station in Khartoum on Saturday as motorists waited for fuel for several hours. Soldiers manned the stations to ensure order. The crisis, along with a cash shortage and electricity outages, pose challenges to the country’s ruling Transitional Military Council (TMC), set up after generals deposed Bashir and arrested him on April 11. The TMC is locked in a standoff with the opposition over who will control a proposed joint civilian-military body to oversee the country until elections can be held. Protests have continued in a bid to push the council to cede power to civilians. At least a dozen ATMs in a commercial area in central Khartoum had no cash, and dozens of people lined up at those still dispensing money. A Reuters witness counted 88 customers in one line on a main road in central Khartoum. “I am searching since the morning for an ATM to withdraw cash from,” said Ahmed Yassin, 52. “I have been standing in line for three hours and I must withdraw so that I can buy Ramadan needs for my family.” One banking employee, who declined to be named, said most ATMs held no cash. Most Sudanese employees get paid near the beginning of the month, and consumer spending often increases during the Islamic month of Ramadan, likely to begin on May 6, contributing to the liquidity crisis. The maximum daily withdrawal has long been set at 2,000 Sudanese pounds ($45). Some have set up several bank accounts to try to circumvent the limit. Most residential areas in the capital experience near-daily electricity outages for hours. The increasing blackouts occurred as Khartoum’s temperatures soar to highs of 45 Celsius. Bashir’s government had run up enormous budget deficits by subsidizing fuel, bread and other products. To cover the deficit, it expanded the money supply. But that served to debase the currency, causing inflation to rise and the value of the Sudanese pound against other currencies to plummet - in turn pushing up the cost of subsidies and widening the deficit even further. Attempts to raise bread and fuel prices to reduce the cost of subsidies sparked the protests that led to the military’s overthrowal of Bashir last month.
Conclusions
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@AssociationSd Law & Politics |
مسؤوليتنا كبيرة وأولاها وأولها هي ضمان استمرار الاعتصام وكافة أشكال الاحتجاج والتظاهر بما في ذلك الإضراب السياسي والعصيان المدني، فهذا ما سيضمن إنجاز أهداف الثورة.
إن تجمع المهنيين يؤكد أنه سيكون خلف الجماهير، وأنه باق على عهده بأن يلتزم جانب الجماهير حتى تحقيق
Our responsibility is great and the first one is to ensure the continuation of the sit-in and all forms of protest and demonstration including political strike and civil disobedience, which will ensure the achievement of the objectives of the revolution.
The gathering of professionals confirms that he will be behind the masses, and that he remains in his custody to abide by the masses until the goals of the revolution are achieved
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The Battle of Algiers (with English subtitles) Law & Politics |
The Battle of Algiers (Arabic: معركة الجزائر; French: La Bataille d'Alger; Italian: La battaglia di Algeri) is a 1966 war film based on occurrences during the Algerian War (1954–62) against French colonial occupation in North Africa, the most prominent being the titular Battle of Algiers. It was directed by Gillo Pontecorvo. The film has been critically celebrated and often taken, by insurgent groups and states alike, as an important commentary on urban guerilla warfare. It occupies the 120th place on Empire Magazine's list of the 500 greatest movies of all time.[1] Algeria was eventually liberated from the French, but Pontecorvo relegates that to an epilogue. He concentrates instead on the years between 1954 and 1957 when the freedom fighters regrouped and expanded into the casbah, only to face a systematic attempt by French paratroopers to wipe them out. His highly dramatic film is about the organisation of a guerrilla movement and the methods used to annihilate it by the colonial power.
Directed by Gillo Pontecorvo Written by Gillo Pontecorvo
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The Battle of Algiers: Bombs and Boomerangs Law & Politics |
an absolute pinnacle of countercinema—the ne plus ultra of a mode that seeks to intervene strategically in the war for social change movie offers iconography—checkpoints child martyrs interrogation rooms, torture chambers—that has become timely again & worth meditating on. “It is the moment of the boomerang” Jean-Paul Sartre
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Luis Vaz de Camoes SONNET Law & Politics |
LEAVE me, all sweet refrains my lip hath made; Leave me, all instruments attuned for song; Leave me, all fountains pleasant meads among; Leave me, all charms of garden and glade; Leave me, all melodies the pipe hath played; Leave me, all rural feast and sportive throng; Leave me, all flocks the reed beguiles along; Leave me, all shepherds happy in the shade.
Sun, moon and stars, for me no longer glow; Night would I have, to wail for vanished peace; Let me from pole to pole no pleasure know; Let all that I have loved and cherished cease; But see that thou forsake me not, my Woe, Who wilt, by killing, finally release.
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08-JAN-2018 :: The Crypto Avocado Millenial Economy. World Currencies |
The ‘’Zeitgeist’’ of a time is its defining spirit or its mood. Capturing the ‘’zeitgeist’’ of the Now is not an easy thing because we are living in a dizzyingly fluid moment. Whether its President Trump’s rat-a-tat Tweets or a mind boggling 625% share price advance because an erstwhile Tea Company [The Long Island Iced Tea Corp was a little-known company making non- alcoholic lemonades and ice teas] renamed itself the Long Blockchain Corp. We are living in extraordinarily fast moving times. Paul Virilio has said ‘Wealth is the hidden side of speed and speed the hidden side of wealth’ and he is not wrong.
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Let Allah decide oil price - Saudi oil minister @RT_com Commodities |
Only Allah can determine the future of oil prices, said Saudi Oil Minister Ali al-Naimi, adding that neither Saudi Arabia nor OPEC can really control them anymore. "No one can set the price of oil — it's up to Allah," al-Naimi said Tuesday in an interview with CNBC, responding to a question about whether Saudi Arabia will cut its oil production.
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BRI will politically stabilize Africa @CGTNOfficial @AKorybko Africa |
Algeria and Sudan recently experienced sudden changes of government following widespread protests that were mostly motivated by economic factors, causing some to remark that the 2011 Arab Spring might be returning to the region.
Whether it's North Africa or other parts of the continent, Africa, as a whole, has been afflicted with developmental problems ever since the onset of decolonization because its many countries have had serious challenges rectifying the problems of the past and integrating into the world economy on an equal basis as their international peers elsewhere in the world.
These difficulties have oftentimes been compounded with corruption and civil war, which have altogether resulted in Africa being regarded as a troublesome place rife with instability and poverty. Predictably, its population isn't pleased with this state of affairs and sometimes protests in order to draw the attention of authorities to their plight, which occasionally sets into motion larger processes that eventually lead to regime change.
This cycle is doomed to repeat itself indefinitely unless African countries finally implement a sustainable developmental solution that properly satisfies the needs of their population.
The China-proposed Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is the answer that Africans are looking for.
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Zambia: debt, unpaid salaries and a poor harvest have sown seeds of crisis via @TC_Africa Africa |
The result, three years into his term and two years before the next election (in 2021), is a dawning awareness of the scale of the country’s debt – likely in the region of US$10 billion, much of which is due for repayment shortly after the 2021 elections.
The showpiece projects, which Lungu has staked his future on, cannot be cancelled – but there is not enough money in the country’s budget to pay the salaries of medical, military and educational personnel, or other public servants. In a country with a very low rate of formal employment, the extended families of these public servants are likely to be going hungry, especially so after a very poor harvest. The huge sums devoted to showpiece projects have also encouraged corruption to thrive.
International assistance is also unlikely. Just before Easter, Zambia’s finance minister, Margaret Mwanakatwe, went to Washington, along with several other African finance ministers, for the spring meeting of the IMF and World Bank. While she spoke confidently of the debt being an investment for the future, she offered no firm figures, and certainly no news of debt relief, debt rollover or debt renegotiation.
Indeed, a statement released by both the World Bank president, David Malpas, and IMF managing director, Christine Lagarde, spoke of the messiness of debt incurred by many borrowing countries. They complained that countries did not even have coherent records of how much debt – or the types of debt – they had incurred. There were too many lenders and too many different terms and conditions attached to the loans. Not all were transparent.
In short, without mentioning Zambia by name, they seemed to indicate that a country like Zambia would face huge complications in restructuring its debt. And the barely veiled hint was that the IMF and World Bank would take a hard line in any negotiations towards such restructuring. “The seeds of crisis” have been sown, according to one IMF spokesman.
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The Key to South Africa's Vote Is the Margin of Victory @bpolitics @adengat Africa |
Money managers and analysts have said a strong showing for the ANC, potentially exceeding 60 percent of the vote, should boost stocks by strengthening President Cyril Ramaphosa’s ability to drive improvements in Africa’s most-industrialized economy. But opinion polls show differing pictures of ANC support, ranging from 51 percent to 61 percent.
A resounding ANC victory would trigger a rally in South African assets, Colin Coleman, head of of Sub-Saharan Africa at Goldman Sachs Group Inc., said in a Bloomberg Television interview this week. Were the ANC to reach the 60 percent-mark, “then the market will be very bullish,” according to Coleman. Anything below that level would limit Ramaphosa’s ability to make the changes he wants, he said.
Investors are showing few signs of anxiety as next week’s poll approaches. South African stocks have made their best start to a year since 2007, advancing 11 percent as of the end of April, almost in line with the 12 percent gain by emerging-market peers. The benchmark index advanced 1 percent in Johannesburg Friday, the most in more than two weeks.
The key post-election issue is whether Ramaphosa will be “more assertive in implementing changes which he knows are necessary if the economy is to start growing again,’’ said McGregor. “Perhaps the most liberating aspect of the election will be that it is behind him.’’
In his “worst-case scenario,” the ANC’s majority falls below 55 percent and the far-left Economic Freedom Fighters party wins more than 12 percent of the vote. Such a result could also spur social unrest and hurt consumer and business confidence as South Africans would expect limited political reforms and a lack of accountability for corruption experienced in the past decade, he said.
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As Diamond Reshapes Africa Ambitions, a Kenyan Bank Benefits @business Africa |
Bob Diamond’s change in strategy to build Atlas Mara Ltd. into a pan-African lender are helping a rival Kenyan banker fulfill a long-held objective of expanding on the continent. The company founded by the former Barclays Plc chief executive officer in 2013 is exiting four of the seven African nations in which it operates in return for 6.3 percent of Nairobi-based Equity Group Holdings Plc. That gives James Mwangi, the CEO of Kenya’s biggest bank by market value, exposure to markets he’s coveted for almost five years, with entries into Zambia and Mozambique. Equity Group -- which started in 1984 in Nairobi, before spreading across six markets including the Democratic Republic of Congo, Uganda and South Sudan -- wants to be in 15 nations on the continent by 2026 to benefit from rising regional trade and the increased use of digital banking services. For 67-year-old Diamond, the transaction reshapes his aspirations of building a continental lender. Atlas Mara misjudged the caliber of competition in Africa and ultimately paid too much for acquisitions, just as a commodity-price bust slowed growth across the continent. Atlas Mara will retain its main investment -- a stake in Union Bank of Nigeria Plc -- and its units in Botswana and Zimbabwe, and the deal for the rest gives the company the opportunity to share in Equity Group’s growth, said Chairman Michael Wilkerson. “The vision on Africa is as sound as it’s ever been,” Diamond said in an interview. “Everything about this is a long-term investment. Banks that were not at scale or not performing well now have a much better chance.” Wilkerson called the deal an evolution of Diamond’s strategy, focusing on markets where Atlas Mara can find a “path to leadership” and exiting or partnering where the firm is “sub-scale or not making enough money.” Speaking by phone, he also praised Equity Group’s operating skills in being able to make the most out of acquisitions. Diamond was still optimistic in September 2017 that Atlas Mara could increase its footprint to 10 or more African countries after selling a 42 percent stake to a division of Canadian insurer Fairfax Financial Holdings Ltd. -- a deal that gave Atlas Mara the firepower to up its stake in Lagos-based UBN. Diamond, who is focusing on investments in European financial services, handed over Atlas Mara’s reins to Wilkerson in February. He remains a top five shareholder and non-executive director of Atlas Mara. Atlas Mara has no plans to either exit Zimbabwe or Botswana or make new acquisitions, and will focus on further increasing its 49.7 percent stake in UBN and helping that business to grow, possibly through acquisitions, Wilkerson said. Atlas Mara also posted full-year earnings Tuesday. Its profit fell 13 percent in 2018 because of accounting adjustments and higher costs. The stock fell 3.7 percent in London, and has dropped about 85 percent since it began trading. Equity Group rose 2.9 percent, extending its advance this year to 17 percent. Equity is getting the assets at a discount to book value and will combine its existing Tanzanian and Rwandan operations with Atlas Mara’s units in the country.
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06-MAY-2019 :: M-Pesa the Jewel in Safaricom's Crown Kenyan Economy |
Safaricom reported FY Earnings last Friday. The centrality of Safaricom in the lives of Kenyans and to the Nairobi Securities Exchange cannot be gainsaid. Safaricom represents around 47.9 % of the NSE total value of $23,304,653,465.00 [Mihr Thakar]. Bob Collymore has presided over a more than 400% increase in the share price during his tenure and if you cared to roll in the dividend payments over that period, the return is juiced further. The Total Return of the share price over the period of his tenure ranks in the top percentile world-wide. This Year the share price is +31% [only 9 percentage points behind Bitcoin which has flown off the charts in 2019 and is +40%]. Now conversely, if you stripped Safaricom out of the Nairobi Securities Exchange Indices , the performance would be woeful. Therefore, the Earnings Release is a very big deal.
Safaricom reported a 7% increase in FY Service Revenue which clocked 240.30b. Voice remains the single biggest revenue line item 95.94b and expanded +0.3% [Prices -10% Year on Year]. Voice was pronounced dead many years ago but for Safaricom the Demographic Dividend has underpinned Voice. Safaricom added 2.3 million customers in the Full Year +58% compared to the previous year. For Bashir and Bouteflika the Youthquake was a Terminator, for Safaricom it is a rising tide. This remains a mature business but Safaricom have proven skilled at working the angles. SMS Revenue declined -1.3% to 17.5b.
Full Year Mobile Data Revenue grew +6.4% to 38.69b. During this reporting Period the average rate per megabyte reduced 42%. Safaricom absorbed the GOK related increases and turbo-charged consumption. This is exactly the correct strategy. I recall a conversation about the Take-Up of Smart Phones a number of years ago and Bob Collymore told me then one of the issues is that if you have not experienced a fast internet, You really don't know what you are missing. Millions of Kenyans are now hooked to the c21st and Information Super highway and its very difficult to dump a Ferrari for a Pro Box once you have driven the Ferrari. This Curve will turn ''hockey stick'' make no mistake about that.
The real Earnings Outlier was Mpesa. Full Year Mpesa Revenue surged +19.2% to reach 74.99b.
In November of last year I wrote this in the Star
Mpesa revenue surged +18.2% to register 35.52b and looks like its on the cusp of a hockey stick like breakout. Safaricom have tweaked the Mpesa ecosystem with good effect. They have made the Mpesa garden richer [the average user is transacting 12 times a month] and have increased retention and circulation in the ecosystem. This is a very big deal.
Safaricom: ''The growth in MPESA has been driven by an increased number of users, higher velocity of funds within the ecosystem, and adoption of new use cases. MPESA now accounts for 31.2% of service revenue''
Mpesa contributed 75% of Safaricom's Year on Year Growth. Bob Collymore told the Financial Times's Tom Wilson.
''If you strip out Mpesa’s performance you will see that our underlying growth as a teleco is only about 2.4 per cent.”
Mpesa is the Jewel in the Safaricom Crown and has ''blitz-scaled'' [of course, I think Mobile Data will also become as valuable a Jewel] and Safaricom's premium is a direct consequence of the value being placed on this Earnings curve. Safaricom have continued to fine-tune the Mpesa eco-system under Lapoiyit to good effect with the latest innovation Fuliza: ''the worlds first contextual mobile money overdraft facility'' going great Guns and providing further confirmation the Mpesa ''Platform Economy'' is a part of the genre of Platform Economies like UBER and the like. Safaricom predicted that within three years its pioneering digital payments business Mpesa will generate more revenue than all other parts of the business combined [FT].
Bloomberg reported
Vodacom and Safaricom plan to take over the intellectual property rights for M-Pesa, the main mobile-money product, from Vodafone Group Plc, Vodacom’s parent, and roll out the service to other African nations. If Safaricom can replicate the ubiquity of Safaricom in other markets, we will have to steepen the Earnings Curve further. In Ethiopia, Safaricom is already providing state-owned monopoly Ethiopia Telecommunications Corp. with fiber connectivity, call termination and airtime advance for customers, he said, and the partnership has potential to be expanded.
“We are looking at a broader relationship with EthioTel,” he said, without giving details. “No agreements have been signed yet, but we are hopeful about signing something this year.”
Given the importance of Mpesa, it “points to someone who really understands the fintech business” as a possible successor Boby Collymore told Tom Wilson..
Allow me to also mention the Dividend Pay Out of 1.25 +13.636% and a Special dividend per share of 0.62. The Balance Sheet is seriously ''bullet-proof''
Interestingly, Bob was asked about Huawei and said Safaricom's policy is not going to be driven by President Trump's Foreign Policy.
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@SafaricomPLC FY 2019 Earnings #safaricomfyresults Kenyan Economy |
Par Value: 0.05/- Closing Price: 29.25 Total Shares Issued: 40065428000.00 Market Capitalization: 1,171,913,769,000 EPS: 1.58 PE: 18.513
Safaricom FY 2019 Results for the year ended 31st March 2019 vs. 31st March 2018 FY Voice revenue 95.94b vs. 95.64b +0.3% FY Mpesa Revenue 74.99b vs. 62.91b +19.2% FY SMS Revenue 17.50b vs. 17.72b -1.3% FY Mobile data revenue 38.69b vs. 36.36b +6.4% FY Fixed service revenue 8.19b vs. 6.67b +22.7% FY Other service revenue 5.00b vs. 5.24b -4.5% FY Service revenue 240.30b vs. 224.54b +7.0% FY Earnings before taxation 89.61b vs. 79.27b +13.1% FY EBIT Margin 35.8% vs. 33.9% +1.9% FY Net income 63.40b vs. 55.29b +14.7% EPS 1.58 vs. 1.38 +14.7% Shareholders Funds 143.24b vs. 123.91b +15.6% Cash and cash equivalents 20.03b vs. 9.50b +110.842% Total Net Cash 16.00b vs. 5.46b +193.040% Free cash flow 63.11b vs. 55.39b +13.938% Normal dividend per share 1.25 vs. 1.10 +13.636% Special dividend per share 0.62 Service revenue growth of 7% to KShs 240.30bn. Voice service (incoming and outgoing) revenue grew by 0.3% to KShs 95.94bn. MPESA revenue grew by 19.2% to KShs 74.99bn. Mobile data revenue increased by 6.4% to KShs 38.69bn. Messaging revenue declined by 1.3% to KShs 17.50bn. Fixed service revenue increased by 22.7% to KShs 8.19bn. Total customer base increased by 7.7% to 31.8m. : This year we made good progress by securing key partnerships for our MPESA business including AliExpress to drive our payments business, Western Union to drive remittances and Fuliza, our overdraft product, to drive lending. We continue to accelerate our digital transformation and agile agenda. Our continued focus on digital engagement with customers enabled us to launch Zuri, an artificial intelligence (AI) Chatbot assistant, to meet our customer requests through automated, digital support. Zuri enables our mobile data users to perform a wide range of tasks saving on costs and driving efficiencies.
MPESA MPESA grew 19.2% for the year. The growth in MPESA has been driven by an increased number of users, higher velocity of funds within the ecosystem, and adoption of new use cases. In the period, we added 2.1 million active MPESA customers. MPESA now accounts for 31.2% of service revenue, further accelerating displacement of traditional voice and messaging services.
Mobile Data Mobile data revenue increased by KShs 2.33bn on an absolute basis, and continued to witness a slowdown in the growth rate from the first half of the year, growing at 6.4% for the full year. The slow down in growth reflects both competitive conditions in the market and increased taxation that was absorbed for in bundle customers. Mobile data is now 16.1% of service revenue.
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@SafaricomPLC sees 8% growth this year, down from 13% increase @business Kenyan Economy |
The guidance for 2019-2020 earnings “is weak,” Tracy Kivunyu, a senior analyst with Tellimer Markets Inc., said by phone from Nairobi. “That’s worrying.” The outlook overshadowed Safaricom’s declaration of a special dividend on the back of a strong balance sheet and growth in mobile money to almost a third of total revenue. Part-owned by South Africa’s Vodacom Group Ltd., the carrier controls about two thirds of the Kenyan market and is seeking to expand into other countries.
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Response to Fact Finding Report on Northern Rangelands Trust's Operations in Community Conservancies in Isiolo County, published by Borana Council of Elders and the Waso Professional Forum Kenyan Economy |
Firstly, we thank the Borana Council of Elders (BCE) and the Waso Professionals Forum (WPF) for their passion and dedication to the human rights of the Isiolo communities, their concern for the state of the rangelands they rely on, and the prosperity of wildlife they live alongside. It would seem that NRT, BCE and WPF have similar organizational values, and it is with that understanding that we have read this report, and wish to address some of the allegations set out in the report findings.
c) NRT has introduced “white coloured” lions into the conservancy that attack Borana community members.
Allegations of NRT introducing lions into any area are wholly untrue - any animal translocations are the responsibility of the Kenya Wildlife Service, with whom we work closely, and NRT has no authority to move wildlife without the support and lead of the KWS. NRT has never been involved in the translocation of lions anywhere ever. We call on the government to investigate such a wild and misplaced allegation.
d) ‘Laikipia Beef’ from Ol Pejeta is the most expensive beef in Kenya
Laikipia Beef has no relation to NRT. NRT Trading partners with Ol Pejeta to provide pastoralists in member conservancies with a direct link to high quality markets for their livestock. Alongside this, Ol Pejeta has its own beef business, from Ol Pejeta-owned cattle reared on Ol Pejeta. This is what is marketed as Laikipia Beef, and has no connection to cattle from NRT member conservancies. Markets are about willing seller and willing buyer.
To date, NRT has managed to fundraise around Ksh. 154.7 million for Biliqo Bulesa Community Conservancy, and we have the audited accounts to prove this. It is important to point out that NRT is not a donor organization, we are an umbrella organization that works for community conservancies. We fundraise for the conservancies, for programmes they have identified. We don’t make false promises, and we respect community annual work plans. Community conservancies also raise funds on their own, either through donors or their respective County Governments. From these funds, Biliqo Bulesa Community Conservancy has invested in a water pipeline at Merti, a borehole at Qilisa, a rangers outpost at Babala, a headquarters at Ntorobo, refurbishing the airstrip at Dima Atho, a community desalination machine, accommodation for teachers at Kom Primary (and training for those teachers), a water pump and solar power at Dima Atho, two vehicles, radios for rangers, a 100 m3 underground water tank at Didewaride and four water troughs there, and two classrooms at Biliqo Secondary.
vi) That each tourist visiting the conservancy would be paying as much as Ksh 1 million into the conservancy kitty
There are no tourist facilities in Biliqo Bulesa Conservancy. If there are to be tourism operations in the future, these would have to be approved by the County Government of Isiolo and the community.
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