Kenya’s Aga Khan University Hospital has launched Video Assisted Thoracic Surgery (VATS) to enable doctors operate inside the chest cavity with the help of 5 mm or 10 mm telescopes and instruments.

VATS treatment will help in diagnosing cancer, infections, TB, lung fibrosis, tumours of the chest wall, draining fluid around the heart and lungs and treating repeatedly collapsing lungs.

Dr Raj Jutley, Director, Cardiac Surgery at the Aga Khan University Hospital, said, “This test is carried out under general anesthesia and a tube is put down the throat to help the patient breathe through one lung.  This way the other lung is completely deflated and allows the surgeon to fully view the chest cavity during the procedure.”

VATS surgery is not as complicated.

A patient lies on one side, a 10 mm incision is made between the ribs and the lung on that side is made to partly, or completely collapse. A tiny camera on a tube called a thoracoscope is then inserted through the opening.  The doctor can see the work he or she is doing by watching a video screen. If a patient is having a procedure more complicated than inspection of the chest and lung, the doctor makes one, or two other small incisions to allow additional instruments to reach into the chest.

A wide variety of instruments are used during VATS surgery such as those that can cut away a section of the lung and seal the hole left in the lung using small staples, apparatus which can burn away scar tissues and tools to remove small biopsy samples such as lymph nodes from the chest.

Then, after the surgery,  the instruments are removed, the lung is re-inflated and all the small incisions are stitched closed. For most patients, a tube (called a chest tube) is placed through the remaining opening to help drain any leaking air, or fluid that collects after the surgery.

“It is easier for patients to recover from VATS procedure compared to regular chest surgery (often called ‘open’ surgery) because the wounds from the incisions are much smaller and there is no spreading of the ribs. You will have a small straight scar (less than an inch long) where the instruments were inserted, said Dr. Jutley.

“Sometimes, especially if cancer is diagnosed, doctors will decide whether a larger surgery is needed to treat the disease.  If necessary, doctors can change over to a larger incision and do open chest surgery while the patient is still under anesthesia,” he concluded.

Kenya has embraced solar technology to help in reaching out to the areas which electricity is yet to be installed making technology accessible; because of this a study done last year by the M-KOPA Solar and InterMedia shows that Kenya has emerged as a hot spot for off-grid solar, with 14 percent of the population surveyed using solar as their primary lighting and charging source.

The population, according to Kenya Power, calculates that 30 percent of the population has access to the grid, which leaves up to 56 percent still relying on kerosene, batteries and candles.

The study compares Kenya to other African countries and it concludes that Kenya is a leader for off-grid power. It explains that the most recent Africa-wide study by Lighting Africa in 2012 showed that the penetration of ‘pico-powered’ lighting systems (solar and wind-up) in Africa’s 115-120 million off-grid households was estimated to be just 4 percent.

Jesse Moore, MD and Co-Founder M-KOPA says, “Off-grid solar is a vital part of Kenya’s energy mix. This market has been ignited by new and improving solar equipment, and much of it has been made affordable to the mass market by pay-as-you-go offerings or other consumer financing models.”

M-KOPA has connected over 140,000 homes in Kenya to solar power in the past two years, plus 20,000 more in Uganda and Tanzania. The Nairobi-based company partnered with Safaricom in late 2012 to launch the first commercial offering, globally, that combines mobile payments with GSM sensor technology to sell solar power systems to households on a daily payment plan.

Jesse Moore says, “We’ve developed solar home systems to power lighting, phone charging and radio. Being able to provide this on a payment plan that was on average 40% cheaper than kerosene, batteries and candles was what has enabled us to build scale – to the point we’re now connecting 500 or more homes a day.”

The M-KOPA and InterMedia study surveyed 300 households across Kenya. It also looked at what consumers were spending on their energy consumption. Off-grid homes, without solar, are spending on average Ksh 24,820 ($ 272) per annum with 55 percent of this on kerosene. The balance is spent on batteries, third party phone charging, torches and candles.

Jesse Moore says, “The Kenyan solar category has grown quickly because consumers are being offered more and more solar options at different price points and with affordable payment options. Much of this is enabled by the convenience of mobile money, especially M-PESA. Making solar affordable has had a positive impact on people’s lives and savings, though we believe that the scale and impact will grow many times over in the coming years.”

Most off-grid homes in Kenya are classified as low income, with average per capita annual incomes of Ksh 66,430 ($ 730). Solar providers in Kenya have been successful at creating products and payment options that work financially and practically for these consumers. The M-KOPA and InterMedia study calculates that the total annual energy spend by consumers in Kenya is now valued at over Ksh 150 billion $ 1.3billion).

Jesse Moore concludes, “In many markets around the world, solar is seen as something of a luxury. In Kenya, this has been turned on its head. Solar is giving millions of people an essential foot on the energy ladder and helping them save money. The entire solar industry in Kenya is focused on improving customer offerings and powering up many more homes. At M-KOPA alone, we expect to power at least a million homes in 3 years time.”

Ecobank Group CEO Albert Essien gave the keynote address in Munich at the 4th Conference on Managing Risk in Africa. Essien offered strategies for managing risk in Africa’s growth markets. Against the backdrop of what he outlined as a generally positive outlook for Africa, he advised investors against viewing Africa as one, but rather 54 countries with different growth prospects, different infrastructure, trade agreements, tax regulations, culture and levels of technological development.

Essien urged investors to be prepared to engage with African countries on a long-term basis and avoid abrupt changes in investment focus because of perceived instability in certain markets. He encouraged managing risks associated with doing business in Africa, including fiscal and monetary policy issues such as foreign exchange restrictions, transparency and compliance, political instability and corruption and resource and infrastructure challenges.

The Ecobank Group CEO offered executives overseeing market entry strategy in Africa six key considerations that they would have to contend with. These, he said, were: understanding the local business culture; assessing which markets represent the best balance of risk and reward; finding and vetting appropriate local partners; understanding local market regulations; local environmental factors; and levels of technological development.

Essien highlighted several market entry risks, which he enumerated as: political risk, reputational risk, operational risk and physical risk to staff and assets. He encouraged scenario planning as a good way to anticipate what future trends might emerge and what their impact and probability might be. “Whatever risks are identified, they are best viewed holistically rather than in isolation. New market entrants will need to develop a clear risk appetite and weigh the opportunity against the cost of risk mitigation, which can be expensive,” Essien said.

The Ecobank boss advised setting up a risk review board with participation from senior management, and said this would help ensure the right level and scope of ongoing risk monitoring.

The Lake Turkana Wind Power (LTWP) project has gained recognition in the world and has scooped the African Renewables Deal of the Year 2014 at the IJGlobal Awards 2014 Europe & Africa in London.

This award come  just a few weeks after the same project was named the African Renewables Deal of the Year 2014 by Project Finance International earlier this month.

The IJGlobal Europe & Africa Awards are a celebration of the best in class deals in energy and infrastructure over the past year.

The awards’ judging panel, host and IJGlobal editor, Sarah Tame, said: “This project is a very significant project for Kenya, with its huge associated transmission infrastructure likely to be used to connect future projects to the grid.”

Since 2013 this project has gained the world’s attention; a report was released by the Standford University in 2013 saying that the project will be the  biggest in Africa as it would provide electricity to Kenya as well as the rest of the world. The report claimed that it might be possible to generate seven fold energy excess, accessible blowing the wind even with a decrease in wind speeds when turbines rob energy from each other.

In 2014, the project entered a partnership with Harith General Partners who invested $870 million on the project to help in the completion of the project which is also said to produce more than seven fold of the energy than what Kenya currently produces.

The Chairman of the Board at LTWP, Mugo Kibati said “We are truly delighted to receive this award.  It is not only a great honor for LTWP but for Kenya as a whole.”

The Lake Turkana Wind Power project will provide 310 MW of reliable, low-cost, onshore wind power to the Republic of Kenya’s national grid, which is equivalent to approximately 20 percent of the current installed electricity generating capacity. The project is of significant strategic benefit to Kenya, and at KSh70 billion (€600 million) will be the largest single-private investment in Kenya’s history. The construction and long-term maintenance contracts also addressed unique challenges faced by the location of Lake Turkana, which is in one of the most remote areas of Kenya.

Satellite firm SpeedCast International has acquired Paris-based Geolink Satellite Services, a satellite communications solutions in the African region for an undisclosed amount in a move that will help strengthen SpeedCast’s African expansion.

Geolink has customers in over 20 African countries in the oil & gas, mining, media, NGO and maritime sectors and provides them with mobile satellite as well as fixed VSAT solutions.

The acquisition will benefit SpeedCast’s existing customer base in Africa.

“With the Geolink acquisition, SpeedCast expands its presence and its capabilities in the African market,” said Pierre-Jean Beylier, CEO of SpeedCast. “Geolink uniquely complements SpeedCast’s business with great strength in mobile satellite services, extensive experience in and satellite coverage over Africa, and strong customer base in the energy and maritime sectors. There are interesting synergies between the two companies, which will further enhance our ability to deliver complete end-to-end solutions to our respective customers globally.”

The acquisition follows SpeedCast’s successful acquisitions of two established satellite industry players, SatComms Australia and Oceanic Broadband, in the Australasia region in the past 12 months.

Airtel has invested Ksh. 2.5 billion to upgrade its network to enhance indoor coverage and 3G quality in Kenya.  The upgrade of all sites in Mombasa and Kitale townships has been completed, with Nairobi’s already in progress.

With the growing demand for data services, alongside the increasing proliferation of smartphones, the UMTS 900 Mhz spectrum upgrade project significantly enhances indoor coverage penetration and improves data quality for Airtel 3G network users. Upgrade of all the sites in Mombasa and Kitale townships have been completed, with Nairobi’s in progress and due to complete soon. Nokia Networks, one of the world’s leading specialists in mobile broadband is partnering with Airtel for this upgrade project.

“We have invested 2.5 billion shillings in this exercise and plan to continue investing significantly in the network to provide our customers with the best possible user experience across the country. The project will increase the reach and coverage of Airtel’s 3G network, enabling our customers take full advantage of what Airtel has to offer.” said Airtel Kenya’s Managing Director, Mr. El Youssefi,

Mr. Youssefi added “With the network upgrade, customers will be better able to take advantage of services such as the recently launched Airtel #UnlimiNet, free twitter on Airtel Internet, Internet.org– free internet powered by Airtel and Facebook, amongst a bouquet of other data services.”

The network upgrade also makes Airtel Kenya’s network 4G LTE ready. In November last year, Airtel Africa launched 4G in Seychelles and Rwanda, making the two countries amongst the first in sub Saharan Africa to commercially deploy the 4G network technology.  In India, Bharti Airtel was the first operator to launch the 4G service, making it one of the first countries in the world to commercially deploy this cutting-edge technology.

Airtel currently has the widest 3G footprint in Africa, with the 17 countries that Airtel operates connected to 3G services.

Two new Microsoft Lumia smartphones, the Microsoft Lumia 435 and Microsoft Lumia 532, are now available in Kenya for Ksh. 10,200 and Ksh. 11,750 respectively. The Lumia 435 is the most affordable Lumia yet, with core smartphone features, the best Windows Phone experiences and access to the latest apps. The Lumia 435 opens up the Windows Phone experience to even more people, while Lumia 532 is a powerful quad core smartphone that builds on the success of the Lumia 530. With a premium layered design, glance screen, front facing camera and more memory, the Lumia 532 enables people to achieve their goals with the best of Microsoft’s experiences:

• Switch effortlessly between voice and video calls with built-in Skype integration and a front-facing camera.
• Read, review, edit and share on the go with the full suite of Microsoft Office on Windows Phone preinstalled.
• Keep your photos, videos and Office documents safely backed up with 30 GB of free* OneDrive cloud storage.
• Easily manage work and personal email on the fly, with Microsoft Outlook.
• Capture photos quickly and easily with Lumia Camera and take, edit and share great selfies with the front-facing camera and Lumia Selfie app.
• Have your home screen your way with Windows Phone 8.1 and the Lumia Denim update, complete with one-swipe Action Centre, Word Flow and Live Folders.
• Stay up-to-date with the best new features through regular Windows updates.

“The Microsoft Lumia 435 and Lumia 532 show our commitment to bring Windows smartphones to as many people as possible. Both devices are fantastic for those moving to a smartphone for the very first time”, notes Patrick Henchie, head of product, Microsoft Mobile Device Sales, Sub-Sahara Africa.

As for the spec, the Lumia 432 Dual SIM operates on the Windows Phone 8.1 with Lumia Deni, has a 4 inch WVGA LCD screen, runs on a 1.2 GHz dual – core Qualcomm Snapdragon 200 processor and has 2MP VGA front facing camera and has a 8GB memory.

The Lumia 435 and Lumia 532 are now available in black and white countrywide across Kenya. For the first time people can now also purchase Lumia devices online viawww.jumia.co.ke.

Orange Kenya and GreenLight Planet have come together and have signed a strategic partnership today looking to provide solar lighting to Kenyan homes, limited to electricity.

The two have launched a competitive range of product bundles that include internet enable mobile handsets and solar lamps.

The internet enabled device being bundled with the solar lamps will be officially launched in early march. The telco company is still in the move to improving the quality of its data services as well as expanding its reach to more regions across the country.

The solar lamps come with a 2 year warranty will be available in all orange shops countrywide; and mat be purchased, bundled with the low cost internet enabled mobile phone from orange.

Solar energy is slowly being embraced in Africa, just the other day, Gigawatt Global launched an 8.5MW solar power utility in Rwanda worth $23.7 million and it is the first utility-scale solar project to be under the US-Africa Clean Finance (ACEF) programme; for the same reason, bringing electricity to the unreachable as it is through electricity that technology breeds.

Take for example the mobile phone; according to the Orange Kenya CEO Vincent Lobry said that the mobile phone enlightens people’s mind through communication and information and also connects them with their friends and family as well as the globe through the internet.

It is for this reason that Orange has decided to work with the solar power company to provide affordable internet data as through this solar lamp people will have the means to charge their phones and to keep communication up and running.

Greenlight Planet CEO, Anish Thakkar, said: “Close to 1.5 billion people worldwide still don’t have access to grid-based lighting and often individuals must walk several kilometres to purchase fuel and also to charge their phones at a fee. We are thrilled to broaden the reach of the solar lighting products through this partnership that will give greater access to these products through orange shops throughout Kenya.”

The lamps bundled with the mobile phone will cost Ksh for 3899 for the Sun King mobile Ksh. 4699 for the King Pro and Ksh 8799 for the Sun King Home. The stand-alone solar devices that are not bundleid with the orange mobile device will cost 2900 for the Sun King Mobile Ksh. 3700 for the SunKing Pro 11AND Ksh 7800 for Sun King Home.

Mobile financial services has gained momentum in Sub-Saharan Africa; with this banking has become really and more active since the launch of the mobile money services. The growth in this sector is largely attributed to doing such things as pay utility bills and send money to relatives, which could generate $1.5 billion in fees for mobile-money providers by 2019. This is according to a report released by ‘Africa Blazes a Trail in Mobile Money: Time for Banks and Mobile Operators to Devise Startegies’.

The success of mobile money in the region has been made successful thanks to the ‘unbanked population and the heavy mobile phone penetration. The report says that eight of the ten countries that make the most use of mobile financial services are in Africa and sub Saharan Africa has the highest proportion of active accounts.

According to the report, by 2019 there will be some 400 million unique mobile-phone subscribers and almost 150 million traditionally banked sub-Saharan Africans. This will leave some 250 million sub-Saharan Africans aged 15 or older who have incomes od $500 or more and mobile phones biut no traditiona bank account.

“Mobile financial services aren’t new, but they’re at an inflection point and adoption is accelerating,” said Hans Kuipers, a BCG partner and co-author of the report. “This is not something that African banks or MNOs can afford to ignore. A bank or MNO that isn’t active in the market runs the risk of becoming less and less relevant.”

For banks and MNOs, a welcome dynamic of the market is its nascent state and the immature vendor landscape. With the exception of m-pesa—a service whose breakaway success in Kenya, the report notes, stems largely from favourable regulatory circumstances—no mobile financial service in sub-Saharan Africa has established an impregnable position yet.

To succeed, banks and MNOs will need to invest in infrastructure, business capabilities, and governance.

A critical piece of infrastructure is a network of agents. These are the physical places where sub-Saharan African consumers can sign up for a mobile financial service and make deposits and withdrawals—the equivalent of the terrestrial world’s bank branches.

Consumer insights are among the important business capabilities. This speaks to a bank or MNO’s ability to identify and develop the offerings that would matter most to consumers. It also has to do with knowing when to introduce different services.

Good governance is critical because of the partnerships that will be needed to create an ecosystem for mobile service offerings. Mobile financial services should not be a go-it-alone proposition; neither banks nor MNOs have everything that’s needed to succeed on their own. The banks have the back-office systems and the understanding of risk and financial-industry regulations; the MNOs have the access to customers and the relationships with mobile-phone-store operators that could become a foundation for agent networks.

“Banks and MNOs are complementary in this space; each has something the other needs,” Kuipers said. “In many cases, it will make sense for them to team up.”

While it’s true that the market is still coming into focus, it won’t be long before mobile financial services play a significant role in this part of the world. The technology is here, mobile penetration is deep and growing, and a huge portion of the sub-Saharan population is becoming bankable.

“The vendors that want to establish a strong market position are going to need to find the right partners and start developing an offering,” Kuipers said. “The time to do those things is now.”

Orange & VC4Africa have released the Orange African Social Venture Prize 2014 graduates after an intensive online acceleration program who are set to the VC4Africa Investor Network, a network of African SME focused investors.

Held in both English and French, the Orange Cohort  was taken through critical topics of business planning and fundraising, such as market segmentation, business model design, and metric/KPI management tools for developing traction and each participant looked at both their financing needs and how to structure their campaigns for fundraising.

Some of the trainers included Alina Vinogradova, Head of Partnerships at VC4Africa, Michiel Hillen, Director of EMSA Emerging Markets Africa, Business Development expert Nicolas Dalmasse, CTIC Dakar Catalyst Yann le Beux, Trainer & Senior Consultant Agbe Julien Achille, Jokkolabs Founder & Chief Catalyst Karim Sy, and FMO Senior Investment Officer Ben Zwinkels.

Here is the total list:

AByster Mobile Money (Cameroon)

Abyster is a young and very successful ICT company that has introduced an innovative tool for mobile money traffic. Based on the mobile money API of Orange it helps ecommerce businesses in their collection of payments. AByster has introduced it’s own Android mobile money app. In just 2 years after the start it already has 1,000 users. Next step is to get the expansion to other West- and Central African countries started.

Modisar (Botswana)

Modisar (the winner of the 2014 Orange African Social Venture Prize) has developed a business management application (desktop, web & mobile) for livestock farmers. The concept makes precision farming possible in a market that today still suffers from diseases, lack of supplies and spills. The business model envisages both subscription and advertising fees. Already in the start-up stage Modisar has committed 500 users. The official launch of the commercial version is scheduled in July 2015.

Pass Docteur / Bouquet Pass Santé (Senegal)

This venture solves an important issue that refrains African consumers from using e-commerce: the online payment issue. On this basis the company has built a successful series of online B2C businesses for healthcare, education, groceries etcetera. The interaction between the diaspora and the African mother continent plays an important role. The Pass Courses team, led by the energetic and ambitious Moussa Traoré wishes to expand in both Senegal and other Western-African countries and to improve its platforms.

Pubcell (Côte d’Ivoire)

This unique initiative of the brilliant and hyperactive entrepreneur Patrice Diaho will turn online advertising and social media in Western Africa upside down. It allows users of basic mobile phones (not smart phones) to participate in social networking and it allows advertisers to reach them and to target them. Most remarkable feature of Pubcell is that it allows users to have a share in advertising benefits. Already 87,000 users and 250 advertisers have joined. In this first round of fundraising Pubcell wishes to acquire sufficient funds for a further roll-out, an improvement of the platform and preparations for international expansion. See their VC4Africa venture profile.

Station Energy (Côte d’Ivoire)

Station Energy has developed an innovative retail concept of energy services that enables affordable energy access for all, especially in rural areas where there’s no grid. Apart from solar power the retail concept offers various other shared services like cold storage, lighting and internet access. What sets Station Energy apart is the fact that it not just developed an easy to implement solution for rural African communities, but also a sound business and investment model, making the chances of getting it off the ground realistic and highly promising.

Twinklebox (Egypt/Kenya)

Twinklebox can give a boost to the market of pay-as-you-go products and services. Twinklebox has developed a pay as you go solar lamp for East-African households, combining mobile technology with solar technology. Part of their concept is a highly effective backoffice system for it. Based on their experiences during the start-up stage the Twinklebox team decided to focus more on the development and roll-out of their backoffice system and sell this at the B2B market to business that sell pay-as-you-go products and services. Their fund raising round will be geared at this latest development.

Mewanko Farm (Cameroon)

Mewanko farm will introduce B2B-ecommerce at the base of the pyramid to help local farmers reach wholesalers, hotels and restaurants in the urban markets near them. Mewanko will make supply and demand more transparent by introducing a digital community ecommerce platform. Marketing skills meet social targets! With the newly acquired knowledge Mewanko is well positioned to have a successful fundraising round.

Senemar+ (Cameroon)

SENEMAR+ focuses primarily on reinventing practices of the African agricultural value chain, from sourcing and production to sales, distribution, transport and packaging. The business concept consists of several modules, like a web app based online market, a mobile payment tool and a business management application.

Agzakhana (Egypt)

Agzakhana makes pharmacy products as well as medical information available to anyone at any time, using an ecommerce platform accessible through web and mobile. One of the secrets behind Agzakhana’s success is the extensive database of products, medicine and accurate medical information. Agzakhana’s plans include regional expansion and enhanced accessibility.

Airtel Ghana and mobile messaging innovator DOTGO have today launched an SMS-based Internet service  in a move expected to see over 4 million subscribers access to the internet without cellular data or Wi-Fi – whether on feature phones or smartphones.

The new service will see users get access to e-mail, news, and to websites like Wikipedia, Yahoo! and Facebook by just sending an SMS to DOTGO containing the name of the website they want to browse.

Manu Rajan, Marketing Director for Airtel Ghana commented: “DOTGO’s powerful platform has democratized the Internet for our subscribers. Yes, smartphone adoption is growing fast, but feature phones are still heavily in use. With DOTGO’s expertise, we have instantly increased Internet penetration in Ghana by enabling our feature-phone users to access the Internet with their existing phones.”

DOTGO responds with an interactive menu-based version of the website condensed and formatted for SMS. DOTGO targets nearly two thirds of the world who lack access to the Internet, either due to the phones they have or due to the cost implications.

Significantly, DOTGO’s messaging platform also provides mobile operators with much-needed protection against the growing revenue losses caused by Internet-based services that bypass the carrier, such as messaging delivered by OTT players. Mobile industry analyst Ovum estimated that OTT services may have cost operators as much as $32.6bn in 2013 alone.

DOTGO’s platform allows mobile operators to recoup these revenue losses and reclaim the relationship with the subscriber, while creating new revenue streams with innovative products that demonstrate clear value for the customer.

DOTGO co-founder and CEO Stefan Gromoll. “The benefit for mobile operators using DOTGO’s SMS Browsing service is that they can deliver basic Internet access to every single subscriber, from urban centers to the farthest corners of a country. They can then go on to use the same core platform from DOTGO to deliver a range of additional revenue-generating SMS- and data-based messaging services for feature phone and smartphone users alike.”

Listed lender NIC Bank has opened a new leasing subsidiary, NIC Leasing Limited Liability Partnership, in a bid to tap into the growing opportunities in the leasing market.

The introduction of NIC Leasing is a natural evolution for NIC Bank which has a strong heritage in Asset Financing. The subsidiary will now enable the group to offer customers the asset, their financing solutions as well as insurance through their Bancassurance subsidiary.

The Bank received approvals from the Central Bank of Kenya to set up the subsidiary in December 2014. The operating model employed by NIC Leasing LLP is unique and a first in the domestic market. The model will see NIC Bank partnering with Mercantile Finance, another wholly owned subsidiary of the bank.

NIC Bank Group Managing Director John Gachora said the move to set up the new subsidiary fits into the Bank’s aggressive growth strategy, especially in the Asset Finance space, which has become very competitive over the last few years.

Gaining traction

“Leasing is slowly gaining traction in the Kenyan market. Recent leasing initiatives by the Government are a positive move towards growing the market and we are confident that NIC Group is well positioned to support this growing market,” said Mr Gachora.

Leasing is catching on in Kenya with the Government taking the lead especially in the leasing of motor vehicles and medical equipment. Leasing offers companies various advantages including optimised cash flow management by freeing up capital which can be invested in other areas of the business.

NIC Bank’s Executive Director, Corporate Banking, Alan Dodd, said the subsidiary will mainly be looking at assets such as motor vehicles as well as focusing on leasing equipment in the FMCG, Construction and Healthcare sector.

Provide the equipment and the financing

“Previously we would link customers with leasing companies and provide the financing. With NIC Leasing we are now able to provide the equipment and the financing all under one roof. Through NIC Leasing we intend to offer professional services to our customers from inception, during the lease and at the end,” said Mr Dodd.

NIC Bank worked with renowned international leasing consultant Sudhir Amembal to set up the subsidiary.

The cost of electricity in Kenya has really reduced and it is attributed to the additional 140 MW to the national grid.

Kenya’s president Uhuru Kenyatta, during the commissioning of the lasr phase of the 280MW of geothermal power, said that the move was aimed at stabilizing the cost of electricity in East Africa.

“By generating and injecting 280MW, we have driven the electricity cost by the 30 per cent which we had pledged last year. Manufacturers will have access to electric power at rates devoid of transformation costs,” he said. Kenyatta said.

According to Kenyatta, the country is also likely to see an increase in export production and expanded employment opportunities for Kenyans.

Following the additional MW to the power grid, the cost of fuel has fallen by 65 percent to 2.51 Kenyan shillings per kilowatt per hour. With this in hand, Kenya is ready to start exporting electricity to its neighbouring countries.

“Electricity costs have been a huge component of industrial and household expenditure. Economic growth can be arrested by energy costs. My government is committed to reducing the cost of energy and the cost of production in order to accelerate development,” Kenyatta noted.

It looks like not only key a will be enjoying the benefits of electricity as Rwanda will start importing electricity from Kenya. This  move will be made possible following Kengen’s effort in increasing its electricity production as well as distribution systems.

The president of Rwanda, Paul Kagame said: “As we produce electricity, as we continue to lower prices of electricity, what is expected is that the prices of other things of essentials are also going to come down.”

With this  in progress Kenya, according to the government will be spending  about $2 billion to upgrade its power distribution systems. Meanwhile, plans are underway for the power producer to raise Ksh.15 billion through a rights issue to finance expansion of its power generating capacity.

The Kenyan government said that it will spend about 2 billion US dollars in the medium term to upgrade its power distribution systems. The government identified energy as one of the infrastructural enablers of growth and macroeconomic stability, equity among others.

The East African country is looking at increasing its national power output to 5,000MW by 2016 in order to spur industrial growth.

SimplePay’s Chief Operating Officer Rich Tanksley will be stepping down from his role as COO and will become a member of the SimplePay Advisory Board.

Mr. Tanksley joined SimplePay in June of 2014 on behalf of Seedstars, a Swiss venture builder that is providing funding for SimplePay. His role was to put in place operational systems and processes that would allow SimplePay to scale massively. With these things now in place, Mr. Tanksley’s day-to-day role at SimplePay is complete.

“We are grateful to the contributions that Rich has made to SimplePay,” said Founder and CEO, Simeon Ononobi, “He really put in an amazing operational infrastructure that will help us take SimplePay to the next level. We are happy to still have him around in an advisory capacity”

To replace Mr. Rich Tanksley, SimplePay is adding a new senior International team from Geneva as vice presidents for products, finance and development. Their details will be released shortly.

Mr. Tanksley has joined Pulse, a division of Swiss media giant Ringier, as Head of Pulse Nigeria. SimplePay has web and mobile applications that allow users and merchants to make and receive purchases or fund transfers instantly. SimplePay was founded in 2013 by Simeon Ononobi. In 2014, SimplePay received funding from Seedstars, a Swiss-based venture builder.

Etihad Airways has appointed John Friel as its new General Manager in South Africa.

He will be responsible for leading the Airline’s commercial operations in South Africa as it continues to grow its presence and operations across the region.

John, a 16-year veteran in the travel sector, has a strong understanding of managing the challenges and opportunities within the industry having worked for a number of leading international airlines, where he developed excellent contacts and worked closely with the tourism industry and across the aviation and travel trade, both in South Africa and abroad.

He joined Etihad Airways in June 2014 as Regional Business Development Manager in South Africa.

“We are very excited to have John take up his new position at our South African office where he will continue to drive commercial success for the airline in cooperation with its partners,” said Maurice Phohleli, Etihad Airways’ Vice President Africa Sub-Sahara and Indian Ocean.

“South Africa is a very important market for us and John has a wealth of commercial management experience and the right credentials to accelerate the growth of our business there.”

Etihad Airways currently operates seven flights a week between Abu Dhabi and Johannesburg. This, combined with a new daily service operated by its codeshare partner, South African Airways, scheduled to start on 29 March, will provide passengers with a double-daily service between South Africa and the UAE, with access to key destinations on Etihad Airways’ fast growing global network in the Indian Subcontinent, Asia, Europe and North America.

The airline has announced plans to launch new daily services to Entebbe and Dar es Salaam in May and December this year, bringing to 11 the total number of routes into Africa and the Indian Ocean, alongside Cairo, Casablanca, Johannesburg, Khartoum, Lagos, Mahé, Male, Nairobi and Tripoli.

Born in Scotland, John has been living in South Africa with his family since 2002.