BY NBM WRITER A fairly recent book by veteran Kenyan writer Muthoni Likimani. A unique and kind of book that everybody who is concerned about one of the most evil practices on earth – modern slavery and human trafficking, has to lay their hands on. Written in the form of fictional anecdotes and true stories, My Blood is Not For Sale combines creative excellence and reality to strike a very powerful code with the readers. The author gives a powerful flashback of what Kenya underwent during the colonial times in her prologue. She reminds readers of the hardships that Kenyans encountered…
Author: NBM CORRESPONDENT
BY GAD WESONGA This short story was published in 1989, foreshadowing Ken Saro Wiwa’s own death six years later at the cruel, brutal and unscrupulous hands of Nigeria’s military regime of Sani Abacha. Written in the form of a letter to an old girlfriend from a prisoner on the night preceding his execution, Africa Kills Her Sun is a satire on the endemic sleaze and corruption, rampant at all levels of Nigerian society and with it, the evaporation of any form of optimism among the masses. To illustrate the gravity of corruption in society, Bana, the narrator confesses that though…
Persistence was just a loophole created to give men more room and ways of disregarding their responsibilities as heads of families BY BRENDA VIOLA There he stood, a couple of tears slipping from his eyelids, tears of joy I supposed. In his well pressed black tuxedo, he stood tall above the rest. His bow tie in place. His pocket square sat seamlessly in the breast pocket of his suit. From where I was, he looked contented, eager, and even hopeful; a look every bride wished to see on her groom as she walked down the aisle to meet him on…
Documenting of all the resentments affords one an opportunity to prioritize what to deal with and what to put aside for mulling and even what, at the moment, seems unsalvageable BY JACOB OKETCH Writing about staying away from alcohol is a very hard thing to do because the norm is to do the opposite. The immense pull in alcohol, generating tonnes of money for advertisements, for example, makes it the king. Some dailies have, for instance, given acres of space to review watering holes and brands of liquor on the market. Other writers just marvel about the thrill of the…
BY YOMI KAZEEM OKash and OPesa, the Africa-focused consumer lending apps of Opera, the Chinese-owned internet browsing giant, appear to be flouting Google’s Play Store policies. In a recent report, equity research house Hindenburg Research suggested that Opera’s Android-based lending apps in Nigeria, Kenya and India typically require loan repayments within a 30 day period—less than Google’s stipulation of 60 days with steep interest rate payments. Hindenburg Research also highlighted discrepancies in information contained in the apps’ description online and their actual practices. While they require payments in a shorter time-span, the apps list repayment periods that fall within Google’s stipulation…
BY TOM JACKSON Africa’s technology start-up scene is vibrant – and growing fast, writes Muhammad Nabil, partners and startups strategy lead at Microsoft 4Afrika. There are currently over 640 active technology hubs across the continent, and, according to Disrupt Africa, start-ups raised almost US$500 million in funding in 2019 – year-on-year growth of almost 50 per cent. Topping the list are fintech startups, who raised $107.4 million in 2019 – enjoying 25 per cent of all funding. Despite this momentum, however, there’s a concerning trend: globally, women-led startups only receive two per cent of all venture capital (VC) funding – and the picture within…
A s with the majority of business software, HR and payroll solutions are increasingly available through the cloud as a pay-as-you-use model and are today, considered as mainstream as any other business application. However, a fundamental issue for any user looking to move their HR and payroll systems to the cloud is the common, yet incorrect assumption that cloud solutions are somehow less secure than their on-premises counterparts. There are several trends that are having an impact on payroll data security, says Sandra Crous, MD of PaySpace, a leader in cloud-based payroll and human capital management software. “As more and more…
Building lavish estates and luxury expensive apartments have now become a losing investment as Kenyans try to adjust to the tough economic situations and the real affordability of the middle class which was overrated in the past BY KOSTA KIOLEOGLOU F or the past two decades, the Kenyan real estate market has grown exponentially as evidenced by its contribution to the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP), which grew steadily over the years till 2016 when the sector contributed 13% to the GDP. Iconic high-rise buildings dot the skylines across the country, and large-scale mixed-use developments are being developed to serve…
Kenya’s housing sector is largely characterized by deteriorating housing conditions countrywide arising from a demand that far outpaces supply, particularly in urban areas. According to the National Housing Corporation (NHC), Kenya has a cumulative housing deficit of 2m units growing by 200,000 units per year driven mainly by rapid population growth of 2.2% p.a. compared to the global average of 0.9%, and a high urbanization rate of 4.3% against global and Sub-Saharan averages of 2.1% and 4.1%, respectively. Supply, on the other hand, has been constrained mainly by the high construction costs, high costs of land in urban areas as…
BY DR AKINWUMI ADESINA The Department for International Development (DFID) is a key strategic partner of the African Development Bank. Since joining the bank in 1983, the DFID has been a lead supporter of the African Development Bank. Its strong and consistent support for the African Development Fund has helped us to support the development of low-income states, especially the fragile ones. And just think of the impact that our work has had on infrastructure alone in the past four years. The African Development Bank, through its operations, has helped to connect 18 million people to electricity, 101 million people with…
