FINANCE EA DAILY BUSINESS NEW SUMMARY
Safaricom has unveiled its first China-assembled data centre in Addis Ababa as it gears up to launch its commercial operations in Ethiopia.
Built for $100 million, the facility was deployed less than a year after the consortium led by Safaricom, South Africa’s Vodacom and Japan’s Sumitomo was awarded a mobile operating licence by the Ethiopian government.
At a press briefing on Tuesday, Safaricom officials said the data centre is a significant milestone for the consortium in its quest to begin operations in the Horn nation in April.
Safaricom Ethiopia’s chief technology officer, Mr Pedro Rabacal, noted that the data centre is not the only significant milestone achieved this month.
“On February 5, the first successful voice call was made using Safaricom’s network with the code ‘07’. Text messaging, internet access, and other network services followed successfully,” he revealed….Business Daily
Parliament has asked the Treasury to increase the debt ceiling to allow it borrow Sh846 billion to plug the budget deficit in the next financial year.
Majority Leader Amos Kimunya successfully pushed an amendment to the 2022/23 Budget Policy Statement (PBS) directing the Treasury to amend the law to accommodate the huge budget deficit.
Mr Kimunya, however, failed to disclose the amount that the government wants the Treasury to cap the new ceiling from the current Sh9 trillion, but sources in Parliament say the government has asked for Sh13 trillion.
The Treasury will now propose changes to the public finance management law and table the amendments for adoption by the House….Business Daily
The PSSS board had attempted to cancel the procurement process at the tail end, proposing to hire three fund managers instead of one….NATION MEDIA
Mobile money and bank transaction fees are set for a shake-up with Central Bank of Kenya (CBK) planning to roll out a new system allowing customers to send money across any telco or bank cheaply.
The financial sector regulator yesterday said it would examine and give guidance on a single integrated platform for such transactions.
“The emergence of a fully integrated ecosystem that is seamlessly interoperable is critical. A strong foundation has already been laid with the rollout of P2P (person-to-person) interoperability in 2018 and the industry engagement that culminated [in] the proposal for a single integrated solution with multiple functionalities (national switch),” CBK said in its newly launched National Payment Strategy 2022-2025…NATION MEDIA