By Nawa Mutumweno – A $600 million oil refinery is to be established in Ndola on the Zambian Copperbelt under a public private partnership (PPP) to augment Government’s efforts to find a long-term solution to high fuel prices and shortages. Bwana Mkubwa Oil Refinery, which will be situated at the Sub-Sahara Gemstone Exchange Industrial Park, is expected to refine about five million litres of fuel per month and will reduce the cost of fuel by about 30%. According to Sub Sahara Gemstone Exchange Industrial Park president Phesto Musonda, the oil refinery will also create business opportunities for firms that were... Continue Reading
By Nawa Mutumweno – Ecobank Zambia is investing over $1 million in upgrading a core banking software application, Flexcube, to assist prevent fraud and cyber crime. According to the bank’s managing director Charity Lumpa, the changeover to Flexcube was effected on October 31, 2011. She was speaking at a media briefing in Lusaka recently. Flexcube is Oracle Corporation’s banking automation software that enables global financial institutions to provide a more efficient service to customers. The technology and telecommunications platform is supported by three data centres located in Accra, Lome and London which provide real time disaster recovery capabilities. Meanwhile, the... Continue Reading
By Peterking Quaye, Monrovia,Liberia – The Liberia Telecommunications Authority (LTA) says that it has imposed a fine of U$500,000 on Lonestar GSM to be paid within a week, for negligence and omission on the part of the Lonestar management in not preventing the outage that occurred on its network on November 7, 2011. The LTA has also ordered Lonestar to give all its subscribers throughout Liberia a free four-hour call time on a day to be determined by the LTA, as compensation to all its subscribers for the inconvenience they experienced during the four-hour network outage. Making the disclosure, the... Continue Reading
· MTN Ghana claims more than 70 million minutes rerouted off network in six months · Revector identifies hundreds of active SIM boxes on competing network In September 2011, the National Communications Authority (NCA) of Ghana announced that 98.44% of all SIM’s detected for gateway bypass in Ghana were located on the Airtel network. In response, Airtel Ghana’s Revenue Assurance Manager Nixon Wampamba stated that Airtel Ghana is losing US$500,000 per month to the fraudsters, and that the NCA’s detection of Airtel numbers in SIM Boxes has reduced from “about 500 a day to 100 day”. Following this exchange Revector, the global... Continue Reading
By Nawa Mutumweno – Zambia is to host the second African Organic Conference from May 2 – 4, 2012 in Lusaka. Being held under the theme; ‘Mainstreaming Organic Agriculture in the African Development Agenda’, the event is tailored to represent the desires of the continental organic fraternity and reflects the current declaration of the African Union and the United Nations agencies responsible for trade and environmental programmes. The overall objective is to report and further promote mainstreaming of organic agriculture in African government policies, in African intergovernmental organizations as well as among development partners. “In this regard, the conference will... Continue Reading
