6/11/09

Kenya's Mobile Banking

Source:http://www.marketingvox.com/
kenya-offers-worlds-first-mobile-banking-028261/

Kenya Offers World's First Mobile Banking

Kenya's biggest mobile operator is allowing subscribers to send cash

to other phone users by SMS, writes The Guardian.

Touted as a world first, the service - known as M-Pesa,

or mobile money - is expected to revolutionize banking in a country

where more than 80 percent are excluded from the formal financial sector.

Apart from transferring cash - a service much in demand

among urban Kenyans supporting relatives in rural areas - customers

of the Safaricom network will be able to keep up

to 50,000 shillings ($725) in a "virtual account" on their handsets.

Developed by Vodafone, which holds a

35 percent share in Safaricom, M-Pesa was formally launched

in Kenya two weeks ago.

More than 10,000 people have signed up for the service,

with around 8 million shillings transferred so far, mostly in tiny denominations.

Mobile phone growth in Kenya, as in most of Africa, has been remarkable,

even among the rural poor. In June 1999,

Kenya had 15,000 mobile subscribers.

It now has nearly 8 million out of a population of 35 million.

Source:http://www.marketingvox.com/
kenya-offers-worlds-first-mobile-banking-028261/

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             J-L K.
Procurement Consultant
Gsm:    (250) (0) 78-847-0205
Home:  (250) (0) 25-510-4140
    P.O. Box 3867
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Omar Bongo's legacy

source: http://www.nationalpost.com/news/world/story.html?id=1675858,
Agence France Presse

Murky ties mar legacy of Gabon's Omar Bongo, 73

This photo taken in 1982 shows Gabonese president Omar Bongo in his office. The 73-year-old president, Africa's longest-reigning ruler and a key French ally on the continent, died in a clinic in Barcelona following a heart attack on June 8, 2009.

AFP/Getty Images

This photo taken in 1982 shows Gabonese president Omar Bongo in

his office. The 73-year-old president, Africa's longest-reigning ruler

and a key French ally on the continent, died in a clinic in Spain.

Omar Bongo Ondimba, Africa's longest-serving leader whose rule was

tainted by corruption, died yesterday at a clinic in Barcelona.

At first, authorities in the Gabon capital denied an announcement in Spain

the 73-year-old had died, with officials summoning the French ambassador

to complain about "non-official and alarmist" reports.

Later in the day, the death was confirmed and officials

announced 30 days of national mourning.

His son, Ali Ben Bongo, 50, Gabon's Defence Minister and favourite

to succeed him, renewed appeals for public calm, indicating

his pivotal role in coming days and weeks.

"I am calling for calm and serenity of heart and reverence to preserve

the unity and peace so dear to our late father," he said in a televised appeal

after his ministry announced the closure of air, land and sea borders.

Mr. Bongo, who had been in power since 1967, was reportedly

being treated for intestinal cancer.

He ruled longer than any of Africa's "Big Men" but his legacy was tarnished

by allegations he built a personal fortune out of Gabon's oil boom.

A small figure with a neat moustache and penetrating gaze often hidden

behind black glasses, he was a wily political dinosaur who

ruled Gabon as a one-party state for more than 41 years.

Although he gained plaudits late in life for his mediation efforts, he will

be remembered for his murky ties with France and widespread allegations

he personally profited from Gabon's oil boom in the 1970s and 1980s.

Albert-Bernard Bongo was only 27 when he caught the attention of

the country's first ruler, Leon Mba.

Obviously an astute political tactician, Mr. Bongo was already a

rising star and Mr. Mba made him his vice-president five years later.

Less than nine months passed before Mr. Mba died and Mr. Bongo

was suddenly Africa's fourth-youngest president ever.

He set about building the enduring single-party regime.

He also took a new name, becoming el-Hadj Omar Bongo after

converting to Islam in 1973, then adding his father's name Ondimba in 2003.

From one of Gabon's smallest ethnic minorities, Mr. Bongo tolerated

no opposition but was always careful how he divvied out power,

showing respect for his country's subtle ethnic and regional complexities.

In the 1970s and 1980s, Gabon's oil flowed abundantly,

but much of the wealth remains in few hands.

Challenged by a populist surge in 1990, Mr. Bongo installed

a multiparty system, but his Gabonese Democratic Party (PDG)

always held the absolute majority in parliament.

When he was re-elected in 1998 with 66.88% of the vote,

then in 2005 with 79.21%, the opposition cried fraud.

Ultimately, though, they were out-manoeuvred as

the veteran leader gave key government posts to some of his foes.

The handing out of privileges and contracts enabled him

to rally some of his oldest and fiercest opponents to his cause

and helped him become the world's longest serving leader, except for monarchs.

His wife, Edith Lucie Bongo Odimba, daughter of Denis Sassou Nguesso,

Congo's President, died in March aged 45. Mr. Bongo announced

he was "temporarily" suspending his duties to rest and mourn.

Internationally, he was one of the African kingpins in

the opaque French politics of the oil boom, when

Paris maintained murky ties with some former colonies for "reasons of state."

But times changed.

A French judge announced in May he would launch

a landmark investigation into whether Mr. Bongo,

his ally Mr. Nguesso and Equatorial Guinea's Teodoro Obiang Nguema

plundered state coffers to buy luxury homes and cars in France.

A complaint filed by Transparency International France

accused them of acquiring millions of dollars

of real estate in Paris and the French Riviera, and buying luxury cars

source: http://www.nationalpost.com/news/world/story.html?id=1675858,
Agence France Presse
--
             J-L K.
Procurement Consultant
Gsm:    (250) (0) 78-847-0205
Home:  (250) (0) 25-510-4140
    P.O. Box 3867
  Kigali - RWANDA
    East AFRICA
Blog: http://cepgl.blogspot.com
  Skype ID: kayisa66