Word: kenyans
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Kenya's political opposition has suspended talks with President Mwai Kibaki on forming a coalition government, claiming that the Kenyan leader and his allies had no intention of honoring a power-sharing agreement that ended more than a month of bloodshed after disputed December elections. As news of Tuesday's decision spread, protests broke out in the Nairobi slum of Kibera and the western city of Kisumu, both strongholds of opposition leader Raila Odinga. Demonstrators who had chanted "No Raila, no peace" last December this time shouted "No cabinet, no peace...
...injected another kind of novelty into the region: stock fever. The newspapers were filled with ads offering loans - usually with exorbitant interest rates - to help Kenyans buy shares. Poor people who didn't even have bank accounts complained about a minimum investment requirement of 10,000 shillings (just over $150). And on the first day of the IPO, thousands of people lined up in downtown Nairobi to snap up shares. It was perhaps most emblematic that one Kenyan newspaper the Daily Nation, referred to potential investors as "punters," as if by buying Safaricom shares they were betting on a racehorse...
...very least, Kenyans know what they are betting on. Thanks to a proliferation of cheap handsets and pay-as-you-go services, it seems that practically every Kenyan has a mobile phone, and most who do are Safaricom customers. The company has made its buck by thinking small, allowing Kenyans to buy airtime in increments as little as 20 Kenyan shillings - about $0.30. It has found success by focusing on ways that even the simplest mobile phones can change people's lives. Airtime credit can be traded as currency and Safaricom also has a feature, called M-Pesa ("pesa...
...Kenyan government is in for a windfall. The government owns 60% of Safaricom, and 25% of that stake is up for sale. With Safaricom shares starting at seven U.S. cents, that means the government could make 50 billion shillings - about $780 million - on the sale...
...this being Kenya, one of the most corrupt nations on Earth, the Safaricom offering has raised the suspicions of the country's business bloggers. The Kenyan opposition says the sale violates Kenyan privatization laws. And they're worry that other powerful Kenyans may be behind a Guernsey-based company called Mobitelea, which owns a stake in Vodafone Kenya, which in turn owns 40% of Safaricom. Of these allegations, Michael Joseph, the CEO of Safaricom, told the Daily Nation, "I hope they do not detract potential investors from investing in a very strong company with strong growth prospects." Joseph said that...