3. According to the Campaign for Safer Alternatives (CASA) - a group that advocates for less harmful smoking options; the proposals to increase sin tax threaten to deprive smokers of alternative nicotine products e.g e-cigarettes that might be relatively safer.
6. MARA, a Pan-African crypto exchange, launched on Wednesday and announced USD23M/KES 2.7B in funding and a partnership with the Central African Republic, which just passed a bill legalizing Bitcoin as legal tender .
9. CMA licenes three fund managers: African Alliance Kenya Asset Managers Limited, CPF Financial Services Limited, and Kuza Asset Managers Limited; raising the total number of licensed fund managers to 29 in Kenya.
10. Namibia launches sovereign wealth fund set to buffer against economic shocks.
The fund be split into two: the Intergenerational and Stabilization account which will be financed with proceeds from the renewable energy industry, mining royalties & fishing quotas.
12. Nigeria stocks evade global stocks selloff as foreign investors trapped by currency constraints double down.
The NGX ALl Share Index has rallied 24% YTD as close of Wednesday. Comparatively, Emerging-market frontier stocks were down 11%, MSCI World Index -18%.
"So far we have not faced the kind of crisis where we were not able to pay our suppliers. So we are trying to manage it properly with our banks. But the situation is 𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐲 𝐛𝐚𝐝"
"The freight markets have increased more than 30% & we all know what is happening in the fuel market. We are a big consumer of coal & the prices have gone up to about $300 per tonne vs $100 last year"
3. More notes:
- Bamburi have raised cement prices by ~10% this year. Don't expect a reprieve soon.
- Construction of solar power plants to start towards end of this year and be done in Q3 2023. They expect this to help reduce their power bills by 10-15%.
1. Upon completion of 60 years as Imam, the Ismaili community commemorated Mawlana Sultan Muhammad Shah’s Diamond Jubilee by weighing the imam against diamonds.
2. Some of the funds were used to create the Diamond Jubilee Investment Trust Limited, a precursor to DTB Kenya, which was officially incorporated in Dar-es Salaam and then moved to develop branches in Kenya and Uganda.
1. CEO Bonuses in 2021 for Kenyan listed banks show that Cooperative bank CEO Gideon Muriuki took home KES 266.40 in 2021. That’s almost 6X the second placed Stanchart CEO.
[@BD_Africa]
2. A study by the Global System for Mobile Communications Association (GSMA) shows that 12% of the 67.94 million mobile money users are not registered under their own names and, therefore, transact through third parties
[@BD_Africa]