Wrap-Up: Our pick of main stories, Monday April 20th, 2015

-Pesa back after successful upgrade…. Regulator targets to increase Universal Service Fund to Kshs 4 billion by year-end…… Telcos to pay hefty fines for poor quality calls from July…and much more

Regulator targets to increase Universal Service Fund to Kshs 4 billion by year-end

The telcoms industry regulator has already collected Kshs 2.6 billion as part of operators’ contribution to the Universal Service Fund and targets the increase the kitty to Kshs 4 billion by end of this year. This was said by Eng. Francis Wangusi, Director General, and Communications Authority during a press briefing held recently at CA Headquarters.

Global Resilience Partnership to give upto $ 1 million to transformative innovations

The Rockefeller Foundation, United States Agency for International Development (USAID), and the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida) have come up with a challenge to help the global community pivot from being reactive in the wake of disasters to driving evidence-based investments to better manage and adapt to inevitable shocks.

Dubbed ‘The Global Resilience Challenge,’ the Challenge is a three-stage grant competition led by the Global Resilience Partnership, a $150 million effort of The Rockefeller Foundation, SIDA and USAID. Teams moving forward in the Challenge comprise scientists, policy practitioners, humanitarians, and a host of experts from across dozens of other disciplines. With up to $200,000 in next stage funding, these 16 teams will explore the effects of persistent cycles of drought, storms, famine, and other disasters on vulnerable populations in each of the focus regions, and identify locally driven, scalable solutions that can help communities and households adapt to and recover from chronic shocks and stresses, while reducing vulnerabilities.

Airtel Kenya, British Airways promo to reward clients for online ticket purchases

Airtel Kenya has partnered with British Airways (BA) to offer its Premier Customers up to 25% discount on air tickets for flights on British Airways from Nairobi to United Kingdom, North America or Europe. The offer will be valid for all bookings from now till May 31, 2015.

To qualify for the offer, Premier customers will be required to email Premier.Airtel@ke.airtel.com in order to obtain the promotion code. Once a customer has received the code, he/she will then proceed to log on to the British Airways website and enter the code in the promotional text box to book and purchase the ticket.

M-Pesa back after successful upgrade

Safaricom’s mobile money transfer platform M-Pesa yesterday got back into operations after a short weekend shutdown to allow for a systems upgrade. After the successful upgrade, Safaricom’s CEO, Bob Collymore took to Social media via his twitter handle and announced, “And we’re live again on M-Pesa. One of the biggest IT projects carried out in Africa. Thanks to our customers for your patience.”

Telcos to pay hefty fines for poor quality calls from July

Telecommunication companies will face hefty fines for offering poor quality service beginning July, the industry regulator has warned. The penalty for telecommunication firms that offer sub-standard services, which includes the quality of mobile phone voice calls, has been set at 0.1 per cent of the annual turnover of any company in breach, instead of the current flat rate fine of Kshs 500,000.