News Update as @ 1530 hours, Monday 23 June 2014Feedback: bh24admin@zimpapers.co.zwEmail: bh24feedback@zimpapers.co.zw

By Elita Chikwati

Government is contemplating re-intro-ducing the price control measure on grains to protect farmers from middle-men who are offering unviable prices for maize and small grains.

Agriculture, Mechanisation and Irriga-tion Development Minister Dr Joseph Made said some buyers were offer-ing farmers as low as $200 per tonne because they were offering cash.

“I am weighing the possibilities of re-in-voking the price control measure. Cab-inet approved a floor price of $390 for maize and small grains and that is the price that should be used by all people buying from farmers. No one should offer less.

“It is unacceptable and I am warning buyers against taking advantage of

farmers or else I will be left with no option but to re-invoke the price con-trol,” he said.

He said some farmers were selling their grain at low prices out of desperation.

“I want to tell farmers that it should be

their choice to sell maize at low prices as the set price is $390. In the interest of the Strategic Grain Reserve, I urge farmers to deliver their grain to the Grain Marketing Board since Cabinet has been assured by Finance Minister Patrick Chinamasa that he is mobilising funds to pay farmers,” he said.

Made also ordered the GMB to speed up the setting of mobile grain pur-chasing units in farming areas espe-cially in remote areas where farmers were being approached by middlemen because as a an entity, GMB should save people.

He said some of the middlemen were buying grain from farmers to later sell at the GMB where prices were high.

Small scale farmers in remote areas where there are no banking facilities

will be paid in cash.

Zimbabwe Commercial Farmers Union president Walter Chabikwa said it was disturbing that farmers were being exploited by middlemen.

“Farmers are in desperate need of cash for school fees and food and buyers are trapping them by offering instant cash. Maybe the control of prices was removed prematurely,” he said.

Government liberalised the marketing of maize in 2009. Initially the GMB had the sole mandate of buying grain from farmers to ensure adequate stocks of the strategic grain reserve.

Currently private buyers compete with GMB to buy grain from farmers. The parastatal takes long to pay and farm-ers end up selling their crop at give away prices. •

Govt mulling price control measures on grains

By Tawanda Musarurwa

Construction and building materials firm Turnall Holdings' diversification strategy has come to fruition today with the official launch of the compa-ny's new product - the Ravenna con-crete tiles and pavers.

Additionally, the company has indi-cated plans to scale up its Galvanised Corrugated Iron Sheets business. The new cement products business is a significant shift from the company's traditional business of asbestos prod-ucts, fibre cement proofing, piping and accessories.

Turnall chairman Herbert Nkala said the company will benefit from the "expanded revenue streams". "In addi-tion to our traditional AC business, we are now active in concrete roofing and paving products, and we will soon be scaling up our game in galvanised cor-rugated iron sheets and IBR to offer the market a complete roofing covering solution," he said.

Nkala said the coming on stream of the concrete roofing tiles and pavers represented new revenue streams for the business and their contribution to the business performance would be

strongly felt during the current financial year. The decision by Turnall manage-ment to diversify into the concrete tiles business was necessitated by - among other things - the bans of asbestos by South Africa and Mozambique in 2008. The two countries were the company's largest traditional export markets.

Management now expects to aggres-sively pursue regional market devel-opments by offering the full range of non-asbestos products.

On the local market, Turnall marketing director Caleb Musonza said "the order book has been very encouraging".Musonza said to date they had roofed 1 000 houses since August last year.

The new plant, which was installed at a cost of $2,5 million, has the capacity to produce 45 000 tiles a day is expected to go a long way to cater to the local concrete tiles market, which - prior to the establishment of Turnall's new factory - had a projected supply gap of around 10 million tiles per year.

Government has commended Tur-nall for diversifying and reiterated its commitment to improve the business operating environment. Said Industry and Commerce Minister Mike Bimha:

"Government is aware of the difficult business environment that is prevail-ing in the country. We are aware of the tight liquidity position in the market, the limited lines of credit, the inconsist-ent power supplies among a plethora of challenges that have contributed to the retardation of industrial recovery and growth.

"However, as Government we are working tirelessly to address these challenges." •

2 NEWS

Turnall scales up diversification

BH24

By Kay Kaseke

A high-powered delegation from the Eastern and Southern Africa Trade and Development Bank (PTA Bank) will this week tour the country in a fact-finding mission aimed at financially assisting distressed companies.

Africa Corporate Advisors managing

director Mike Nyamazana said officials from the PTA Bank arrive in the coun-try tomorrow and were scheduled to tour a number of companies in Harare before proceeding to Bulawayo.

He said the financial institution had tar-geted to issue out loans on a minimum threshold of $5 million to the country’s struggling large firms.

PTA Bank provides project and infra-structure finance and trade finance as its core products and services.

“The bank is meant to advance regional economic integration and growth through trade and investment and also promote the development of infrastructure, exports and enter-prises in member States. All they require is a summary of the project for the company to qualify for the loan,” Nyamazana said.

He said efforts were under way to ensure that the financial institution extended its funding facility to Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs).

“They are currently targeting big com-panies since their minimum loans are $5 million. The amount is just too

much as most of the businesses espe-cially SMEs are not making that much but need loans to improve production,” Nyamazana said.

“They are directly giving the loans to the companies that have projects worth $5 million and above, only a few companies in the country currently have projects amounting to that run-ning,” he said.

Association for Business in Zimbabwe chief executive officer Lucky Mlilo said there were a number of companies in Bulawayo and the country as a whole in dire need of recapitalisation and the loan facility would go a long way towards improving production at these entities.

“The pledge by PTA Bank is a good move. We hope it will benefit a number of companies. For instance, there are a number of companies especially in the foundry sector that might make use of this facility.

“We also hope that they will take pro-posals from the clothing and textile industry because most of the compa-nies need capital injection of such a nature,” Mlilo said. ― Sunday News •

4 NEWS

PTA Bank delegation on Zim fact-finding mission

Mr Nyamazana

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BH24

6 TECHNOLOGY

Telecel introduces Whatsapp bundles

Netone targets increased subscribers

BH24 Reporter

Telecel has improved its broadband services with an introduction of their own WhatsApp bundles, three weeks after Econet introduced the same ser-vice.

Priced for daily, weekly or monthly unlimited access the WhatsApp service allow subscribers to chat and share videos, voice notes and files with peo-ple on any network without having to worry about running out of data. “The WhatsApp bundles allow unlimited messaging. Even if the ordinary data

has been used up, it will still be possible to use WhatsApp,” said Telecel market-ing Director Octivius Kahiya. The daily bundle is set at 29 cents, the weekly bundle costs 89 cents and the monthly bundle is set at $2,85.

Telecel is likely to experience the same success with the new service as Econet has since introducing these Whatsapp bundles.

The number of people using social media has been growing incessantly and mobile operators have been devis-ing ways to tap into that potential

revenue. That they will be successful is guaranteed considering that Zimba-bwe’s internet penetration rate is now sitting at 40 percent, one of the highest in Africa. •

State owned mobile services provider, NetOne, is targeting to increase its sub-scriber base to three million people by the end of this year, an official said on Monday.

NetOne has been lagging behind its competitors, Econet and Telecel, in terms of attracting subscribers and upgrading network infrastructure due to financial constraints.

Chief executive officer Reward Kangai told the Parliamentary Portfolio Com-

mittee on Information Communication Technology that the firm currently has between 2,7 and 2, 8 million subscrib-ers. “We are targeting three million subscribers by December 2014. I think we are on course to meet that target,” he said.

Kangai said products such as One Wal-let, which allows customers to access crucial services including purchasing electricity units as well as provision of various data and voice services promo-tions, would drive subscriber growth.

“We have already put on order an addi-tional one million simcards so that we do not have any shortages.”

He said due to the envisaged growth, the company was also targeting to increase its network capacity to cater for six million subscribers by the end of the year.

Kangai, however, said the firm was fac-ing various challenges in its efforts to increase network coverage. ― New Ziana •

By Rumbidzayi Zinyuke

Tobacco sales have continued to increase, though marginally, despite the announcement that auction floors will close early this season. Accord-

ing to latest figures from the Tobacco Industry and Marketing Board, 198 million killogrammes of tobacco worth $629,8 million have so far been sold. This is a 14 percent increase from $552 million sold at the same time last year.

This season was characterised by slow deliveries and low prices for auction tobacco while contract tobacco fetched higher prices. As a result, TIMB last week issued a statement announcing the end of the2014 flue-cured tobacco selling season instead of the usual month of July. However, contract sales will remain open until further notice since deliveries are still pouring in at contract floors.

According to TIMB, more than 149 mil-lion kg worth $496,3 million have so far been delivered to contract floors while auction floors have only managed to purchase 49million kg worth $133,5 million. The average price for contract tobacco was $3,33 per kg and $2,73 for auction tobacco. Since the begin-ning of the season, 2,5 million bales have been sold at all floors, a 24 per-cent increase from last year’s figure of 1,9 million bales. A total of 129 344 bales were rejected.

Tobacco Sales Floor (TSF) received a total of 24,8 million kgs worth $70 mil-lion. At least 386 203 bales were laid at TSF and of this figure, 345 971 bales

were sold while more than 40 000 bales were rejected.

Boka auction floors received 12,3 mil-lion kg of tobacco worth $31,89 million. At least 206 849 bales were laid and 181 718 bales sold. Almost 25 131 bales were rejected.

Premier received close to 12 million kg worth $32 million. The number of bales laid amounted to 198 585of which 172 940 were sold and 25 645 were rejected. This season, tobacco sales are expected to reach 200 million kg from last year’s 166 million kg. •

Zimbabwean clothing giant Power Sales has scaled down operations in the southern Africa nation as the eco-nomic crunch bites even harder, saying it has shut-down more than 25 cloth-ing shops due to increased flooding of cheap Chinese goods in the local cloth-ing industry.

“The prevailing economic condi-

tions have caused the closure of our non-profitable stores in Zimbabwe. As a result, the company embarked on a downsizing exercise operation that has seen us shedding non-performing stores off,” said Power Sales spokes-man Fanuel Mahachi.

Cheap substandard Chinese products have flooded the Zimbabwe clothing

market in past recent years under the country’s government’s Look East pol-icy. Under Look East policy most Zim-babwe companies are encouraged to trade more with countries in Asia and Middle East than the western world.

This has seen several clothing com-panies shutting down due to viability problems, throwing over 20,000 work-

ers onto the streets, according to a report by labour federation, the Zimba-bwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU) and a non-governmental organisa-tion, Zimbabwe Coalition on Debt and Development titled “De-industrialisa-tion in Zimbabwe. - VenturesAfrica •

NEWS7

Power Sales closes 25 clothing shops amidst heightened Chinese competition

Tobacco season to end on high note

The equities market has started the week sustaining the bullish trend that has characterised trading on the mar-ket over the past three weeks.

The gains reflect growing investor con-fidence as the Government has been making concerted efforts to revive bi-lataral and multi-lateral ties. The market was up 0.34 percent following today's trades. The industrial index gained 0.63 points to close at 188.03 points on the back of positive perfor-mances by key heavyweight counters.

Cigarrete manufacturer BAT was up 15 cents to 1 250 cents. Other heav-yweights, giant beverages producer Delta and conglomerate Innscor both pushed up 0.99 cents each to settle at 125 cents and 81 cents, respectively.

Mash rose 0.10 cents to 2.40 cents, while Old Mutual went up 0.01 cents to 260.01 cents. In the negative, Nat-foods retreated 5 cents to 210 cents and seed producer SeedCo lost 0.21 cents to trade at 71 cents. The mining index was flat at 59.00 points as Bind-

ura bucked its positive streak to trade at Friday's levels.

Similarly, Falgold, Hwange and RioZim maintained previous trading levels — BH24 Reporter •

8 ZSE REVIEW

Equities begin week on high note

The move by Government to penal-ise permanent secretaries and heads of parastatals who approve overspending and diversion of funds allocated to their ministries and entities in the budget is wel-come.

Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs Deputy Minister Fortune Chasi last week said Government would enforce the regulations either through amendment of the Public Finance Management Act or introduction of a new Act in line with Section 308 of the new Con-stitution.

This is a step in the right direc-tion for our Government which has been inundated by numerous inci-dents of misappropriation of funds in an economy struggling under unyielding liquidity challenges.

With revenue collection struggling to meet targets, any indiscipline with money is felt throughout the economy.

Over the years the Comptroller and Auditor-General’s Office has unearthed massive irregularities and misappropriation of funds run-

ning into millions of dollars by min-istries and Government entities. But no one has ever been brought to book over such indiscipline.

So it is high time Government comes down heavily on those who waste money on non-essentials to eliminate poor financial manage-ment and ‘massive leakages’ in procurement.

Millions of dollars that can be used for other worthy purposes will be saved.

Having said that, it is also worth mentioning that expenditure is also being weighed down by a huge wage bill that government carries.Civil servants’ salaries account for 75 percent of total expenditure

and there is urgent need to work on ways to reduce this bill or else it will keep rising. The recent salary increase awarded to civil servants has already made a dent on the purse as government was in deficit for the month of April.

Total expenditure was at $1,12 bil-lion, a figure below the budgeted $1,17 billion with employment costs up to a cumulative $671,07 million.

The increase, though welcomed by the employees, led to an increase in Government debt as a result of $40 million loans taken in April.

What this means is that Govern-ment will have to keep borrowing to pay salaries every month.

The only way to reduce the wage bill will be to reduce the workforce.

But this will not happen since it means an increase in the already high rate of unemployment.

The other option is to reduce sala-ries but it will not work considering that the cost of living is too high for most Zimbabweans to sustain themselves on their salaries.

Although Government finds itself in this catch-22 situation, they still need to find a way out of this pre-dicament.

Revenue streams need to go up and the expenditure needs to go down. Only then can we feel the effects of the new regulations on budget overruns. •

9 BH24 COMMENT

Fiscal discipline measures a step in the right direction

Programme and Duration Entry Requirements

The Senior Assistant Registrar (Admissions)University of Zimbabwe

P.O. Box MP 167Mount Pleasant, HARARE

Email: admissions@admin.uz.ac.zw

Tel: 04 303211 ext 11116/11181/11112 You can also download our application form from

www.uz.ac.zw and enclose the application fee.

Internationals. Only cash will be accepted.

Faculty of Commerce The closing date for receipt of application forms is 20th June, 2014. Late applications will be considered up to 27th June, 2014

Masters in Accountancy (MACC) (3yrs P/T) A first degree in Accounting or upon payment of a late application fee of US$70. related field with a 2.1 or better. Applicants with 2.2 must

have two years relevant post- Application forms should be obtained from and forwarded to: graduate work experience.

Masters in Strategic Marketing (MSM) (3yrs P/T) A first degree in Marketing or related field with a 2.1 or better.

Applicants with 2.2 must have two years relevant post-graduate

work experience.

Applications and further information

Application forms are available upon payment of a non-refundable fee of US$50 for Zimbabweans and US$70 for

UNIVERSITY OF ZIMBABWE

POSTGRADUATE PROGRAMMES: AUGUST 2014 INTAKE

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BH24

The Labour Court has ruled in favour of gold mining companies AngloGold Ashanti, Harmony Gold and Sibanye Gold, making permanent an interim order preventing the Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union (AMCU) from embarking on strike action at some of the companies’ operations.

AMCU had, in January, served strike notices detailing its intent to strike at Sibanye’s Driefontein mine, Har-mony’s Kusaselethu and Masimong mines, and AngloGold Ashanti’s South African operations.

The strike was called in respect of the 2013 wage negotiations that were concluded on September 10, when a two-year wage agreement was reached with the National Union of Mineworkers, Uasa and Solidarity, which represented 72% of employees at that time.

Following the issue of the AMCU strike notices, the Chamber of Mines (CoM), acting on behalf of the companies, made an application to the Labour Court to declare any strike action by AMCU on wages and other conditions of service unprotected.

The Labour Court had initially granted the interim order preventing a strike by the union’s members on January 30.

The gold producers, represented by the CoM, on Monday welcomed the ruling by the Labour Court, which

made this interdict permanent. “The decision brings certainty about the binding nature of the 2013 wage agreement, which is in the best inter-est of employees, the industry and our country. Historically, the gold industry has always conducted wage negotiations at a centralised level and

the process has always been inclusive and fair. “Going forward, we will con-tinue to bargain in good faith with the elected representatives of employ-ees,” CoM chief negotiator Dr Elize Strydom said speaking on behalf of the affected gold producers.

Solidarity welcomed the Labour Court's ruling and appealed to AMCU to act in the best interests of its mem-bers and the mining industry at large, by preventing shafts from being sab-otaged, as was the case when a simi-lar provisional injunction was granted by the Labour Court earlier this year.

“The court ruling will prevent the damage to the mining industry from spreading further than the devas-tating platinum strike.― Mining-Weekly •

11 REGIONAL NEWS

Labour Court rules in favour of gold miners in AMCU strike case

enjoy the CAIO ride!

12 DIARY OF EVENTS

The black arrow indicate level of load shedding across the country.

POWER GENERATION STATSGen Station

23 June 2014

Energy

(Megawatts)

Hwange 485 MW

Kariba 750 MW

Harare 45 MW

Munyati 27 MW

Bulawayo -- MW

Imports 55 MW

Total 1362 MW

26 June - Pioneer 44th Annual General Meeting of Sharehold-ers, Venue: Pioneer Corporation Africa Limited Boardroom, Corner Hood/Hermes Roads, Southerton, Harare, Time: 10:00 hrs

26 June - Masimba Holdings Limited Thirty-Ninth Annual General Meeting of Mem-bers for the period ended 31 December 2013, Place: 44 Til-

bury Road, Willowvale, Harare, Zimbabwe, Time: 12:00

30 June - TA Holdings 79th Annual General Meeting of the ordinary members Venue: Miti Room, Sango Conference Centre, Cresta Lodge, Harare, Time: 1400 hours

30 June - ZIMRE 16th Annual General Meeting of members, Venue: NICOZDIAMOND Audito-rium, 7th Floor Insurance Centre, 30 Samora Machel Avenue, Time: 1230 hours

THE BH24 DIARY

BH24

14 ZSE

ZSEMOVERS CHANGE TODAY PRICE USC SHAKERS CHANGE TODAY PRICE USC

MASH 4.35% 2.40 NATFOODS -2.33% 210.00

INNSCOR 1.24% 81.00 SEEDCO -0.29% 71.00

BAT 1.21% 1,250.00 DAWN PROPERTIES 2.30 0.05

BARCLAyS 1.08% 3.75

DELTA 0.80% 125.00

OLD MUTUAL 0.00% 260.01

Indices

INDEx PREVIOUS TODAY MOVE CHANGE

INDUSTRIAL 187.40 188.03 +0.63 POINTS +0.34%

MINING 59.00 59.00 +0.00 POINTS +0.00%

Stocks Exchange

15 AFRICA STOCkS

Botswana 8,664.65 -11.96 -0.14% 12July

Cote dIvoire 246.37 +2.18 +0.89% 07Mar

Egypt 7,949.60 -75.68 -0.94% 06Mar

Ghana 2,356.80 +2.31 +0.10% 20June

Kenya 4,825.52 +28.10 +0.59% 20June

Malawi 12,662.47 +0.00 +0.00% 07Mar

Mauritius 2,074.51 -3.51 -0.17% 07Mar

Morocco 9,544.10 +21.01 +0.22% 07Mar

Nigeria 41,129.29 +60.36 +0.15% 20June

Rwanda 131.27 +0.00 +0.00% 24Oct

Tanzania 2,018.97 +25.40 +1.27% 07Mar

Tunisia 4,624.39 -39.32 -0.84% 07Mar

Uganda 1,503.90 +0.81 +0.05% 10Sep

Zambia 4,242.74 +14.95 +0.35% 10April

Zimbabwe 187.40 +2.54 +1.37% 20June

African stock round up Commodity Prices

Name Price

Crude Oil 1,300.91 -0.21%

Spot Gold USD/oz 1,292.63 -0.26%

Spot Silver USD/oz 19.38 -0.46%

Spot Platinum USD/oz 1,421.25 -0.33%

Spot Palladium USD/oz 798.50 -0.64%

LME Copper USD/t 6,770 -0.18%

LME Aluminium USD/t 1,780 -1.17%

LME Nickel USD/t 18,230 -1.73%

LME Lead USD/t 2,095 -1.41%

Quote of the day —"The secreT of success is consisTency of purpose." - Benjamin Dis-raeli Globalshareholder.com

BH24

BNP Paribas SA (BNP) is close to an agreement to plead guilty and pay $8 billion to $9 billion to settle allegations it violated US sanctions, according to a person familiar with the negotiations.

The French bank intentionally hid transactions amounting to about $30 billion that violated US sanctions against countries including Iran and Sudan, said the person, who asked not to be identified because the discussions are confidential. Paris-based BNP Par-ibas will probably plead guilty in early

July to a criminal charge of conspiring to violate the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, the person said. Terms of a settlement aren’t final, although the two sides have reached a broad agreement in principle, said the person. Leslie Caldwell, head of the Justice Department’s criminal divi-sion, and bank officials spoke on June 20 about the potential resolution, the person said.

Cesaltine Gregorio, a BNP Paribas spokeswoman in New york, declined

to comment. Brian Fallon, a Justice Department spokesman, didn’t imme-diately return an e-mail message seek-ing comment after normal business hours. The Wall Street Journal reported

the broad settlement terms earlier. BNP Paribas would be temporarily banned from handling transactions in U.S. dol-lars, probably for a matter of months, and would announce departures of more than 30 employees, many of whom already have left, the newspa-per said.

BNP, which is France’s largest bank, fell 0.8 percent to 50.76 euros at 10:44 a.m. in Paris, extending the stock’s decline this year to 10 percent.―Bloomberg •

17 INTERNATIONAL NEWS

BNP said close to $9 billion sanctions accord with US

ANALYSIS

#AFRICA – Inside the continent’s new $14bn social media industry

A decade ago, most Africans would never have thought that an individual could bring a corporation to its knees in just 140 characters. But in June 2012, Japheth Omojuwa, an econo-mist by training who has become a prominent Nigerian political advocate and social media personality, went to battle over an iPad lost on a flight with Arik Air, Nigeria’s largest indige-

nous airline. Omojuwa won. Like David fighting Goliath, he used a simple and underestimated tool – launching the “#ArikWhereIsMyIpad” trend from one of his social media platforms – a Twitter account with over 100,000 followers.

Other Arik Air passengers sympathetic to his plight used the same hashtag (#) to narrate their own experiences losing valuables onboard Arik Air flights. The

resulting social media campaign dam-aged the airline’s reputation and ulti-mately led the company to suspend its Twitter account. “It eventually became popular offline but it was because it became such a dominant campaign on social media,” said Omojuwa of his efforts.

Social media – a set of internet-based applications and websites that allow

users to communicate directly with friends and strangers alike – are increasingly changing the way business is conducted in Africa. Social media is modifying the way businesses relate to each other and their customers in areas from customer relations to entre-preneurship, content development and marketing. Their impact on the African economic resurgence narrative

has been nothing short of exponen-tial. “Lions go digital: The Internet’s transformative potential in Africa,” a 2013 report by McKinsey & Company, places the continent’s iGDP – or inter-net contribution to GDP – at $18 bil-lion. According to the 2014 “Emerging Nations Embrace Internet, Mobile Tech-nology” report by the Pew Research Global Attitudes Project, approximately 78 percent of internet usage in Africa is for social media. This lays the foun-dation for Africa’s estimated $14-billion social media industry. With the internet expected to contribute a minimum of $300 billion to Africa’s GDP by 2025, social media could contribute almost $230 billion to Africa’s remarkable growth by that time.

The internet has witnessed a sustained increase in adoption rates in Africa, with penetration currently pegged at 16 percent and more than 167 mil-lion active users across the continent. “Broadband capacity has probably quadrupled, in the last five years,” said Obi Asika, founder of Dragon Africa, and CEO of Storm 360, a Nigerian entertainment company. He attributed most of the increase in internet access to an influx of new and better mobile technologies. “Mobile internet access

is now really what’s the key driver,” he said. But Asika considers the inflection point for the adoption of social media in Africa difficult to pinpoint. “you have to go back to Nairaland, back to the early chat rooms,” he said, naming a Red-dit-like online community founded by Nigerian Seun Osewa in 2005.

For a continent that has experienced its fair share of censorship and surveil-lance during long periods of rule by dic-tatorships and military regimes, social media is a refreshing and important tool. Said Tolu Ogunlesi, a renowned Nigerian political commentator and journalist with over 61,000 follow-ers on Twitter: “In the early 90s, the government took control of almost everything, but now social media has changed everything. People have been able to speak up and pursue causes against governments.”

#Reshaping Engagements

That social media has become a pow-erful tool for political and social causes became obvious in Egypt and Tunisia during the Arab Spring and during the 2012 Occupy Nigeria protests. But African businesses and brands have also taken note of the communica-

tive power and increased reach social media can give them. “I think social media is simply new forms of engage-ment by individuals and brands and organisations creating and utilising technology to create new platforms for engagement and to share,” explained Asika.

Michelle Atagana, the editor of Meme-burn, one of South Africa’s leading tech blogs, believes that social media in Africa grew in influence alongside blogging. “For Africans, in terms of getting online, I would say maybe in early 2004 and 2006, that was the emergence of blogging,” she said. “If you want a magic period, I’ll say 2008 to 2009.”

Jumia is the leading e-commerce business in Africa, with operations in Nigeria (Africa’s largest economy), Kenya, Egypt, Morocco, and Cote d’Ivoire. Social media networks gen-erate 20 percent of Jumia’s daily traf-fic. “Because e-commerce was a new idea, we needed a platform that would spread the word quickly, where people would hear and learn about it quickly, so we used social media to do that,” Opeyemi Adetomiwa, one of the online retailer’s social media representatives,

explained. “At the beginning, people did not really know about e-commerce but through social media, we were able to increase traffic and awareness about the brand, thereby increasing sales too.” Other e-commerce start-ups such as Konga and Kaymu have also used the strategy. Despite Africa’s relatively low internet penetration, these online operators are now competing with brick-and-mortar retailers.

Even financial institutions such as First National Bank (FNB) – one of South Africa’s largest banks – and Nigeria’s Guaranty Trust Bank are also rolling out technology- driven services on social media.

Guaranty Trust Bank, arguably one of the best-known brands in Africa and one of Nigeria’s larger banks, has lev-eraged social media networks to reach out to potential customers. In 2013, the bank launched its social banking platform, which enables access to ser-vices like opening and managing an account via Facebook. In the same vein, South Africa’s FNB has exploited the widespread usage of Mxit, a South-Africa-based instant messaging network with over seven million active users. - Ventures Africa •

18 ANALYSIS

ANALYSISBH24

When Zesa announced its 2014 winter load-shedding programme (it sounds so normal now doesn't it?) Mobster couldn't help but notice one critical statement amongst the poppycock.

99,999999 percent of the 2014 winter load-shedding programme was struggling to say that Zesa would be load-shedding for eight hours a day for all the country's suburbs; and that the suburbs

would be staggered between day and night for fairness' sake.

But the one little statement brought it all together.

It read: "However, it should be noted that the sched-ules should be treated as a guide since power supply and demand are dynamic."

It was simply a roundabout way of saying "we will try to supply you with electricity for as few hours as realistically possible, considering that you do pay something."

But that's not an issue...at least not any more. What irked Mob-ster the most was that she missed nine world cup games in three consecutive days.Now, that's say-ing a lot taking into consideration that the games start at 6pm in the evening.

It's also saying a lot considering that this was not a fault, but sim-ple load-shedding. Bearing in mind too that for all the three days, Mobster was receiving updates on

the games from friends in "better" neighbourhoods, the situation was very disconcerting.

Just to be clear, "better' neigh-bourhoods are not those close to major referral hospitals, major water and sewer installations, national security establishments, major airports, broadcasting sta-tions or major Central Business Districts.

Someone needs to tell Zesa that they are not in the business of discrimination. There is nothing as de-humanising as any sought of discrimination.

Because even as a whole group (or the suburb in this case) is tar-geted, it lessens the individual by bogging them down in a limited and limiting framework. And what essential differences are there between one person who lives in Mbare and another living in Glen Lorne? Such groupings are not based on any relevant moral dif-ferences.

It's hard to deny that there are indeed economic and social (albeit largely superficial) differences between communities that have developed as a result of skewed circumstances in our history, or more broadly in the history of nations.

But the problem is when there exist economic and social mech-anisms that perpetuate them. No one deserves to be in the dark any longer than any other because of where they live.

We all know Zesa has lost sight of its core business, but they should keep fairness.

(Mobster is a Zimbabwean phi-losopher who has an opinion on just about anything. She however has a particular liking for business and economics stuff. However her opinions are not necessarily represent-ative of this platform. You can send your feedback to her on mobsterzim1980@gmail.com) •

20 MOBSTER’S MONDAY MUSINGS

Groups don't matter...people do.