NSE Goes Android

The Nairobi Stock Exchange now has a free Android app. Developed by Verviant, it is rather basic (download page), but show's the the equity day’s prices changes, and summary of some announcements. Still, it's a good start, and should be a work in process, and maybe investors will be able to track their portfolio's (still empty) and drill down to read more comprehensive announcements, and bond prices too.

Nairobi Stock Exchange Android app

The Exchange probably needs to address the issue of large PDf statement that companies fax in their announcements and which the NSE scans to their site - and replace these with some basic documents that they can upload to the main and mobile site.

Another NSE geared app is the Rich app (from the Nokia Ovi Store), that is however designed for the Nokia E-7.

Education Moment: Is Our Children Learning?

The post is based on random thoughts on education in Kenya spurred by events like the Loreto Msongari bus accident, to talks with school administrators, observing universities take over libraries and nursery schools to expand their class sizes, reading blogs, and getting lots of press releases some of which touch on the education sector in Kenya .

Who will build schools?: With the cost of real estate going up in Nairobi (Kshs 100 million [$1.1 million] for an acre in some parts) it is getting harder to imagine how more schools can be built to cater for the young growing population.
Former Nairobi nursery school, now a university campus

Schools like Makini (profiled in this story in the Business Daily ) have grown from having 8 students to over 1,000 after many years of hard work and success, that they now have eleven (11) streams of primary school pupils. Also, due to demand for places, some nursery schools have long waiting lists, and advise parents to register/book places for prospective students , before the children are even born.

Value in education is found in other places, like the recent Hillcrest settlement, which concluded a decade-long running bank receivership by way of new investments by a venture capital fund and a private school chain (Rose of Sharon) who will continue to run and expand the school.

What about old schools?: This post by Rookie Manager further points out the waste of resources that parents throw by enrolling their children in newer private and expensive private schools and wonder if by channeling the same funds towards rehabilitating old existing public schools would go a lot further. These old schools have the advantage of being located in established neighbourhoods and have ample space for various educational pursuits

What about new parts of the city? Nairobi is growing driven by private sector housing developments, notably in the Kitengela and Southern parts of the City, but this s not being matched in terms of education.

One touted solution comes from the Bridge International Academies who offer a low cost school model designed to quickly roll out in low-income areas and offer quality education at a cost of about $4 per month for each child. However a blog post was written that offered s contrarian assessment about the system and this elicited a comment in response and explanation of the program from the co-founder.

The anticipated demand for schools has also become point of controversy in China with a investment fund that plans to build 1,000 schools in Africa.

In terms of Curriculum & research, G33kdiary has a post on the current hunger situation in Kenya and she notes that Kenya’s food security is unlikely to improve as long as schools don’t teach agriculture and emphasize & promote farming livelihoods, while White African had another on the lack of Africa ICT research

Recent Financial incentives: recent ones of note include:

- South Sudan is offering to pay loans for her nationals in the USA provided they have completed their education (bachelor’s degree, master’s degree or PhD.) and are willing to return home to work (The pilot program is called the South Sudan Student Loan Forgiveness Program - SSSLFP)
- Eagle Africa (former AIG Insurance) recently launched a low cost insurance plan to protect kids from road accidents playground incidents – the entire time an
insured student is in the hands of the institution including travel to and from the school
- Having adequate savings to fund education is one constant constraint, and financial funds like British American (who just had a 60% subscription in their IPO) is one of them; Britak offer education savings plans - called Super E plus, Elimu Bora, and Invest Plus, which all offer a variety of savings, insurance, and investments.

Use of technology: Encyclopedia’s for schools was the theme of a recent talk by a visiting Wikimedia team at the iHUb. They covered the need to spread knowledge to the offline population – such as to remote schools with few textbooks (but perhaps a computer), and offered a solution in the form of a single DVD from Wikimedia can hold over 1 million articles, as well as a free software tool called Kiwix which enables the articles to be read offline to teach students in remote distant parts
Wikimedia in education
- iPads and Kindles : E-readers will change the way the developing world reads is an argument put forward in this post based on observations from Ghana, to Kilgoris. However a follow up report notes that Kindle rule changes from Amazon mean that content cannot be loaded across multiple devices at one time and each kindle has to be tethered to its own account - both of which limit its potential as a mass education tool.

The absurd: The above post title comes from an infamous Bush-ism or slip of the tongue by former American president George W. Bush.

And finally, in the news today, is a Kenyan Member of Parliament who is about to lose his seat – because a one of the allegations leveled was that the MP could not articulate himself in English and Kiswahili and may have falsified his language proficiency exam results.

Dividends Payments across East Africa

Having bought shares in recent East African IPO's (Uganda: Stanbic Bank and Rwanda: Bralirwa Brewers), there appears to be some progress in addressing one of long standing problems of buying such shares - and this is the bank charges associated with receiving and having to process dividend cheques that are paid in currencies that are fractionally weaker than the Kenya shilling

With Stanbic, the Kenyan arm of the African bank has shown little interest in facilitating this even though a significant number of Stanbic Uganda’s 25,000 shareholders are Kenyan. In fact, the staff pension funds of Kenya Airways and Central Bank are listed among the top 10 shareholders of the bank.

At Bralirwa, the dividends are issued by KCB Rwanda and via a late message, KCB Kenya state they are paying/cashing the cheques up to RWF50K (~Kshs 8,000) across the counter. ( If higher the cheques will be sent for to Rwanda).

While the next step should be for East Africans to receive cross-border dividend payments by mobile money such as mpesa dividends this is only available to Kenyan shareholders. For now, the facilitation of affordable across-the-counter dividends, and other cross border trade & investment payment options is something that banks, not just KCB, with a regional footprint like Equity, Stanbic, Diamond Trust, and NIC should also take up.


EDIT: New communications from the banks show new options for Kenyans who have invested shares across East Africa as follows:

Bralirwa: Any cheques of less than RWF 50,000 (~Kshs 7,750) can be cashed at the counter of any KCB Kenya branch at a fee of RWF 200 (Kshs 31) on production of an ID or a passport

Stanbic Uganda: no certificates will be issued for the 1:1 bonus, and no physical annual reports will be mailed. But shareholders can now elect to receive dividends by electronic funds transfer, or mobile money (airtel money or m-pesa) after confirming their details at Comprite (Uganda) Registrars whose Nairobi office is at Marakwet House, Elgeyo Marakwet Road.

Award Season: Graduates, Mashujaa, Networks, Nature

African Union Kwame Nkrumah Scientific awards. D/L 15 September.

Arthur B. Schultz Foundation grants aimed at non-profit groups involved in women’s empowerment and disabled mobility solutions.

Changemakers.Org Details here on awards for citizen media ($5,000) and health, excellence, opportunities, other.

DStv: Eutelsat Star Awards are open to 14-19 year-old students in 42 countries to write an essay or design a poster on satellite technology and how it can assist further development of their communities, country or the African continent. D/L 26 August.

Infodev: Piloting virtual incubation seeks organizations in East Africa ad. D/L is August 15

National Museums of Kenya: For design of a Mashujaa national monument. D/L is 9 September and prizes are of Kshs. 300,000, 200k and 100k.

Orange: African Social Venture with prizes for digital projects in e-health, mobile banking, digital /mobile applications for education or agriculture that address needs of the ‘bottom of pyramid’. 3 winners will receive financial grants (25K€, 15K€, 10K€) and a 6-month mentoring program. D/L September 15

Pan-African Awards for Entrepreneurship in Education. Details here and has prizes of $10,000, $5K and $2K.. D/L is 10 October.

Standard Bank / Stanbic: graduate management program - D/L is August 15.

UN Awards for Young Innovators (aged 18 – 25) and digital innovators (non profits). D/L is September 15

Western Union is on the hunt to find the most globally networked individual. It is open to anyone with a facebook account and the site also lists some entering remittance figures for the 200 countries where Western Union is represented.

WWF KENYA / NETFUND Nature Challenge Africa from the Worldwide Fund for Nature (WWF) Kenya and the National Environmental Trust Fund (NETFUND) is a green business competition for entrepreneurs and targets businesses engaged in conservation, biodiversity and livelihood programs, that are seeking finance in the range of US$10,000 - 1 million.

EDIT

More found at Savvy Kenya blog

Tandaa Digital Content Grant: The Tandaa Local Digital Content Grant is a grant to support ICT in Kenya. It is like seed funding for companies entering new media and ICT. In particular, the grant seeks to support products and services developed for the Internet and mobile phone. D/L 22 August

Nokia Create For Millions App Competition: Submit your best Series 40 Java or web apps in Nokia’s ‘Create for Millions’ contest to win your share of cash and prizes, worth 1 million euros. D/L September 1

Shares Portfolio August 2011

Comparing changes to three months ago and since then, investor confidence has dipped following rising food & fuel prices, power rationing and a sliding shilling.

The Stable

Barclays Bank ↓
Bralirwa Breweries (Rwanda) ↑
British-American Investments (Britak) ↔
Diamond Trust Bank ↓
East African Breweries (EABL) ↓
Kenya Airways ↓
Kenya Commercial Bank (KCB) ↓
Kenya Oil Company (Kenol) ↑
Scangroup ↓
Stanbic (Uganda) ↓
Uchumi Supermarkets ↓

Review: The Portfolio is down 5% in the last three months while the NSE 20 Share Index is down 12%
- Best performer: Bralirwa 33% (this Q), then Kenol 22%
- Worst performer: Uchumi -39%, Diamond Trust -26%
- In: Britak, Safaricom
- Out: None
- Increase: None
- Decrease: None

Other:
Splits: Barclays
Bonus: Diamond Trust , Scangroup, and Stanbic Uganda
Dividend: KCB, Diamond Trust, Bralirwa, Kenol Scangroup, Stanbic
Events:
- Uchumi re-listed after five years of suspension.
- Took on the new IPO from Britak IPO (results on August 23), but passed on other new listings from Transcentury and Bank of Kigali. Meanwhile there are no privatizations on the table from the Government of Kenya
- NSE companies are making efforts to clean up their shareholder registers, with a view to applying dividends that have been unclaimed for several years to their reserves, otherwise they will have to be surrendered to the Government

Data: The NSE has stopped sharing free price lists, which now makes it harder to access daily market data. Meanwhile the CDSC has stepped up with investor awareness, and you now get a SMS notification of trades (shares sold/bought)

The Future of the Post Office?

I’ve had many recent trips to the post office, tracing lost dusty packages, new keys, dividend cheques and other mail which 85% of which are bills & statements, and 10% are marketing materials & junk. Very rarely do you get a personal letter in the mail, and that's usually around Christmas.

The post offices are run by teams of (mostly) older workers, who are well trained, dedicated, and honest in their work. However they work in a rigid bureaucratic environment and that means that almost every process has to be cross-checked & triple check, with signatures to be obtained by several people seated a few feet apart.

When Equity Bank released their half year results last week, their CEO James Mwangi spoke about the bank having reached the maximum productivity that could be attained from physical bank branches. They were now shifting to a whole-hearted embrace of agency banking model, which they had initiated in Kenya and sold to the Central Bank.

With agency banking, Equity has been converting small kiosks, cyber cafes (which are dying), pharmacies, garages into mini banks (open you own bank). Equity envisions having 5,000 agents (2,300 are now operational) and also have them sell insurance, airline tickets, and other services.

For Equity they only pay commissions per transactions that agents complete as opposed to the fixed cost of operating their branches with. And for agents, the current agency rules means that they can't be mutually exclusive (like phone dealers and m-pesa agents tied to Safaricom). This means a pharmacy can offer agent banking services for KCB, Equity, even smaller physical reach banks like DBK and Giro.

Mailboxes at Nairobi Post Office

While these new agents have to overcome weaknesses of customer service, training, security (physical & cyber), the post office already has many of these attributes taken care of, plus they have steady foot traffic for letters, and parcels in their well known & guarded premises, and with ample space to expand.

The local post office currently acts as (non banking) agents for the among others; the Kenya Revenue Authority (parcel are opened and tax is assessed has to be paid before release), Old Mutual (mutual fund), Safaricom (airtime), Airtel Money (mobile money transfer, pensions (posta), salaries (for school teachers), and several utilities - DSTV (satellite TV), Nairobi Water, Kenya Power, Kenya Charity sweepstakes (Lotto) etc.

A new addition is acting as bank agents for KCB customers who are depositing or withdrawing cash. And that could be the future of the post office - as a financial supermarket for several banks, financial and utility firms.

Guide to Gaborone

A guest post by Marvin Tumbo, the CEO of Socialight Media

Getting There: Kenyans don't need visas when flying to Botswana, nor do they need yellow fever vaccinations, which several African countries require. But if you are traveling via Johannesburg, you might be required to get yourself a transit Visa. I have not experienced this, but know of friends from Nigeria who on several occasions, have not been able to fly via Johannesburg because of issues with transit visas.

It costs around US $700 for a return flight to Botswana, and for travel from Nairobi, the ideal flight to take is Kenya Airways, which flies directly to Gaborone 3 times a week. However, there have been occasions when KQ flights to and from Gaborone have been canceled on short notice as was the case when I returning this time.

An alternative route, is to fly via Johannesburg and then take Air Botswana or South African Airways onwards to Gaborone. However, while it is only a 35-minute flight between Johannesburg and Gaborone, a problem may be the connection time as you may have to wait 4 to 6 hours for the connecting flight.

The last time I came to Botswana, the Sir Seretse Khama International Airport was still under construction but now after two months, they are finishing up and most of the Airport is in operation. Currently, there are no shops at the Airport yet, just a restaurant. I had been told that, prior to the upgrade, the Airport had the best perfume shops, which sold world-class perfumes at a fraction of the price – and maybe these will come back.

The airport is not as busy as Oliver Tambo Int'l Airport or JKIA so checking in and out is pretty fast with no hassle at all.

Getting Around: The local money is called Pula and it has the same strength as the South African Rand. The largest denomination here is 200 Pula.

There are many taxis from the Airport and it costs between 60 and 100 pula ($6 to 10) to get to the city. Some of the Hotels usually provide for your transport back to the Airport for free when leaving like Cresta President.

If you have meetings within the city, you can use Taxis, which will cost you between 20 and 40 Pula (less than $5). There are no traffic Jams here so going to and from the Airport and around the city is not a hassle at all. The roads are in great shape and there is a healthy respect for the law here, which means no funny (bad) driving.

Gaborone is a very secure city, and Safety-wise, it is very safe to walk around any time of the day or night. I saw very few police officers for the duration I was there locals will tell you that there are no horror stories like robberies and muggings or worse. You even feel that the place is very safe without being told.

Botswana also has our version of Matatu’s plying various routes. I did not get to use these but compared to the Matatu's in Nairobi, they look more organized and respectful.

Hotels: While there, I stayed at the Cresta President Hotel, which is one of the best Hotels in Botswana. It has good Wi-Fi and is located at the centre of the City, a mere 15 minutes drive from the Airport, and is also within walking distance of every office you will probably need to visit. Similar 3* and 4* hotels cost between $100 and $130 per night

Communications: Orange, MTN, and Mascom are the leading providers in Botswana with Mascom being the largest in terms of subscribers. However, you cannot roam with Safaricom here but can do so with an Orange line, and while phone calls are cheap, they are not as cheap as in Kenya.

Language: The local language is Tswana but everyone speaks English as well so there are no language barriers here. You will hear the word Dumela a lot which is how you greet people in Tswana. – and you also reply by saying ‘Dumela’ as well. The local newspapers are all in English with the most prominent ones being Mmegi and the Botswana Guardian. There is also the Daily News, which is a free newspaper published by the Government.

Sight-seeing & Shopping: If you really want to see what the country has to offer, the Okavango Delta in the Northern part of Botswana is the place to go. Game shooting is allowed here but only for certain animals – (and not) the Big Five which are heavily protected.

If you want to buy anything to take back home, remember there are no shops at the airport yet. Instead try the variety of malls in and around the city as well as craft fairs, which are the equivalent of Maasai Markets in Kenya. These are open everyday but only a few them will be on Sundays.

Food: There are many places where you can eat and for as little as 20 Pula or as much as 95 Pula ($10). To eat local foods, ask to be taken to The Station and there you will find the best local food for just 20 Pula. At high-end restaurants, good local food will cost 60 to 100 Pula (10 to 15 USD with drinks). Make sure you check out Cattle Baron and Beef Baron, and try their specialty which is the Beef Schnitzel or T-bone with baked potatos, papa, Seswaa – the Botswana National Dish. Try out Morogo as well. The local beer is called St Louis and they offer it as a Lager or Export, and the latter has a better kick to it.

On any given day you will spend between $40 and, and on the higher side, $100 having meetings, lunches, dinners and a couple of drinks in the different parts of the City.

Business & Infrastructure: As a business destination, this place looks God-sent. There are no issues with electricity or water for that matter. Registration of a business is pretty straightforward and costs roughly 500 Pula to register and 1,500 Pula for a trading license so in total, this amounts 250 USD.

When you look at your normal day in Nairobi and compare it to here, there are immense business opportunities here. However, all the above is the insight of a local lawyer who will be handling our legal issues here. We are just finishing setting up shop and I can update this later based on experience. Our lawyer also warned us about xenophobia in Botswana though this is not something I have experienced yet. Most of the people I met were really receptive and excited about meeting a Kenyan and talked positively about Kenya and Nairobi.

Shocker One thing to note is that almost all drivers in Botswana respect the law as far as driving is concerned. There are no traffic police here to direct traffic, and if you have been to Nairobi or Lagos or even Kampala, it’s a shock how organized the traffic is. People adhere to road rules even if they are the only ones on the road, and there is no running through red lights even if it is at 2 A.M

Summary: On the face of it, Botswana is a great place as both a tourist and business destination. You will hear and read a couple of corruption cases, but the legal system here will give you investment confidence because of their conviction rate. A friend at the AG's Chambers informed me that regardless of who you are, there is no escaping the law. At the end of the day, my deciding to set up my business there also means I am a convert!