NTSA commences issuance of mandatory E-stickers to Motorists

By Samwel Doe Ouma

@samweldoe

National Transport and Safety Authority (NTSA) has announced a national roll out of mandatory third identification sticker aimed at identifying and authenticating vehicle owners for vehicle undergoing new registering and inspection.

According to statement on NTSA website, commencing 1st September 2018 all motorists requesting for motor vehicle transfers and issuance of duplicate logbooks will also be required to have the mandatory e-sticker.

“The third generation identification stickers will be placed on the left hand side of the wind screen of motor vehicles. The stickers will host critical motor vehicle details in an electronic format such as chassis number, make and color, registration, number and motor vehicle ownership,” the statement said.

The sticker’s security features is meant to help in the fight against crime, as carjacking will be reduced. Currently, it is easy for car thieves to get away with the crime, because they can easily interchange number plates.

In Kenya number plate forgery is a common phenomenon, motorists are exposed to possible arrest and sometimes end up charged and prosecuted wrongfully for crimes they did not commit as most criminals use fake plates similar to those of an innocent car owner.

To get the e-sticker Motor Vehicle owners will be required to apply for the third identifier sticker online through the Integrated Transport Management System (TIMS), available on the NTSA website.

It is believed that fitting of the digital monitoring devices will help in smart regulation as NTSA will be able to monitor and record behavior of the driver on the road.

The public announcement comes in the backdrop of official publication in the Kenya gazette of legal notice on implementation of traffic rules 2016 notice 62 of April 15th. The legal notice exempts Motorbikes, three-wheeler taxis and tractors from having the electronic chip sticker.

Jumia Travels Launches Loyalty Drive to lure Travelers

By Samwel Doe Ouma

@samweldoe

 

 Jumia Travel managing Director Estelle Verdier

Jumia Travel has unveiled a loyalty program which will allow customers to secure an additional 10 to 20% exclusive discount on select hotels managing Director Estelle Verdier said.

The discount extends to all  listed Jumia travel products such as flight bookings and holiday packages. The package  aims at rewarding loyal and returning customers as well as adding value to new customers, the program carries incentives such as free airport pick up, early check-in and late check-out, refreshments and personalized service delivery.

"Our priority is to ensure that travel becomes universally accessible and affordable throughout Africa and the rest of the world in line with United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) vision on ‘Tourism for all – promoting universal accessibility,’ Estelle said.

The offer comes in wake of rebound in Tourism and travel sector with Kenya’s total number of air passenger flown by airlines growing by 11.1 percent to 10.0 million in 2016 aided by lifting of travel advisories, conference tourism, route expansion and lifting of trade bans while the Share of domestic aircraft movements to total movements increased by 0.5 percentage points from 58.8 per cent in 2015 to 59.3 per cent in 2016  with the domestic flight growth attributed to increased use of domestic air transport by the growing middle class in the Kenya  according to statistics from economic survey 2017 report.

Jumia Travel, a hotel booking website  allows customers to get the best prices for more than 25,000 hotels in Africa and more than 200,000 hotels around the world. The program is available to all registered customers on the Jumia e-Commerce ecosystem it automatically enables them to view all hotels offering Jumia Travel Smart deals.

Travelers will participate by logging into their Jumia account which is acquired upon registration. After registering on the platform customers gets access to the best available rates in the market giving them an edge in price comparison. The prices showcased will be listed from top ranking hotels as reviewed and recommended by previous customers, coupled with special negotiated rates that will exclusively apply to Jumia Travel Smart customers.

In March, Jumia Travel announced the launch of flights as part of a larger expansion plan which covered international destinations such as Dubai, London and Paris.

WHO Mulls over prequalifying Copies of Cancer drugs for Affordable treatments

WHO Mulls over prequalifying Copies of Cancer drugs for Affordable treatments

By Samwel Doe Ouma

World health organization (WHO) plans to launch a pilot project for prequalifying biosimilar medicines in an effort of making cancer treatments affordable and widely available in low and middle income countries.

According to a press statement, WHO will invite manufacturers to submit applications for prequalification of biosimilar versions of two products in the WHO essential medicines list in September.

The two biosimilar medicines- rituximab -used principally to treat non-Hodgkin's lymphoma and chronic lymphocytic leukemia and -trastuzumab -used to treat breast cancer will be prequalified. The decision which comes after a two-day meeting in Geneva between WHO, national regulators, pharmaceutical industry groups, patient and civil society groups, payers and policymakers to discuss ways to increase access to biotherapeutic medicines declared. WHO also plans to explore options for prequalifying insulin.

“Innovator biotherapeutic products are often too expensive for many countries, so biosimilars are a good opportunity to expand access and support countries to regulate and use these medicines,” said Dr Marie-Paule Kieny, WHO Assistant Director General for Health Systems and Innovation.

Biotherapeutic medicines are produced from biological sources such as cells rather than synthesised chemical. They are important treatments for some cancers and other non-communicable diseases. Like generic medicines, biosimilars can be much less expensive versions of innovator biotherapeutics. They are usually manufactured by other companies once the patent on the original product has expired. Like generic medicines, biosimilars could help to increase access to treatment in lower-resourced countries and provide a solution to escalating health costs in high-income countries.

Increased use of biosimilars will require patients and their physicians to understand and trust that the benefits of this type of medicine substantially outweigh any risks.

“Biosimilars could be game-changers for access to medicines for certain complex conditions,” said Dr Suzanne Hill, WHO’s Director of Essential Medicines and Health Products. “But they need to be regulated appropriately to ensure therapeutic value and patient safety.”

Prequalification is a service provided by WHO to assess the quality, safety and efficacy of products that address global public health priorities. If the products meet international standards, they are listed on the WHO web site as eligible for procurement, giving purchasing agencies a range of quality-assured diagnostics, medicines and vaccines from which to choose. Many low-income countries also use WHO’s lists of prequalified products to guide their selection of medicines, vaccines and technologies for national procurement.

Reprieve for depositors as insurer launches Sh140m plan to halt bank failures

 By Samwel Doe
@samweldoe
Kenya deposits Insurance Corporation (KDIC) unveiled ambitious plan of leveraging on ICT to help them in monitoring and tracking banking and deposit taking institutions crisis and help them come up with proper intervention mechanisms to help banks mitigate on likelihoods of depositors loss.

The Banking sector insurer will use the US$1.4 million state-of-the art ICT Centre to monitor and detect banks’activities and prompt corrective actions.

KDIC will ensure that depositors can access their money in case of bank closure and apply appropriate resolution tools to reopen the bank and help it remain open. It will also help banks to restore market confidence and preserve the asset institutions when banks are placed under receivership.

Speaking at a media event the Ag.CEO KDIC Mr.Mohamud A. Mohamud hinted that the use of ICT will go a long way in helping in effective monitoring of the banking and deposit taking institutions. He also assured depositors with Kshs 1,000,000 and below that KDIC is able to provide cover that will safeguards depositors against losses incurred when a bank or deposit taking institution closes its operations.

“We are working on modalities to ensure that Kenyans don’t suffer when bank closes by cautioning the financial risks and safeguarding small and sophisticated depositors because of their vital role they drive the business of banking and contributing to the larger economy of the country” said Mohamud.
KDIC assured banks and deposit-taking financial institutions that it will employ effective measures to help banks when in financial crisis, diagnose their financial problems in advance and avoid being placed into receivership. In addition, banks that are already affected will be helped come out of liquidation.

This comes amid a serious crisis in the banking sector in Kenya. Twenty four banks have been placed under liquidation between 1993 and 2005. KDIC is currently liquidating 16 institution after successfully winding up eight banking institution. The latest bank to be placed under receivership was Chase bank, on April 7^th 2016.

KDIC is an independent and semi autonomous statutory body created by an act of parliament enacted on May 2012 seek to provide deposit insurance to depositors of banks and financial institutions. It will take over the mandates of the now defunct Deposits Protection Fund Board (DPFB) which was a department of the Central bank of Kenya .DPFB was seen by many banking insiders as the liquidator of banks. In a change of mandate, KDIC has now transformed its role and is now focusing on coming up with effective measures to stem banking failures and intervene when banks are still working.

KDIC has powers, through an act of parliament, to collect 0.15 per cent of all deposits made in banking and deposit-taking institutions. With this plan 35.9 million deposit accounts are fully covered 96.5 per cent of total number of deposits accounts with total deposit of 37.2 million are now fully covered by KDIC.

Media Council to launch new media subjects

                                                    PHOTO:COURTESY
BY Samwel Doe
@samweldoe

Middle level colleges offering journalism courses are required to introduce a unit in Digital Media next month once a new curriculum for journalist training developed by the Media Council of Kenya (MCK) comes into force.


The inclusion of the course was informed by a rise in breach of ethical codes of the profession. MCK officials say the new curriculum, mooted five years ago, would be operational in a month’s time. “The key feature in that curriculum will be inculcation of the use of digital content in newsrooms for the middle level colleges offering Journalism and Media studies,” said MCK head of communication, James Ratemo.


Substantive work has been done, including validation of the curriculum by the Kenya Institute of Curriculum Development (KICD) and the Ministry of Education, through Technical, Industrial, Vocational and Entrepreneurship Training (TIVET).


MCK officials and scholars say the meteoric rise of social media networks such as Facebook, Twitter and micro-blogging sites were undermining journalistic principles of accuracy and credibility. University of Nairobi School of Journalism Director, Dr Ndeti Ndati, described the new trend as worrying for stakeholders in the media industry.



“Core journalistic principles of accuracy and credibility are being jeopardised with the utilisation of digital media, raising important new ethical and practical questions for journalists and policy makers,” said Ndati.

A number of leading universities in Kenya have begun reviewing their media and journalism curriculum in tandem with the emerging social media and ICT trends. The University of Nairobi is already working on a programme to address such emerging challenges.



Digital era


UoN will launch a Media and Communication centre in July that will focus on refresher courses on effective engagements with the new media technologies and tools. It will also retrain media practitioners on threats from massive adoption of digital media. “The programme is meant to fill in the gaps that are posed by the ever changing media landscapes in Kenya and to give hands on skills and knowledge of how to engage with professionalism when it comes to new media,” Dr Ndeti said.


While journalists have always wanted to be first with a scoop, the fast pace of news-breaking has increased to such a point in the digital age that accuracy is sometimes being sacrificed. During a recent anti-IEBC protest for instance, a video of a man being beaten violently by police went viral. The topic began trending in a few hours and a media house reported that the victim had died and even revealed his supposed identity.

It later emerged that the said man was alive and the media house had to apologise.


Experts from journalism academia and MCK have undertaken studies and come up with recommendations that will inform policies and regulations governing digital appropriation and effective utilisation.


More than 31 million Kenyans now have access to internet with at least seven in every 10 accessing the services countrywide, latest communication Authority of Kenya data shows.

First Published in the People Daily.

UoN to offer financial journalism course

By Samwel Doe
@samweldoe

Kenya’s financial journalism standards have recorded significant improvement on the back of rise in executive training programmes targeted at mid-career professionals.

The country’s top universities have also begun incorporating financial journalism units to related courses in efforts to bridge gaps in data journalism. Bloomberg Media Initiative Africa (BMIA) country programme coordinator for Kenya, Dr Samuel Siringi attributes the improvement to two successful media executive programmes held in the country last year.

Siringi, also Associate Director, University of Nairobi’s School of Journalism and Mass Communications, says some of the students from the first cohorts have improved their writing and understanding of financial journalism.

“Some journalists joined the programme when they were just writing county news but after the training. We have received positive feedback both from editors and read their stories in newspapers, listened to them on FM radio and watched their reports on TV and they are doing great journalistic work.

That is evidence that the training is bringing enough impact to journalism in the country,” Dr Siringi said. He spoke during the official launch of Bloomberg Media Initiative Africa (BMIA)-Intake three of the Kenyan executive training for the advancement of financial journalism at Strathmore Business School recently.

University of Nairobi, Director School of Journalism Dr Ndeti Ndati said the institution is considering adding Financial Journalism to boost financial and business reporting. “Already two beneficiaries of the BMIA programme are working for Bloomberg, an international a news network,” he said.

The programme is funded by Bloomberg Philanthropies led by Michael Bloomberg of US, with support from the Ford Foundation. The two have partnered with the University of Pretoria’s Gordon Institute of Business Science (Gibs), the University of Nairobi’s School of Journalism and Mass Communication and Strathmore University.

Other partners are Rhodes university of South Africa and Lagos Business School of Nigeria. The aim of BMIA is to accelerate the development of a globally competitive media and financial reporting industry and to enhance the contribution of the media to accountability, transparency and good governance.

Mid-career journalists and journalism students will take part in a fellowship programme, including “educational offerings, coaching, peer learning, collaborative projects and networking opportunities”.

First published in the People Daily

Email and @ Symbol inventor dies at age 74

By Samwel Doe

Ray Tomlinson, the US programmer credited with inventing email in the 1970s and choosing the "@" symbol for the messaging system, died at the age of 74. 

He was the first to use the @ symbol in this way, to distinguish a user from its host.

Ray Tomlinson

The program changed the way people communicate both in business and in personal life, revolutionizing how “millions of people shop, bank, and keep in touch with friends and family, whether they are across town or across oceans”, reads his biography on the Internet Hall of Fame website.

“I sent a number of test messages to myself from one machine to the other. The test messages were entirely forgettable and I have, therefore, forgotten them. Most likely the first message was QWERTYUIOP or something similar. 

When I was satisfied that the program seemed to work, I sent a message to the rest of my group explaining how to send messages over the network.Tomlinson said in his blog.

The first use of network email announced its own existence. Tomlinson's innovation has endured for 45 years - and shows no sign of going anywhere yet.