TechCabal Daily – Google’s internet balloons connects 35,000 Kenyans

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Following a sexual harassment accusation against its CEO/Co-founder, Kendall Ananyi, last month, Tizeti says it has completed an independent investigation and has released a statement to that effect. The statement absolved Ananyi of any wrongdoing.

While Tizeti says the independent investigation was carried out by law firm, Olumide Sofowora Chambers, led by a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, who it claims spoke to multiple sources including the victim, there’s no clear reason why the law firm wasn’t allowed to make its report or investigation public. A special investigation committee comprising its Board of Directors proceeded to use the investigation by the law firm to determine that Ananyi did not sexually harass the victim, Kelechi Udoagwu.

People familiar with the matter have publicly denounced Tizeti’s statement and decision to re-instate Ananyi, further questioning the integrity of the investigation. The board of directors who determined that its accused CEO wasn’t guilty previously comprised Ananyi, COO, Ifeanyi Okonkwo and 4DX one of its investors, according to Jason Njoku. 4DX has since resigned from the board as TechCabal previously reported. This left just the founders on the board to assess the outcome of the investigation.

Tizeti needs to either allow the law firm that it
engaged to release a detailed report of its investigation and who it spoke with or allow another independent and neutral party to conduct an investigation that can’t be influenced by the founders. Nigeria’s nascent tech community needs a fair, neutral and conclusive Tizeti investigation to support efforts to build an inclusive and diverse industry.

From the Series B (in which Mark Zuckerberg invested) to January 2019 when they raised $100million in a Series D, Andela was the standard-bearer of Africa’s attractiveness and readiness for tech investment. Having evolved from a source of talent to a full cycle talent partner, Alex Onukwue argues that Andela is now a talent matching agency that doesn’t seem much different from job matching platforms.

In its
defence, CEO/co-founder, Jeremy Johnson says Andela engages developers longer than other talent matching platforms. “Andela is where the best companies and engineers come to find stable, long-term, value-creating relationships,” he said.

Onukwue concludes that “Andela will be alright as long as a steady supply of developers comes through, but Africa’s ecosystem should look elsewhere to feed its appetite for innovation.”

On Monday, based on a WeeTracker story, we reported that African freelancers who used Payoneer have had their funds frozen or completely gone as a result of a fraud fiasco involving German fintech company, Wirecard. Wirecard UK issue cards to Payoneer that users can, in turn, use to access their freelance payments.

In response to our report, Payoneer has shared an update stating that all its
services have been reactivated. “The UK regulator ran an audit of Wirecard Card Solutions Limited in the UK and found that in line with their responsibilities under the e-money license, all customer funds are held in safeguarded bank accounts and lifted the freeze they imposed 3 days beforehand,” the company’s media rep said via email.