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This Week: New law in Uganda

By Ngozi Chukwu Oct 15, 2022

Image source: The Pearl Times

Editor’s Note

Week 40, 2022
Read time: 5 minutes

Governments across Africa seem to be on a quest to trample on citizens’ digital rights. In Uganda, the Computer Misuse Bill becomes law, while Nigerians risk becoming collateral damage in the government’s ongoing suit against Meta. Read on to find out more about this and other stories from TechCabal this week. Contract Editor

Pamela Tetteh Editor, TechCabal.

Editor’s Picks

	Computer Misuse Bill becomes Ugandan law A month after the Ugandan parliament passed the controversial Computer Misuse (Amendment) Bill, Ugandan president Yoweri Museveni has signed it into law. Many critics believe that the government will misuse the bill to infringe on civil and digital rights. Read more.
	Zimbabwe and Namibia embrace CBDC This week, 2 Southern African countries, Zimbabwe and Namibia, expressed strong interest in central bank digital currencies (CBDC). Zimbabwe announced that it is working on its own CBDC and Namibia stated that it is seriously considering developing a Namibia Dollar CBDC. Learn more.
	Airtel Money and M-Shawri become independent Unlike human parents who keep their children close to protect them, business parents do the opposite. Parent companies of fintech products M-Shawri and Airtel Money have separated from them to shield them from the risks of the telecom business. More separations lie ahead. More details here.
	Orange Money strikes in Botswana Orange may have sliced off more than it can juice. The mobile money service cut the commissions of its agents in Botswana by 60%. In response, the dealers and agents have gone on what seems to be a nationwide strike. Read about it.

	Port Harcourt to tax Bolt drivers In Port Harcourt, several Bolt drivers have been alerted that they will now have to pay ₦12,000 to the state’s transport ministry to register their vehicles, as well as ₦200 monthly, to operate in the state. The drivers suspect foul play and are reluctant to comply. Read Bolt’s response.

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	Be Mobile Africa launches EUR & USD accounts Be Mobile Africa has launched a platform that will enable customers to open USD and EUR business accounts online within 48 hours. This is welcome news at a time when African businesses are losing access to foreign exchange facilities provided by banks. More details.
	MTN’s 5hr outage in SA Three days ago, there were over 1,500 MTN users across South Africa reported that between 11:30 AM and 3 PM they couldn’t access voice or data services in the region, including corporate users. Apparently, MTN isn’t always everywhere you go. Learn more.
	Football in 4K is coming to Africa Cristiano Ronaldo and other footballers playing at the FIFA World Cup will be caught in 4K. South African streaming service Showmax announced that viewers in sub-Saharan Africa will be able to stream the games in 4K resolution for the first time ever. Read more.
	Facebook ads to cost more in Nigeria It’s getting more and more expensive to be Nigerian. Nigerians may have to pay ₦25,000 ($57.5) to ₦500,000 ($1,151) to advertise on Meta’s platforms—Facebook and Instagram, if the social media giant loses an ongoing lawsuit with the Advertising Regulatory Council of Nigeria. Read more.

Who brought the money this week?

Egyptian fintech Telda, raised $20 million in seed funding from GFC, Sequoia capital and Block with the objective to revolutionize finance for the MENAP Region.
Flapkap, a MENA-based company that offers revenue-focused financing to e-commerce brands, received $3.6 million in seed funding. QED led the round, and other investors included Nclude, A15, and Outliers.
Nigeria-based data and intelligence company Stears, raised $3.3 million in seed funding.
Nigeria’s Lifestores healthcare, a pharmaceutical venture, raised $3.3 million in pre-series A funding led by Health54.
Egyptian beauty services company, Glamera raised $1.3 million in a seed funding round led by Riyadh Angels Investors (RAI).
Egyptian tech-enabled marketplace iSUPPLY, raised $1.5 million in a pre-seed round led by Disrupt Techventures and other undisclosed investors.
Prop source, a South African proptech company raised an undisclosed amount of funding to expand its residential product offering.
Vezeeta, an Egyptian healthtech company, raised an undisclosed amount of funding from existing investors such as Golf Capital and VNV Global.