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Crime
Heritage Bank denies $83 million fraud
More African banks are suffering fraud.
This time, Nigeria-based bank, Heritage Bank, is at the centre. Last week, reports surfaced that ₦49 billion ($83 million) had been stolen from the bank’s accounts.
An inside job: Sources close to the bank revealed that a member of the bank’s IT department head “Akin” allegedly diverted the money into private accounts across six commercial banks. The sources also allege that the perpetrator conducted several counts of insider fraud.
On Friday, in an email to TechCabal, the bank denied all allegations, labelling the claims wrong and defamatory. In a statement signed by the bank’s corporate community manager, Ozena Utulu, the bank notes that the accusations are a “fictitious narrative”.
Layoffs and restructuring: The bank, however, revealed that it’s creating a long-term sustainability plan that will involve restructuring and layoffs.
Customers aren’t swayed, though. Several report struggling with poor customer service, delayed transfers, inability to move depositor funds, and failure of the bank’s apps. At least two customers confirmed this to TechCabal. One notes that he had been unable to withdraw his funds from Heritage Bank for the last seven days, while another claims that the bank’s “network issues” have made it difficult for her to withdraw funds.
Zoom out: Meanwhile, another Nigerian bank, Globus Bank, last week revealed that it suffered a hack in 2022 in which hackers took advantage of a USSD glitch to withdraw over ₦1.75 billion ($2.9 million) in customer funds. The bank has reportedly recovered ₦817 million ($1.3 million) of the funds, but over ₦962 million ($1.6 million) remain unrecoverable.
Moniepoint ranked 2nd fastest-growing African company
Moniepoint is Africa’s second-fastest growing company, as shown in FTs latest report. We also processed 1 billion transactions worth $43 billion in Q1 alone.
IoT
Kenya greenlights smart city
The land is green in Kenya…or at least it will be greener.
Last week, in presenting the country’s budget for the 2023/2024 financial year, the country allocated Ksh15.1 billion ($109.6 billion) to fund its smart city Konza Technopolis.
What’s Konza Technopolis? Konza Technopolis—formerly called Konza Tech City—is a sustainable and futuristic city under construction on Nairobi’s outskirts. The city was first announced in 2008, almost 13 years ago, as part of Vision 2030, a government-led development blueprint with the stated aim of turning Kenya into a “middle-income country providing a high-quality life to all its citizens by the year 2030.”
Unfortunately, successive governments have failed to kick off Kenya’s tech city. Since his election, however, President William Ruto has renewed the country’s zeal towards ICT. The city has also been receiving support from South Korea, which is also developing KAIST in collaboration with the Kenyan government.
A breakdown: Of the amount, about Ksh4.8 billion ($35 million) has been allocated to the Horizontal Infrastructure Phase I at Konza City, Ksh 1.2 billion ($8.7 million) for the Konza data centre and smart city facilities, and Ksh 5.7 billion ($41.38 million) for the construction of Kenya Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) at Konza Technopolis.
Big Tech
Meta appeals Kenyan judgement
Meta, like mercy, is saying no.
What’s happening? On June 2, Kenya’s Employment and Labour Court ruled that Meta and its content moderation partner Sama would have to complete their contracts with all Kenyan content moderators. Throughout the year, content moderators have been in a legal battle with Meta and Sama after the big tech company dissolved its partnership with Sama over workplace harassment claims Sama received in 2022.
Earlier this year, over 180 content moderators went to court to prevent Meta and Sama from firing them, and on June 2, the court ruled in favour of the content moderators.
No jobs for moderators: Now, Meta is appealing the decision.
In an email to TechCabal, the company states that the ruling is “confusing and contradictory” as Sama has exited the content moderation business and has no work for the content moderators. The big tech will also argue that the content moderators are not employees of Meta.
Sama, which the court described as an “agent for Meta,” told TechCabal that the ruling was confusing. The company laid off the moderators in January 2023 after its contract with Meta had expired. The ruling now means that despite having no existing contract with Meta, it must keep the moderators employed.
Zoom out: In the email to TC, Meta also states that it cares deeply about the health of its content moderators and has invested in providing for their needs, a contradictory statement given that Meta has been accused of poor treatment of content creators in Germany and other countries. In 2020, in the US, the company paid $52 million as compensation for moderators who suffered PTSD from the work they did.
TC Insights
What’s next for cleantech?
Africa’s energy demand is projected to double by 2040. Yet, according to a report by PwC, only 9% of the energy it generated in 2021 came from clean energy sources. While North Africa has the largest clean energy capacity on the continent, Central Africa’s capacity is set to almost double, given its 15,201MW worth of under-construction projects.
Cleantech has the potential to scale the decelerating economic growth of Africa. So, there is a pressing need for African countries to expand their energy supply and prioritise their energy transition plans.
Cleantech involves using technologies that focus on environmentally friendly products, services and practices to provide clean, sustainable energy. Startups in this space are developing innovative ways to reduce carbon emissions while making profits and scaling in growth. As an emerging sector with immense potential, capital has followed suit.
With a rise of cleantech startups launching their innovations across Africa, over $803 million in investments has been received between 2018 and 2021, according to a Weetracker report. There has never been a better time to invest in cleantech in Africa. However, there are technical and financial barriers to the adoption of Clean-tech in the national energy systems of African countries.
For Glory Oguegbu, a clean energy consultant and founder of Renewable Energy Technology Training Institute (RETTI), low investments into Africa’s clean energy space are one of the biggest obstacles to deploying cleantech solutions. She however recommends that African governments provide cleantech startups with more opportunities for exchanges and business shadowing. “That way, the startups can realise the opportunities in the sector — not just to combat climate change but to promote access to electricity.”
In the long run, there is a need for the research and development of cleantech innovations. Therefore, climate-smart investments should be made into early-stage cleantech startups across Africa for commercial viability. Receiving strategic financial, technical, and advisory support for the incubation of novel clean energy ideas and technologies will accelerate the continent’s energy transition and close its unmet need for reliable, affordable clean energy.
Crypto Tracker
The World Wide Web3
Source:
|
Coin Name |
Current Value |
Day |
Month |
|---|---|---|---|
 Bitcoin |
$26,425 |
– 0.25% |
– 1.38% |
| Ether |
$1,726 |
– 0.01% |
– 4.64% |
 BNB |
$244 |
– 0.56% |
– 20.95% |
| Solana |
$15.55 |
– 0.14% |
– 23.20% |
* Data as of 04:15 AM WAT, June 19, 2023.
A US Court has approved a deal that will see Binance move all US users’ wallets to the US. After the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) sued Binance for operating an illegal crypto platform, both parties—the US SEC and Binance—have reached an agreement that will prevent SEC from freezing the company’s accounts and thereby limiting customer withdrawals in the US. The agreement will see Binance move all US customer funds and wallets to the US, CoinDesk reports.
Meanwhile, Binance is under investigation in France for money laundering allegations. CoinDesk reports that the company is suspected of illegally providing digital asset services to local customers, and implementing poor money laundering checks.
This is the third case Binance is grappling with in the past two weeks with both the US SEC and US Commodities Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) on its neck, and Nigeria’s SEC announcing, earlier this month, that the company is operating illegally in the country.
Yesterday, weeks after the Nigerian SEC’s proclamation, Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao declared Binance Nigeria Limited a scam operation. Zhang tweets, “Binance have [sic] issued cease & desist notice to the scammer entity “Binance Nigeria Limited”. Don’t believe everything you read in the news.”
Events
Africa Tech Summit London
After a sold out 2022 Africa Tech Summit London, the leading event series focused on African tech and investment across the continent will host its 7th London edition on June 23, 2023.
Register now and connect with tech leaders. Use the code “TC10” for a 10% discount on tickets.
Job openings
- Bridge Talent Management – Human Resource Manager – Nairobi, Kenya (On-site)
- Service Management Group– Senior Software Support Engineer – Ghana (Remote)
- Founders Factory –Full Stack Engineer – Lagos, Nigeria (Hybrid)
- PayU – Product Manager – Cape Town, South Africa (Hybrid)
- Telvida – UI/UX Designer – Lagos, Nigeria (Hybrid)
There are more jobs on TechCabal’s job board. If you have job opportunities to share, please submit them at bit.ly/tcxjobs.
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