Safaricom Gets Approval For M-Pesa Cashless Fare Service

 Niyi Aderibigbe Business, Telecommunication

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VENTURES AFRICA – Leading mobile operator in Kenya, Safaricom is set to start its cashless fare payment service on the popular mobile money service, M-Pesa as the Central Bank of Kenya (CBK) approves the company as one of the providers of the service in the country.

“Central Bank approved Safaricom as one of the cashless service providers on Wednesday and we expect the NTSA (National Transport and Safety Authority) to issue a notice next week,” Business Daily quoted a Safaricom executive who chose to remain anonymous as saying.
According to the executive, Safaricom has partnered with

Sasol Appoints New Finance Chief

 Mzwandile Jacks Careers & Education, Leadership

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VENTURES AFRICA – JSE-listed petrochemicals giant, Sasol, on Monday said it had appointed Bongani Nqwababa as its new CFO with effect from March 1 next year.
Nqwababa, who was the CFO at the troubled power utility, Eskom, during the 2008 global financial crisis, will replace Christine Ramon, who resigned from Sasol earlier this year after seven years at the company.
Nqwababa has been the Finance Director of Anglo American Platinum since 2009 and was also CFO of Shell Southern Africa. Nqwababa holds an Honours degree in

Aflix Extended To 30 African Countries

 Niyi Aderibigbe Mobile, On Demand, Tech

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VENTURES AFRICA – Mobile online video streaming app, Aflix, which launched in Nigeria, Kenya and Ghana last month has expanded its operations by unveiling the Hollywood mobile streaming service in thirty other countries in Sub-Saharan Africa.
The Android mobile video subscription and PPV app, founded to enable African consumers to harness the power of the mobile revolution and access premium quality video content, has added Angola, Botswana, Cameroon, Cape Verde, Djibouti, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, and Ethiopia.
Others include: Gambia, Ghana, Guinea Bissau, Kenya, Lesotho, Liberia and Madagascar.
The services have also been made available in: Malawi, Mauritania, Mayotte, Mozambique, Namibia, Nigeria, Rwanda, Sao Tome & Principe, Seychelles, Sierra Leone, Swaziland, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe.
Aflix is set to revolutionise the African Video-On-Demand space, by providing a large library of Hollywood content at affordable prices to

Africa’s Better Economies Remains Void Of Good Governance

 Niyi Aderibigbe Careers & Education, Leaders, Leadership, Leadership Tips

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VENTURES AFRICA – A new report by the Mo Ibrahim Foundation has shown that the quality of governance in African countries is not an indicator of economic growth as top performing economies on the continent rank low on the quality of governance index.
The Ibrahim Index of African Governance (IIAG) provides an annual assessment of the quality of governance in African countries under four main conceptual categories: Safety and rule of law, participation and human rights, sustainable economic opportunity and human development.
Although it noted that average overall governance performance has

George Clooney Wedding Photos: US Actor Marries Amal Alamuddin In Venice

By Mark Hanrahan@markdhanrahanm.hanrahan@ibtimes.com

US actor George Clooney arrives at the Aman hotel on September 27, 2014 in Venice where Clooney and British fiancee, Amal Alamuddin celebrate their wedding. George Clooney has said goodbye to bachelorhood in Venice with a stag party at his favourite restaurant with Hollywood chums, and was gearing up for a day of glamourous pre-wedding celebrations. The actor had swept into the floating city yesterday with his British fiancee Amal Alamuddin on a watertaxi dubbed 'Amore', zipping up the Grand Canal to cheers from fans at the start of nuptials set to draw out over the weekend. ANDREAS SOLARO/AFP/Getty Images

U.S. actor George Clooney, long considered one

Who Is Jah'Keem Yisreal? Oklahoma Beheading Suspect Was Allegedly Unhappy At Work Over Not Getting Raise

By Amethyst Tate@ammiet1a.tate@ibtimes.com

Alton Alexander Nolen, 30, is accused of beheading one co-worker and slashing another Friday. He served just two years of a six-year drug sentence, and prosecutors say he should still have been in prison. Reuters/Oklahoma Department of Corrections

Oklahoma beheading suspect Alton Nolen reportedly told investigators he felt oppressed at work and resented not getting a raise. The 30-year-old man beheaded a woman and attacked another last week, police say, before being shot at Vaughan Foods in Moore, the food processing plant he was recently fired from. Nolen, who also went by Jah’Keem Yisreal, had troubles at work because of poor performance and for trying to convert co-workers to Islam, a law enforcement official told CNN.
On his Facebook account, Nolen had a number of messages related to Islam, and a cover photo of fighters holding a machine gun and rocket-propelled grenade launcher. But there was no indication of a link to terrorist groups, law enforcement officials told CNN on Monday. Nolen had also watched beheading videos, but it is unclear if they were related to the Islamic State group's murders.
A woman who identified herself as his mother defended him Sunday. "My son was raised up in a loving home," the woman who identified herself as his mother said in a Facebook posting. "My son was raised up believing in God. My son was a

Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg Vows Not To Share Personal Information With Advertisers

By Thomas Halleck@tommylikeyt.halleck@ibtimes.com

Facebook Inc.'s Sheryl Sandberg, seen in a file photo, discussed the company's new personalized advertising experience, as well as its "success" in video advertising on smartphones, in a talk with Katie Couric at the IAB MIXX Conference on Monday in New York. Reuters

Facebook Inc. is planning to use user profile data to target ads around the Web, but it won't share names and personal details of users with those advertisers, Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg said Monday. Sandberg said Facebook users are less concerned about privacy than the kinds of ads in their news feeds.

“The No. 1 thing Facebook users said when we asked about ads,” Sandberg said, was not privacy but “relevance.” While seeing a movie that doesn’t fit your tastes might be a “terrible experience” for a Facebook user, one that's personalized based on

Snoop Dogg Says He'll Perform In Alaska If Pot Is Legalized, But It's Already Legal (Kind Of)

By Barbara Herman@Parfumaniac

Snoop Dogg will perform a "wellness retreat concert" in Alaska if voters there vote to legalize pot. Reuters

If Alaskans vote to legalize recreational marijuana use in the November election, rapper Snoop Dogg says he’ll perform a “wellness retreat concert” there. Anchorage station KTUU reported that Snoop, known for his predilection for pot, made the announcement in a recent webcast during an interview with former TV reporter Charlo Greene, owner of the Alaska Cannabis Club, who quit on live television and announced she would devote herself full-time to getting marijuana legalized in the state.
What Snoop Dogg may not know -- and he wouldn’t be alone -- is that under a little-known or understood 39-year-old court ruling, pot is already legal in

Bank Of America To Pay $7.7M SEC Fine For 2009 Accounting Error

By Kathleen Caulderwood@katcaulderk.caulderwood@ibtimes.com

A Bank of America ATM in New York. In August, the huge corporation agreed to pay a $16.65 billion settlement with U.S. regulators to settle charges that it misled investors into buying subprime mortgages. On Monday, Sept. 29, 2014, it agreed to pay $7.7 million to settle charges related to an accounting error. Reuters

Bank of America will pay $7.65 million to settle charges related to a billion-dollar accounting error it made five years ago.

The Securities and Exchange Commission said the bank had been miscalculating its regulatory capital, which led to a $4 billion overstatement it

Mark Hurd Debut Fails To Boost Oracle As Cloud Doubts Remain

By Paul McDougall@PaulMcDougallp.mcdougall@ibtimes.com

Caffeinated: Oracle co-CEO Mark Hurd told attendees at the company’s OpenWorld conference Sept. 29 that his Starbucks coffee is “as close as I get to drugs.” Reuters

Mark Hurd, the scandal-tarred Silicon Valley veteran who was forced out as Hewlett-Packard’s CEO, made his first public appearance Monday as one of Oracle’s two new co-chief executives. But the markets weren’t buying what Hurd was selling. Oracle stock fell in late-day trading.
Hurd was named co-CEO, along with former CFO Safra Catz, Sept. 18 after founder Larry Ellison stunned the tech industry by announcing  he would step down from Oracle’s corner office to take a technology development role.
Hurd delivered a keynote at Oracle’s OpenWorld conference in San Francisco, an annual event at which company execs outline strategy for