Author: Gugu Lourie

As Africa braces itself for the peak in COVID-19 cases, the continent is launching the Africa Medical Supplies Platform, an innovative marketplace to enable all African governments to access critical supplies, President Cyril Ramaphosa announced on Wednesday. According to President Ramaphosa, Africa has over 250 000 confirmed infections and about 6 700 deaths. “Although the number of infections in Africa is currently lower than elsewhere in the world, there is an expectation that the worst is still to come, with dire social and economic consequences,” he said. As it stands, Africa is in dire need of medical supplies, testing equipment…

This International Day of the African Child, MTN announced it is supporting the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and the World Food Programme (WFP) to help mobilise funds for children and families across Sub-Saharan Africa affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. MTN is doing this by enabling SMS fundraising throughout a month-long campaign to raise funds for those most severely impacted by the virus on the continent. All proceeds raised through the campaign will be donated in full to UNICEF and WFP, who are supporting COVID-19 affected communities across Africa. The pandemic’s closure of schools is putting at risk the futures…

Planet42, a South Africa based FinTech startup that focuses on providing access to mobility to the underbanked, has raised R41 million ($2.4 million). The seed round was led by Change Ventures. Private backers include Martin Villig (Bolt), Ragnar Sass (Pipedrive), Marko Virkebau (MeetFrank), Kristjan Vilosius (Katana MRP), and several other Estonian tech entrepreneurs. The company launched as CarGet in 2017 to service South Africa, a market well-known to co-founder and CFO Marten Orgna, who ran African Investments for Trigon Capital. Planet42 partners with dealerships across South Africa to offer access to a personal car to its largely underbanked clientele (9…

The Democratic Alliance (DA) has written to the Minister of Social Development, Lindiwe Zulu, to request that she makes an urgent Executive Statement to the National Assembly on the status of the special R350 Covid-19 Relief of Distress Grant. Applicants remain disappointed as their concerns are posted on social media were once again ignored by the South African Social Services Agency (SASSA) and the Ministry of Social Development. Despite weeks of cries from the unemployed on Twitter seeking answers about their applications for the jobless grant, SASSA and the Ministry of Social Development remained mum until today. For more read: SASSA Ignores R350…

Sun Exchange, South Africa’s first peer-to-peer solar leasing platform, today announced it has secured a R50 million ($3 million) investment by ARPF, a Mauritian private equity fund advised by London-based ARCH Emerging Markets Partners Limited. This investment marks the close of a R67 million ($4 million) Series-A funding round by Sun Exchange. Sun Exchange will use the funds to scale its solution and expand into new markets across Sub-Saharan Africa, enabling platform users to solar power schools, clinics, farms, cell towers, water plants, businesses and other organisations across the continent. The funds will also bolster marketing activities and substantially grow…

FNB on Tuesday apologised to customers for the inconvenience caused due to some functionality being temporarily unavailable on banking channels. “While most banking services have not been affected and remain available to customers, we are pleased to report that the challenges experienced with respect to Foreign Exchange, Prepaid Telecommunications as well as our Share Trading services have been resolved,” FNB said in a statement. On Monday, FNB confirmed that customers were unable to buy airtime, data and electricity on the bank’s online platforms. “Our teams are working to resolve issues related to Lotto, PayPal, Prepaid Electricity and FNB Connect, which…

The minister for communications and digital technologies, Stella Ndabeni-Abrahams is back at work after serving her suspension. Ndabeni-Abrahams was suspended by President Cyril Ramaphosa on 8 April 2020 after she was found to have contravened the government’s lockdown regulations. “Minister Stella Ndabeni-Abrahams is back at work,” Mish Molakeng told TechFinancials on Tuesday. She was placed on special leave for two months – one month of which would be unpaid, after a photo of her having lunch with the former deputy minister of higher education Mduduzi Manana at his home during the lockdown. She also paid admission of a guilty fine…

Private hospital group Life Healthcare says its southern African operation has been the victim of a targeted criminal attack on its IT systems. “We acted immediately on becoming aware of the incident and took our systems offline, in order to actively contain the attack,” the company said in a statement. The group added that it was still investigating whether any data was compromised in the attack. “External cyber security experts and forensic teams have been brought on board to advise and supplement our internal teams and capacity,” Life Healthcare said. “We have alerted the relevant authorities and investigations are underway.”…

JSE-listed technology group EOH is slowly winning its battle over its debt burden. The group has agreed to a R1.6 billion deleverage plan with its lenders. The troubled company, which is primarily focusing on reducing its debt, informed investors on Tuesday that it had achieved its first capital repayment milestone having repaid R540 million of the R1.6 billion. “This is in excess of the R500 million agreed with lenders and well ahead of the 31 August 2020 deadline.” Since 1 August 2018, EOH said it has repaid R1.77 billion to its lenders – R1,140 million in the capital and R626…

Amid questions of “what is happening with our R350 COVID-19 Grant?” Applicants remain disappointed as their concerns are posted on social media were once again ignored by the South African Social Services Agency (SASSA) and the Ministry of Social Development. Despite weeks of cries of the unemployed on Twitter seeking answers about their applications for the jobless grant, SASSA and the Ministry of Social Development remained mum until today. SASSA decided to respond to the tweets, stating on its official Twitter page that: “There is a high volume of applications, however, SASSA will respond to all applicants.” There is a…