Africa

One of South Africa’s largest IT support companies is looking at how it can remain at the top by developing different niche markets.

Even for the most sophisticated of IT companies, who are busy developing products so advanced that customers aren’t yet aware that they exist, there still has to be an eye on where the bread and butter comes from.

Century Bottling Co invests heavily in personnel training and development and has been rewarded with the Employer of the Year Award by the Federation of Uganda Employers, as well as improved productivity and staff morale.

Google has launched a service in Ghana, Nigeria and Kenya that will allow users to send and receive email via an SMS text message.

“You can now send and receive emails as SMS messages using your mobile phone, regardless of whether or not your phone has an internet connection, like Wifi or 3G,” said Geva Rechav, product manager, emerging markets, for Google in a blog post on Google’s Africa Blog. “Gmail SMS works on any phone, even the most basic ones which only support voice and SMS.

Tullow Oil has encountered oil and gas while drilling at its Wawa-1 well offshore Ghana.

The find was made at the exploration well in the Deepwater Tano licence where oil and gas condensate was intersected in a Turonian turbidite channel system.

The well was drilled 10 kilometres north of the Enyenra-3A well, testing a previously undrilled portion of the licence, Tullow said. The Atwood Hunter semi-submersible rig drilled the Wawa-1 well to a final depth of 3,322 metres in water depths of 587 metres.

A competent and reliable logistics partner is worth its weight in gold to a developing economy and to global clients seeking to invest there. Threeways Shipping has shown it can do the job and is poised to take its place as a global player.

KPMC is a niche BEE project management and engineering company, specialising in combining the practicalities of mining, the challenges of logistics and the volumes of bulk materials handling with innovative solutions and experience.

Howden Africa, part of Howden Global, is showing impressive growth in meeting the needs of the burgeoning resources industry in Africa, providing ventilation and cooling systems, dust scrubbers and flue gas conditioning systems to the continent’s mines.

Build, own, operate, transfer (BOOT) is an attractive model for delivering infrastructure projects efficiently; and Ghana Water Company Limited is becoming wedded to the idea as it strives to expand its network.

The World Bank has approved loans totalling $684 million for the Eastern Electricity Highway Project, which will connect Ethiopia’s electrical grid with Kenya’s.

The World Bank financing to both governments—US$243 million for Ethiopia and US$441 million for Kenya—will come from the International Development Association, the Bank’s fund for the world’s poorest countries.

Convincing mines to spend more money up-front on the expectation of lower life-of-mine costs is what one South African supplier is working hard to do.