Company news in brief

Workers resume at MTN Nigeria

Workers resumed at MTN Nigeria on Friday after the country’s labour union picketed the South African telecoms company over the rights of workers to join unions, the company said.

The Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC), the umbrella labour union in Africa’s most populous nation, shut down MTN operations in Nigeria since Monday over claims that the telecoms firm had refused workers from becoming union members.

MTN Nigeria staff confirmed that they were allowed to enter offices for the first time on Friday since this week.

-Nampa/Reuters

Telecom Egypt, Liquid Telecom sign MOU

Telecom Egypt has signed a memorandum of understanding with Liquid Telecom to enable the pan-African group to complete Africa’s terrestrial fibre network stretching across the Liquid Telecom, a subsidiary of Econet Wireless Global, has been building a fibre network across southern Africa covering Botswana, Democratic Republic of Congo, Lesotho, South Africa, Zambia and Zimbabwe. It also has a presence in Rwanda, Kenya and Uganda.

“Liquid Telecom will link its network from Sudan into Telecom Egypt’s network via a new cross-border interconnection – bringing together a 60 000 km network that runs from Cape Town, through all the Southern, Central and Eastern African countries, and has now reached the border between Sudan and Egypt,” the two companies said in a statement.

African continent, the companies said on Saturday.

-Nampa/Reuters

Steinhoff seeks to limit Pepkor share plan damage

Steinhoff Africa Retail will be advised by the end of next month how much it may need to pay to settle a controversial management-incentive plan devised by a company formerly owned by South African billionaire Christo Wiese.

The operator of clothing chains including Pep and Ackermans disappointed investors in May when it booked R500 million in charges related to the arrangement, a hangover from when the company was still part of scandal-hit retailer Steinhoff International Holdings.

The plan was put together in 2011 by Wiese’s pan-African Pepkor Holdings, which was bought by Steinhoff in 2015 and now makes up the bulk of Steinhoff Africa.

-Fin24

Police arrest ex-CEO of Kenya Power company

Kenyan authorities said on Saturday they had arrested a former chief executive officer of the state-run distributor Kenya Power on suspicion of economic crimes and wanted to charge the current chief executive.

Kenya has been hit by a new spate of scandals involving bogus tenders and suppliers with the alleged theft of hundreds of millions of shillings by state officials from several government bodies.

The Directorate of Criminal Investigations said on Twitter their detectives had arrested Ben Chumo, former Kenya Power chief executive officer, Beatrice Meso, its general manager for corporate affairs and company cecretary, and Peter Mwicigi, its general manager regional co-ordination.

When sought for comment, Chumo asked to be called back later. Meso and Mwicigi were not immediately available to comment.

-Nampa/Reuters

Embraer sees demand for 10 550 smaller jets

Brazil’s Embraer sees demand for 10 550 new aircraft with a capacity of up to 150 seats in the next 20 years, worth around US$600 billion, the planemaker said on Sunday.

In a statement from the Farnborough Airshow, Embraer said the fleet of aircraft of that size in service is expected to increase to 16 000 units over the period, compared to 9 000 currently in operation. Market growth will be responsible for 65% of that demand, while 35% will be to replace old aircraft, Embraer said.

-Nampa/Reuters