Author: Gugu Lourie
William Mzimba, the CEO of Vodacom Business, a subsidiary of JSE-listed Vodacom Group, has resigned. Sources told TechFinancials that Mzimba is leaving Vodacom Business at the end of September 2023. Mzimba joined Vodacom five years ago as chief officer of Vodacom Business to replace Vuyani Jarana. Internally at Vodacom, no one gave him a chance to succeed. They whispered that this man from Accenture couldn’t repeat the great feat achieved by Jarana at Vodacom. In the past five years, Vodacom, Mzimba has delivered enormous value at the Vodafone-owned mobile phone company. He ensured that Vodacom Business continued to fire on…
JSE-listed Telkom Group on Friday announced it has rejected an offer of a constortium led by its former CEO Sipho Maseko. Shareholders are referred to the Telkom announcement published on SENS on Monday, 12 June 2023 relating to an unsolicited non-binding indicative letter from a consortium consisting of Afrifund Investments Proprietary Limited, Axian Telecom and the Government Employees Pension Fund, managed by the Public Investment Corporation (collectively, the Consortium) for the acquisition of a controlling stake in Telkom (the Indicative Proposal). “The Telkom board of directors (the Board) having considered the Indicative Proposal, has decided not to continue discussions with…
The Gauteng government has announced that it wants to work with technology companies and innovators to help fight rising crime. Gauteng recorded 1 556 murders between January and March 2023. Speaking at the Huawei Eco-Connect Sub-Saharan Africa 2023 conference in Sandton on Thursday, Premier Panyaza Lesufi warned: “If we can’t fight crime, it will be the end of us all in this province.” He added: “We must ensure that we use the technology that is available and ensure that we push back crime in our province.” Premier Lesufi implored technology companies to join the Gauteng government in…
The South African government plans to connect 1.7 million households to high-speed internet. The project will be realised through the development of infrastructure that will be used by partner internet service providers (ISPs) to provide fee-based internet services. The Minister of Communications and Digital Technologies, Mondli Gungubele, said the construction of infrastructure for access has not yet started. In May 2023, the Treasury confirmed access to the allocated funds and the process to finally disburse the funds has started, he said. Gungubele was responding to parliamentary questions from Inkatha Freedom Party MP Zandile Majozi. Majozi wanted to know what progress…
Cape-based ISP Atomic Access now consistently routes content from the NAPAfrica and CINX internet exchange points to fibre networks with latency as low as 300 nanoseconds using fully Open Source software. “We see 50% less latency for packets crossing the Cape Town peering points with 80% less jitter,” says Joe Botha, Atomic co-founder and CTO. “I think we’ve proven that it is indeed possible to route at 100 Gbps speeds with just Linux.” he adds. Founded in 2018, Atomic always had an Open Networking strategy, which includes a strong belief in Open Source, Open Standards and Open Peering. Atomic is…
Local ESG tech platform Reatec, a software-as-a-service (SaaS) product that streamlines an organisation’s environmental, social and governance (ESG) programmes, is seeking local and global expansion to capitalise on the growing ESG industry. The only technology solution for ESG reporting in South Africa says its platform makes ESG reporting a reality and an opportunity as organisations look to create a tangible, practical plan that delivers real results. Hashveer Singh, chartered accountant (CA) and founder and MD of Veers Group, of which Reatec is a part, told TechFinancials that the platform currently works mainly on renewable energy infrastructure projects, helping independent power…
Chinese automotive giant Build Your Dreams (BYD) has officially launched in South Africa after unveiling the fully-electric BYD Atto 3. BYD is a rival to electric car manufacturer Tesla owned by Elon Musk. BYD transformed from a factory making rechargeable batteries to a formidable electric vehicle maker expanding globallly. The carmaker also produces battery and electric vehicle chips. BYD is launching the BYD Atto 3 with a starting price of R768,000 for the Standard range version and R835,000 for the Extended range model. All models come with a standard 5-year warranty and 100,000km maintenance plan. Why expansion into South Africa?…
BMW will be investing R4.2 billion over five years to prepare its manufacturing plant in Rosslyn in Pretoria for the electro mobility era. Fifty years ago, Plant Rosslyn was the BMW Group’s first foreign facility. It has since become a mainstay of the global production network. To mark its silver jubilee, Milan Nedeljković, BMW AG Board Member for Production, has now announced the electrification of Plant Rosslyn. Speaking in South Africa, he said: “From 2024 we will manufacture the BMW X3 as a plug-in hybrid for global export in South Africa. An investment of 4.2 billion rand (over 200 million…
JUWI Renewable Energies, a global solar, wind and hybrid project developer, EPC and operations and maintenance company, today announced that it has 400 MW of EPC projects in advanced stages of development for mines in South Africa. The news follows the financial close of the 89 MW Castle Wind project by the African Infrastructure Investment Managers (AIIM) Consortium for Sibanye-Stillwater’s mining operations, a project initially developed by JUWI for the South African government’s Renewable Energy Independent Power Producers’ Programme (REI4P). The AIIM Consortium included African Clean Energy Developments as developer and Reatile as investment partner. “We’re seeing a wave of formal requests for…
MTN SA is moving fast to become a standalone Independent Power Producer (IPP) by harnessing the power of multiple generation technologies, which will include additional solar, gas and battery energy systems, in one plant at its head office in Fairlands, Johannesburg. The plant will be a first in South Africa with five different generation technologies being housed in one plant, with a full load of 4.5MW during load shedding. MTN SA’s head office hybrid facility currently has a 2MW gas trigeneration system, a 330kW Concentrating Solar Power (CSP) Plant and a fleet of backup diesel generators. MTN SA now intends…