General News
Mobile makes opportunities
- General News
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- Hilma Hashange
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To celebrate World Creativity and Innovation Week, the Namibia Business Innovation Center (NBIC) inaugurated its mobile laboratory this week Wednesday. The lab is sponsored by Samsung, Telecom Namibia, MTC and the Southern Africa Innovation Support (SAIS) group.
The purpose of the mobile laboratory is to boost innovation, build capacity as well as help commercialise entrepreneurial ideas. Samsung sponsored about 50 mobile devices including tablets installed with Android software.
An 8-day session will be held in May as part of the Heckathon application finalisation which will be followed by a software development course for beginners in July. An Android developer workshop for beginners, intermediaries and advanced users, is slated for July.
Salt computer for roadside man
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- Waldo
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Local technology firm, Salt Essential IT donated a computer to Pius Shambabi, a member of the social assistance group, Men on the Side of the Road, to enable him to study and pursue his dream of working in the computer industry.
Men on the Side of the Road (MSR), helps men to gain marketable skills to start on the path of self-sustainability and employment. MSR endeavours to connent the unemployed with job and training opportunities.This road to self-sufficiency and sustainability is assisted by companies that contribute financially or in kind.
Salt Essential IT gave Shambabi a Siemens PC to assist him in his education, internship and to help him achieve his goal of working in the IT industry. Working through the MSR project, Shambabi has worked hard to improve his own situation and to obtain a qualification at the same time.
It paid off when he was recently made an offer to work for a tertiary educational institution as part of a one-year internship. Shambabi aspires to study electrical engineering and hopes that he will one day have the opportunity to work in the IT industry.
Service standard at NaTIS to improve
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- Melba Chipepo
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The Roads Authority this week launched their Customer Service Charter for the period 2013-2016. This comes after the Roads Authority last year received numerous complaints about the quality of service at NaTIS and Transport Regulation Offices.
The acting Chief Executive Officer of the Roads Authority Conrad Lutombi said during the launch of the charter that the development of the Customer Service Charter is an important landmark that will guide the institution in its service delivery and will enable it to deliver quality service to customers especially at NaTIS offices country wide. “The Customer Service Charter will be our guiding tool to effectively and efficiently serve our customers in a professional and consistent manner”.
In addition, he mentioned that the Roads Authority has increased its staff capacity at NaTIS centres, especially front line staff such as Vehicle and Driver Examiners and Licensing officers at several NaTIS offices countrywide.
Award for Nampower partner, Aggreko
- General News
- Published Date
- Waldo
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JOHANNESBURG, - The Aggreko Shanduka cross-border power project, located at Ressano Garcia in Mozambique has been awarded Africa’s Best Fast Track Power Project in 2012 at the Africa Energy Awards. The award ceremony took place during the gala dinner of the Power and Electricity World Africa conference and exhibition earlier in April in Johannesburg.
Commissioned in July 2012, the Ressano Garcia project is recognised as the world’s first interim cross-border IPP (Independent Power Provider) project. Utilising natural gas from Mozambique’s Temane gas fields, the output of the plant is injected directly into the national grid of Mozambique on site via a purpose built substation. The project saw the generation and supply of 110 MW of power to Electricidade de Mocambique (EDM), the national utility of Mozambique and cross-border to Eskom, the South African national utility.
The project is connected to the Southern African Power Pool (SAPP) which links the power grids of nine southern African countries. Taking advantage of this exceptional transmission infrastructure and the flexible nature of Aggreko’s power installations, on 14 March it announced that it would extend the Ressano Garcia facility to add an additional 122 MW. Coming on-line within the second quarter of 2013, this additional power will be shared between EDM and NamPower, bringing the total generating capacity of Ressano Garcia to 232 MW.
More houses bring prices down
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- Daniel Kavishe
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The FNB House Price Index fell by a further 5.2 index points in November 2012 as the number of properties traded continued to increase. Namene Kalili, Manager Research and Competitor Intelligence at FNB Namibia stated, “A number of new developments pushed up the volume index and introduced new and cheaper housing stock in the market. The volume growth was spurred on by new housing developments in Okahandja, Walvis Bay and Windhoek.”
Kalili added that more importantly, volumes continue to recover in the lower price segment which struggled with structural supply throughout 2011. “For the first time in a very long time the central market is trading more properties than the monthly average back in 2007 and it is this supply which is lowering house prices for the moment,” he declared. At the same time, however, Kalili also advised that there was very little evidence of sustained volume growth over the short term to contain house prices for much longer and therefore house prices were expected to rebound once this flurry of new affordable housing subsides.
The central property prices continued to fall during November and this time by 8% month on month. According to the report, National Housing Enterprise was largely responsible for the decline in house prices as they added new housing stock to the lower end of the middle price segment. “Therefore medium term volume growth prospects for the central market remain weak, with limited support from developers as a mere 4,200m² of land was mortgaged during the month, capable of yielding 10 free standing homes,” Kalili said.
