Blaze, a Safaricom product has begun a two-day digital career and skills fair targeting youth aged between 18 and 26 years.

The fair aims at engaging, educating, and empowering young Kenyans across the country by training them on career development, entrepreneurial skills, personal development, and networking skills.

This fair is going to be one of its kind in the country.

Speaking about the event, Paul Kasimu, Safaricom’s Chief Human Resources Officer said, “We are using Blaze by Safaricom’s Be Your Own Boss platform to train the youth on diverse aspects of career-development. Investing in the skills of our young people is vital to our socio-economic fortunes now and in the future. The youth are vibrant in the digital space, which presents us with an opportunity to engage and equip them with skills that are needed for productive and successful careers. ”

Being part of the Twende Tukiuke campaign, the digital career fair seeks to challenge the youth to go beyond the possible in pursuit of their dreams.

The event will be live on Blaze Kenya’s digital platforms such as Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter pages.

Participants will get an opportunity to engage and learn from various professionals and Safaricom employees such as  Rita Okuthe, Caroline Vundi of Nairobi Hospital, Dr. Kagonyi Awori, afro-centric designer and researcher, and Chairperson of Kenya Pipeline Company (KPC) Ltd and others.

The fair focuses on Entrepreneurship, Mental Health, Personal Branding, Women in Technology, Data Science, and The Future of Work.

Bars will now be required to hire Covid-19 liaison officers to ensure that all revelers observe all the measures put in place to curb the spread of Covid-19 in their facilities.

The officers will be required to restrict the number of revelers allowed in the bars and at the same time, report any suspected cases of COVID-19 infection among staff and drinkers.

This and other regulations are set to be gazetted by the government in a move seen to stop the spread of the novel coronavirus. Already, bars are suspected to among places that are spreading the virus among Kenyans.

The officers will also ensure that the workers at such facilities yet to be developed the Covid-19 code that will be used in the entertainment industry.

Just like most other establishments, the bars will be required to reduce contact between persons, designate spacious waiting and collection areas for couriers and customers as part of preventing further spreading of the disease.

The bars will also be required to display signage to show they already have the required revelers to meet the required social distance requirements.

Already, alcohol manufactures had already petitioned the government to come up with guidelines in bars to stop the spread of the disease. The industry was one of those that lost billions when the country was shut down in March when the first case was recorded in the country.

There has been concern that bars are fueling the spread of coronavirus, and for this reason, bars will be the first establishments to employ liaison officers.

Currently, bars are self-regulating themselves by cutting the capacity of revelers they can host to half, restricting drinkers at the counters, having contact free bill payment among other regulations.

Already the country has confirmed more than 80,000 covid-19 cases and more than 800 death making November the darkest month in the fight against the disease.

The regulations come at a time the county is witnessing a spike in daily Covid-19 infections, following the opening of the country in September and the subsequent reopening of learning institutions and bars

“Every establishment shall appoint and adequately train a Covid-19 liaison officer. The liaison officer shall be the point of contact with the Ministry of Health, Sub-County Liquor Licensing Committee, and other sector players to keep abreast of the emerging health, safety, and hygiene information and preventative measures related to Covid-19,” the regulations read in part.

The country shut down bars on March 25 after reporting the first coronavirus case occasioning an economic meltdown in the industry characterized by thousands of job losses and permanent closure of some establishments.

During its operations, Sportpesa was the second most profitable company in Kenya after Safaricom documents show.

The company has for the first time disclosed its annual sales of Sh149.7 billion, putting to focus the extent of the gambling craze in Kenya and the huge amounts of money available to its investors.

According to documents seen by ShopaXo and presented to the courts, the firm averaged daily bets worth Sh408 Million or Sh149.7 billion in the year ending 2018.

The same year, the company paid out Ksh. 129.6 billion in winnings leaving it with a whopping Ksh. 20.1 billion enough to generate Ksh. 10 billion profit having paid all the expenses.

Assuming that the company has 5000 employees, it would comfortably pay each Ksh.100000 for the next quarter of a century.

Sportpesa, documents also show that it has a higher market capitalization than the Equity bank, the second-largest bank in Kenya.

SportPesa, Second-Largest Company In Kenya

These figures make SportPesa the second-largest company in Kenya by revenue after Safaricom, which recorded a turnover of Sh251.2 billion in the year ended March 2020.

Pevans East Africa, the company that runs SportPesa, said that it paid out Sh129.6 billion or 86.5 percent of the bets placed in the year 2018.

Its closure in October last year due to allegations of not paying taxes has seen its investors suffering losses that run into billions of shillings although there have been indications that the company will be allowed to resume its operations.

However, the resumptions of operations have been halted after fights broke out pitting a local majority shareholder against Bulgarian owners after SportPesa announced its return under the Milestone which was only licensed in October.

SportPesa CEO Ronald Karauri, who owns a minority stake in the company of 7%, and other investors have fallen out with businessmen Paul Wanderi Ndung’u and Asenath Wacera Maina, who have a combined stake of 38 percent. This matter is currently in court.

It is said that three investors from Bulgaria — Guerassim Nikolov of the ill-fated Toto 6/49 lottery, Valentina Nikolaeva Mineva, and Ivan Kalpakchiev—are said to have provided the gambling and digital technology expertise in the partnership.

This shareholder war threatens to break the six-year partnership of wealthy, politically influential Kenyans and Bulgarian investors that helped found SportPesa, which made its huge fortune from the online betting craze in Kenya.

In court, KRA says that it failed to collect the taxes from Pevans East Africa because due to the company’s alleged criminal activities.

Dominic Keng’ara, an investigations officer at KRA, said in a sworn affidavit, “That the preliminary investigations have established that the applicant [Pevans] have jointly and severally been involved in activities suspected to be intricate and complex tax evasion and money laundering syndicate.”

The agencies involved in the probe include the KRA, the National Police Service, the National Intelligence Service, the Central Bank of Kenya, and the Financial Reporting Centre.

The tax standoff has frozen SportPesa’s operations for nearly 18 months. Now efforts are being made to revive the popular gaming brand under a new outfit, which is majority-owned by some of Pevans’ founders.