Speaking at the centre’s launch in Kampala, the dean of the Faculty of Computing and Information Technology at Makerere University, Ms Josephine Nabukenya, said: “According to a 2004 research, 90 per cent of respondents said they had been victims of identity theft whereas at least 25 per cent confessed to having got involved in activities related to cybercrime.”

The African centre for Cyberlaw and Cybercrime Prevention is an initiative of the United Nations’ African Institute for the Prevention of Crime and the Treatment of offenders. The Computer Misuse Bill that is expected to curb crime was passed by Parliament recently and is only awaiting approval by the president to make it law.

Source – The Citizen

Called the ‘Citizens’ budget’, the version by the Policy Forum eliminates language barriers to enable ordinary people to better understand the budget execution process.
Policy Forum chairman Moses Kulaba said the goal was to encourage citizens’ interest and involvement in the government budgeting.
The forum is a network of over 100 civil society organisations.
It believes making budgetary information more accessible to the public encourages interest and participation in deciding how their money is acquired and spent.

Mr Kulaba said ‘Citizens’ budgets’ had been working well in Uganda and South Africa.
However, he noted that the Citizens’ budget would not replace the government budget.
“It is only a supplement that makes the information more accessible,” he said.
The forum hopes the government will also be simplifying its budget to improve budget transparency.

Source The Citizen

Called the ‘Citizens’ budget’, the version by the Policy Forum eliminates language barriers to enable ordinary people to better understand the budget execution process.
Policy Forum chairman Moses Kulaba said the goal was to encourage citizens’ interest and involvement in the government budgeting.
The forum is a network of over 100 civil society organisations.
It believes making budgetary information more accessible to the public encourages interest and participation in deciding how their money is acquired and spent.

Mr Kulaba said ‘Citizens’ budgets’ had been working well in Uganda and South Africa.
However, he noted that the Citizens’ budget would not replace the government budget.
“It is only a supplement that makes the information more accessible,” he said.
The forum hopes the government will also be simplifying its budget to improve budget transparency.

Source The Citizen

Called the ‘Citizens’ budget’, the version by the Policy Forum eliminates language barriers to enable ordinary people to better understand the budget execution process.
Policy Forum chairman Moses Kulaba said the goal was to encourage citizens’ interest and involvement in the government budgeting.
The forum is a network of over 100 civil society organisations.
It believes making budgetary information more accessible to the public encourages interest and participation in deciding how their money is acquired and spent.

Mr Kulaba said ‘Citizens’ budgets’ had been working well in Uganda and South Africa.
However, he noted that the Citizens’ budget would not replace the government budget.
“It is only a supplement that makes the information more accessible,” he said.
The forum hopes the government will also be simplifying its budget to improve budget transparency.

Source – The Citizen

The London Stock Exchange listed company said yesterday in a statement that the licence allows for construction to start as soon as the detailed planning has been completed – currently scheduled for the last quarter of this year.

“This is the first modern era gold project to be developed in the Lupa goldfield, and we believe a successful mine will benefit not only the company but importantly the development of our neighbours and the economy of Tanzania,” said the firm’s executive chairman Walton Imrie.

The licence follows the approval from the Tanzanian minister of Energy and Minerals of the company’s application and a letter of offer issued to Shanta on Monday.

Commissioning is planned for the last quarter of 2011, with initial production at approximately 30,000 tonnes per month/year or 28,000 ounces of gold per annum.

Last week the company received environmental certification after completing a definitive feasibility study within 12 months.

Contracts are currently being negotiated with the construction and production suppliers. Negotiations are also underway with other supply contractors including critical agreements with the power utility, Tanesco.

The Chunya mine development project is situated near the Saza and Mbagala villages in the Mbeya Region.

In August Shanta announced the completion of the feasibility study on the project, which saw total production of 313,000oz of gold, from a total resource of 642,716oz, at an average grade of 2.39g/t.

The Chunya project has an estimated capital cost of $23.19 million, and Shanta has hired Environmental, Process and Mining Consultants Ltd (EPMC) to carry out a detailed design of the Chunya mine. EMPC previously carried out the feasibility study for the project.

The detailed design of the Chunya mine is expected to be completed by November 2010, and mine construction is expected to start before the year’s end.
Shanta is also studying the economic viability of another gold project, the Singida project, which if proven viable would be turned into a gold mine.

Source The Citizen

Managing director Bashir Awale said
during an Iftar organised by the bank to its customers in Dar es Salaam on Tuesday that the Shariah-compliant banking would be improved to enable more clients to join it.

“We currently receive about new 50 customers per week; our aim is to increase or even double that number,” he said.

The bank also plans to install more automated teller machines to bring services closer to the clientele.

Stanbic is the first bank in Africa to start the Shariah banking to meet the needs of the Islamic community.

The scheme also prohibits the Muslim community from investing in businesses that provide goods or services that are considered contrary to the Islamic principles.

It is a system of banking that is consistent with the principles of Islamic Law (Shariah), which in practice prohibits the payments or acceptance of interest fees for the lending and acceptance of money.

Source – The Citizen

The network is the Internet registry for .tz domain names. But it will now use the accredited firms to decentralise the registry services.

Some of the certified companies include the University Computing Centre Ltd (UCC), Simbanet (T) Ltd, IT Farm Ltd, Habari-Node Ltd, Twigatech Ltd, Afsat Communications Ltd and Capital Technologies Ltd.

Others include One and One Internet Solutions Ltd, Aptus Technologies Ltd, Systems 2000 Ltd, Sihebs Technologies Ltd and Dovetel (T) Ltd.

The .tzNIC manager, Mr Abibu Ntahigiye, said in Dar es Salaam on Tuesday that the registrars would not be allowed to charge fees that exceed those approved by the network.
However, he said they will get a commission of 20 per cent of the fees they charge. “All the registrars will be able to access the system round the clock,” he noted.

For his part, the director general of Tanzania Communication Regulatory Authority (TCRA), Prof John Nkoma, said the service will boost the country’s image as more companies would identify with Tanzania through the use of .tz domain.

“The .tz provides not only a globally recognized internet identity, but also an association to Tanzania as a unique Internet identity. It also improves the promotional chances based on harmony, attractive investment conditions and abundant natural resources available in our country,” he said.

The tzNIC, which is a non-profit company, was established in 2006 to administer and manage operations of the Tanzania country code Top Level Domain Name (.tzccTLD) and it’s associated Second Level Domains.

The country code Top Level Domains (ccTLDs) are among the national resources that are managed in the public interest of each individual sovereign country. Domain names are unique identities on the Internet and a .tz domain name provides an identity that is distinctly associated with Tanzania.

Source – The Citizen

Home Secretary G.K. Pillai will meet officials from the Department of Telecommunications, the Intelligence Bureau and the National Technical Research Organisation — a cyber intelligence organization — to discuss BlackBerry security issues, Home ministry spokesman Onkar Kedia said.

A decision on whether to ban service is “likely” to be reached tonight, Kedia said. There one million BlackBerry users in India.

RIM has shown few signs of capitulating to India’s demands for real time access to encrypted corporate e-mail, which the Canadian company maintains is technically impossible for it to provide.

Government officials, speaking anonymously to local media, have suggested that India may be willing to extend the deadline.

RIM is facing widespread concern over its strong data encryption, which is beloved by corporate customers eager to guard secrets but troublesome for some governments in the Middle East and Asia, which worry it could be used by militants to avoid detection.

The controversy, which reaches across Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Indonesia, Lebanon and India, sent RIM’s stock price to a 16-month low Friday.

Striking the right balance between national security and corporate privacy is especially important to Indian outsourcing companies eager to protect client data.

“India is termed an outsourcing hub for the US and Europe so data security is a primary issue. If there is any data leakage, we lose business,” said Chetan Samant, 35, a manager at a software association as he thumbed his BlackBerry waiting for a flight from Mumbai to Nagpur recently.

He believes BlackBerry usage is so widespread in India now that it would be politically difficult for the government to enact a ban.

Source – The Citizen

This is aimed at enabling them to access markets in the wider East African Community (EAC).
“Some of our members were opposed to the formation of the common market but that was inevitable,” CTI business development services director Cecilia Chambaka told the Citizen in Dar es Salaam yesterday. “Our duty is to educate them on how to orient to it.”

To begin with, she said, the manufacturers’ umbrella body and the East African Speakers Bureau would organise an Eastern and Southern Africa Trade and Industrial Expo next month.

The five-day event will take place in Dar es Salaam from September 20 and will bring together businesspeople, industrialists and representatives from business associations in Eastern and Southern Africa.

“We have earmarked business leaders who have successfully ventured into the regional markets to present their success stories and act as role models,” she said.EAC secretary general Juma Mwapachu will officiate at the event.

Last month, Tanzania, Uganda, Kenya, Rwanda and Burundi launched the EAC common market.
In 2008, the Southern African Development Community (SADC) whose members include Tanzania became a free trade area (FTA), with more than 260 million people.

SADC, EAC and the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (Comesa) are also planning to form an FTA.

They have set up a task force led by Mr Mwapachu to spearhead the coordination
If the three blocs that have a population of 527 million form the FTA, they will have a combined gross domestic product of about $625 billion.

Source The Citizen

“It’s all about expanding our network as fast as possible,” managing director Adwina Lupembe told The Citizen yesterday in Dar es Salaam.MKCB had Sh9.1 billion customer deposits during its first year of operation.

“Our bank has recorded a tremendous achievement within its one year of existence and we are very proud to reach that level,” she said.The bank also provided skills on financial management to operators of small and medium-sized enterprises during the period.

She noted that the provision of education was intended to increase the knowledge of mainly young people on financing so that they could spend judiciously and invest and run businesses well.

She said the knowledge of the basics of personal finance such as variable expenses, interest rates, and budgeting and disposable incomes was low.

The programme is also aimed at increasing the percentage of people who access banking services from the current 12 to 15 in the next five years.The bank’s challenges include the shortage of branches, strong competition and difficulties in having an additional capital.

The bank had an initial capital of Sh6.7 billion that was raised from local civil societies and individual Tanzanians.

Source – The Citizen