National

 WINDHOEK - Mobile Telecommunications Company (MTC) has announced that as of  November 9, 2018 it has reached the 2.5 million active subscribers mark on its books. This is quite a remarkable feat considering the Namibian Statistics Agency estimates that the entire Namibian population is 2.413 million people. MTC’s calculation is based on an active subscriber’s definition by global industry standards, meaning that an active SIM subscriber implies that the SIM card should have been active in the last three months to be defined as such. An inactive SIM card less than three months is not considered be as an active SIM card. 

WINDHOEK – Direct Pay Online (DPO) Group, one of the leading online payments service provider in Africa, announced that it obtained a Payment Facilitator licence from the Payments Association of Namibia (PAN) at the end of September. The licence, which took them about a year to secure, enables the DPO Group to roll out its payment services directly to Namibian businesses and entrepreneurs.

WINDHOEK - Capricorn Group, Bank Windhoek’s holding company, recently launched its seven month Management Development Programme (MDP), in partnership with the University of Stellenbosch Business School (USB).

WINDHOEK - Chairperson of the Bankers Association of Namibia (BAN), Vetumbuavi Mungunda, has advised that the industry will completely phase out cheques as a payment instrument by June 2019.

WINDHOEK - A service level agreement signed this week between the Namibia University of Science and Technology (NUST) and the Social Security Commission (SSC) will facilitate skills training in gemology, jewellery design and entrepreneurship for the country’s unemployed youth.  The agreement, for which N$2 million has been reserved by SSC, was signed on Tuesday by Dr Tjama Tjivikua, NUST vice-chancellor (pro tem), and SSC chief executive officer, Milka Mungunda. 

SHARM EL-SHEIKH – A total of 114 parties to the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) have ratified the convention’s Nagoya Protocol on Access and Benefit Sharing (ABS) – which calls for the fair and equitable benefit sharing arising from the commercial use of genetic resources and related traditional knowledge.

LÜDERITZ – Uukumwe Youth Empowerment Consortium (PTY) Ltd, which built and opened its Cape fur seal processing factory in Lüderitz last year with the aim of enabling the processing of seal pelts, meat, blubber and its by-products, recorded well progress for its second season since it started operating.

WINDHOEK – Six former leaders of different liberation movements from Southern Africa are meeting in Windhoek for a summit aimed at strengthening ties between their current leaders.

WINDHOEK - The University of Namibia (Unam) student who was arrested for murder earlier this year is expected to tender his preliminary plea in the matter next year.

WINDHOEK – The Ministry of Poverty Eradication and Social Welfare and the World Food Programme (WFP) country office, yesterday launched the food bank Scope technology that digitises beneficiaries’ registration and captures biometric data, enabling the ministry to serve them better.