Author: Chris Anu

AFRINIC is the regional internet registry for Africa and the Indian Ocean region. The Africa Network Information Centre (AFRINIC),the regional internet registry responsible for managing internet protocol (IP)address allocation on the continent, has finally concluded its latest board elections.Headquartered in Ebene, Mauritius, AFRINIC is the regional internet registry for Africa and the Indian Ocean region.Its core responsibilities include the allocation and management of internet number resources, primarily IP addresse sand autonomous system numbers, within its service region.It also provides support, training and community outreach to help build a resilient and secure internet infra structure in Africa.In a statement yesterday, AFRINIC…

Discovery Bank CEO Hylton Kallner Discovery Bank is cementing its place as a serious digital challenger in the South African market. In its full-year results released published last week, for the period ending 30 June 2025, the bank reported positive customer growth numbers, even breaking even for the first time. In this in-depth interview, Discovery Bank CEO Hylton Kallner tells TechCentral’s Nkosinathi Ndlovu and Duncan McLeod about the progress it has made in its strategy, where its newly acquired customers are coming from, his views on upcoming changes to the National Payment System, the role of stablecoins and cryptocurrencies, and…

Inside the MultiChoice City building in Randburg, Johannesburg. MultiChoice, which is being bought by Canal+ in a $3 billion deal, has received all the approvals it needs to restructure the company, ensuring the new entity has empowerment shareholders.The purchase amount currently equates to R52.2 billion, based on this morning’s exchange rate of R17.36.In July, the Competition Tribunal conditionally approved the multibillion-rand merger between South African-based video entertainment firm MultiChoice and French media giant Canal+.As part of the competition authorities’ requirements, Canal+ and MultiChoice committed R30 billion to maintaining MultiChoice’s headquarters in South Africa, continued funding for local content and live…

Naspers has declared and finalised a five-for-one subdivision of both its “N” and “A” shares, saying the move will make the stock more accessible to retail investors. The implementation will kick in from Monday, 6 October 2025. New N ordinary shares will list on the JSE from Wednesday, 1 October, with the record date set for Friday, 3 October. Management’s rationale is straightforward: the Naspers N share price has become one of the highest nominal prices on the JSE, which can crimp liquidity and discourage participation from smaller investors. The market has rewarded the simplification and capital returns – and,…

MCP Hackathon to embed African contexts in next-gen AI. Cortex Hub has launched the MCP Hackathon Africa 2025, a continent-wide initiative designed to embed African languages, culture and priorities into the next generation of artificial intelligence (AI).Cortex Hub says the eight-week programme aims to unite developers, researchers, start-ups and students to build practical solutions using the Model Context Protocol (MCP), an emerging open standard that enables applications to deliver structured, locally relevant information to large language models.”This is Africa’s opportunity to move from being consumers of AI to creators of the standards that govern it,” says Andile Ngcaba, patron of Cortex Hub.…

Eskom CEO Dan Marokane Eskom CEO Dan Marokane has again pledged that the state-owned power utility will hold future electricity tariff hikes to single-digit increases, a major shift in tone from earlier double-digit increases that have rattled consumers and businesses, pressured economic growth, and fuelled inflation. Speaking in an interview with Newzroom Afrika, Marokane said Eskom has accepted it must “live within” annual increases of less than 10% to support South Africa’s economic recovery. Annual consumer price inflation in July was 3.5%. “We are certain that we will be asking nothing more than a single-digit increase going forward,” Marokane said.…

Winners of the ITWeb Brainstorm CIO Decade of Service awards in 2024: AfriSam’s Louise van der Bank and the University of the Witwatersrand’s Dr Stanley Mpofu. To honour the outstanding contributions of South Africa’s CIOs over the past year, ITWeb Brainstorm, in partnership with MTN Business, is introducing two new CIO awards for 2025.The publication is calling on the ICT community to help identify the most deserving candidates.Last year, in tandem with the 10th anniversary of the CIO Survey, Brainstorm and MTN Business ran a one-off awards process to celebrate two CIOs who had been at the top of their…

Competition Commission deputy commissioner Hardin Ratshisusu Artificial intelligence poses a challenge for competition regulators, which must balance a desire for innovation and economic growth with the possibility that monopolistic, AI-driven markets could develop, leading to the exclusion of some segments of society. If regulators are unable to get this balance right, they could stifle the economic growth promised by AI. This is according to Hardin Ratshisusu, deputy commissioner of the Competition Commission, who was speaking at the Brics International Competition Conference in Cape Town last week. The conference was led by competition authorities from Brazil, Russia, India, China and South…

ICASA wants to extend its almost decade-long focus on the state of competition in subscription TV broadcasting services. It’s another bumper week on National Treasury’s eTenders Portal, with almost 700 new opportunities advertised. The ICT sector, however, will have to be content with looking to a handful of public sector organisations for this week’s most interesting tenders. The Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (ICASA) takes the headline with the news it is looking for a service provider to assist it in conducting an inquiry into the effective competitiveness of television subscription broadcasting services. The initiative is the latest in…

Trade minister Parks Tau It felt like good progress was being made on two fronts – easing the labour law burden on small companies and enabling lending to small businesses. But by the end of the week, the second of those had shockingly been withdrawn despite its obvious benefit to a large part of the economy. Positive reforms are essential to turning around our poor economic growth and tackling our unemployment crisis. Through Nedlac and initiatives like Business for South Africa, we work extensively to help develop proposed policy changes that can contribute to improving the business environment. The new…