Chebitwey, Washington Akumu shortlisted for Telkom Kenya job

The current CEO of the Kenya Yearbook, Dennis Chebitwey and the former Safaricom Public Relations and Promotions manager Washington Akumu, are among those shortlisted for the corporate affairs head position at Telkom Kenya that was recently vacated by Angela Mumo.

They are joined on the shortlist by Nelly Githaka who used to be the sponsorships manager at Safaricom before leaving in 2010 and Tom Ogola who formerly worked under Angela Mumo before heading to Mabati Rolling Mills.

Mumo left the job for a similar position at Microsoft that had been advertised a couple of months ago.

Chebitwey is a veteran PR strategist who used to work at Gina Din Communications before leaving for the Kenya Yearbook position.

Akumu on the other hand came from the newsroom serving as the Business Editor at the Daily Nation before he took up the post at Safaricom.

Ogola has also been in PR. He worked at the Africa Practice agency handling such clients as GTV, Telkom Kenya and so on before he took a position as a Media & External Stakeholders Relations manager at Telkom.

He then moved to Mabati Rolling Mills and then on to a law firm before starting his own consultancy.

Nelly Githaka has worked for Safaricom and is currently the general manager of Emergency Plus Medical Services.

All these candidates are excellent choices for a post said to command upwards of Sh800,000 a month.

Chebitwey is an excellent PR guy not just in practice but in person. He can work his way through the labyrinth of government offices and parliament and has a keen understanding of lobbying legislators.

Akumu of course brings experience from Safaricom a much bigger entity than Telkom and also understands the news business.

Ogola has the advantage of having worked at Telkom before and having handled many of the duties that will be required of the position.

Githaka would seem to the dark horse in this race but undoubtedly she has her qualities if she was shortlisted along with such a calibre of individuals.

It will be hard to call this one but we see it coming down to Chebitwey because of his experience and inside knowledge of the workings of the government machinery (the government is a key stakeholder for Telkom) and Ogola because of his insider credentials.

Akumu and Githaka are excellent choices too who could be disadvantaged by their "outsider" status.

But at the end of the day it will come down to what exactly Telkom is looking for in the person it wants to hire.

KENYA-ETHIOPIA 400MW POWER PROJECT TAKES OFF

A 686Km high-voltage line to bring 400MW of power purchased from Ethiopia into the Kenyan national grid is set to take off with the signing today of the funding deal with the International Development Agency (IDA), the concessionary-lending arm of the World Bank Group.

The Sh54billion transmission line is part a regional strategy to pool power that will gradually include Uganda and then Tanzania.

The power will come from the controversial Gibe III dam in Ethiopia whose construction has not been without hitches as pressure-groups raised the spectre of adverse downstream effects of damming a river that feeds into Lake Turkana.

Ethiopia is estimated to have 45,000MW of power and first sought guarantee from Kenya that it would take up the power if the nation undertook to put up the HEP dam.

The African Development Bank has already given Sh30billion toward the project while the French Development Bank (ADB) through its infrastructure-arm Proparco and the Government of Kenya will also partially fund the project whose total cost is put at Sh94billion.

Two High-Voltage Direct Current converters will be put up at Suswa in Kenya and Wolayita Sodo in Ethiopia.

The project will be implemented by the Kenya Electricity Transmission Company (Ketraco) and the Ehtiopia Electric Power Corporation (EEPCO).

Kenya will buy the power at 5 US cents per Kilowatt Hour which is much lower than most power producers sell their power to monopoly distributor Kenya Power. Lake Turkana Wind Project for example, proposes to sell power to Kenya Power at 7 US cent/Kwh.

The power will transmit at 600Kilovolts much higher than the beefed up 400Kv line being built from Mombasa to Nairobi to bring power from the likes of Rabai Power station, Kipevu III and the proposed 600MW coal-fired plant in Kilifi.

Indeed, Ketraco is embarking on a stabilization project of the national grid so that it can handle these high voltages.

The power will come in direct current form which is much cheaper to transmit over long distances and sees lower dissipation rates (wastage).

Two high-voltage DC converters will be built at Suswa and Sodo. The Sodo one will convert generating alternating current into direct current for transmission and at Suswa the DC will be converted to AC and injected into the national grid.

The route from Ethiopia, according to project documents will be:from Ethiopia into Kenya approximately 90 km West of Moyale town and traverses Marsabit, Samburu, Isiolo, Laikipia, Nyandarua and Nakuru. From Moyale the transmission line route runs adjacent to the Great North Highway (Marsabit – Moyale) in a southerly direction avoiding Marsabit National Park. From Marsabit area the route runs southwards at a maximum distance of 500 m parallel to the main Isiolo – Marsabit Highway to Laisamis.

At Laisamis Town the proposed RoW runs close to the road as it enters Losai game reserve keeping a range of about 400 m to 800 m off the road reserve then runs further on to Merille where it diverts slightly westwards running east of Matthews Range, 6 km east of the Lololokwe Mountain peak. It then runs through a stretch of fairly flat land covered by thorny shrubs and bushes, and then turns southwards to the Ngoborbit plateaus and ridges dropping altitude down into Laikipia.

In Laikipia, the proposed RoW continues through the extreme western section of Mpala Ranch which is covered by scattered thickets and bushes. Then it crosses Mutara River into Ndaragwa. The line runs on top ridge of Shamata and then sharply drops altitude to the flat plains of Olobolossat, 3.7 kilometres eastwards of Lake Ol Bolossat. It then traverses the Olkalou Settlement Scheme and cuts across Malewa River, climbing a steep hill then drops altitude to the flat land of Marangishu (karati) and on-wards to Kijabe after crossing the Nakuru – Nairobi highways into plains east of Mt. Longonot into the proposed Suswa Substation.

KENYA'S EVA CHEMGOREM WINS DSTV POSTER COMPETITION

Eutelsat.

DsTV and satellite services provider Eutelsat have announced the winners of the DsTV Eutelsat competition which featured students from across Africa with East Africa emerging the big winners.

Anthony Oyom of Uganda scooped best prize for his essay "A watchful eye from above the heaves" which could be both brilliant but also spooky (Big brother is watching) while Kenyan school girl Eva Chemgorem's poster with the more reassuring title, "Africa United through satellites" emerged top.

The students will get an opportunity to travel to France early next year and will also receive other prizes in country such as laptops and decoders.

Eutelsat operates several satellites across Europe, Middle East and Africa including Satellite 16A which covers sub-Saharan Africa.

DsTV with its 6million subscribers on the continent uses these satellites hence the competition's partnership.

DsTV and its new stablemate, digital terrestrial service GoTV are the twin prongs, the Naspers-owned Multichoice with its two content arms, MNET and Super Sport intend to use to extend dominance on the continent.

Chinese Star Times is also investing billions of shillings in a DVB-T2 network to get a slice of the estimated 4million TV market in Kenya.