By Ian Ortega

It is now clear that there is no escaping the Bitcoin revolution. Bitcoin is here to stay, and so is Blockchain, the technology upon which Bitcoin runs. Yet even more scary is the power consumption that is used up in the Bitcoin mining process.

An individual bitcoin transaction is estimated to use up 300kwh of electricity, an equivalent of boiling over 30,000 kettles of water.

Current global Bitcoin energy usage is 0.13 percent of the world’s electricity consumption. According to Joel Bellenson, at Bitcoin’s current growth rate of 30% per month, Bitcoin mining energy consumption will exceed global solar energy production before the next Christmas. “It will take 25 months until Bitcoin mining completely eradicates human civilisation,” he notes. “25 months at current bitcoin mining energy growth rate of 30% per month before mining exceeds 100% of all the electricity on the planet.”

The bitcoin users are estimated to be peaking towards 18 million, as per those with a Bitcoin wallet. As per UETCL records, “Uganda’s peak power system demand currently stands at 500 MW against an installed generation capacity of 851.53MW.”

This implies, that if 1% of Uganda’s population were to start mining bitcoin, UEGCL would have to construct a new dam with the same capacity of Karuma every 2 months. And this should be a very scary thought for the Electricity bodies as Bitcoin could prove to be a bigger threat to energy usage than anything.

But is UEGCL prepared for such an eventuality? Would it cope if Bitcoin mining and transactions became the order of the day in the country? Probably this may not happen. And we could see a country coming to a total standstill. The country then may surely need to open up conversations about Bitcoin and Blockchain.

By Staff Writer

For the past years, Jeff Kiwa has established himself as one of the best artiste managers we have in the industry, having  worked with top artistes like Jose Chameleone, Radio and Weasel until 2015 when he started Team No Sleep, consisting of Sheebah, Pallaso (who later left), Bakri and Akay (RIP) among others.

However with the growing Ugandan music industry, other talent managers have emerged and are giving the Team No Sleep boss and others a run for their money.

B2C soldiers manager Andy Events is one of the new talent managers on the block that have proved to be a genius in the music business.

While Jeff Kiwa’s Team No Sleep is falling apart, Andy Events has got his groove on and seems to have a lot more to offer.

Three years ago, few people knew about the B2C but Andy Events has made them stars and kept them among the fan’s favorite for the past two years, something that makes us believe that at this rate, he could beat Jeff kiwa at his game if the later doesn’t pull up his socks.

Despite having an impressive record of turning young artistes into stars, Jeff Kiwa has failed at maintaining a good artiste-manager relationship. It will be remembered that Jeff has fallen out with Jose Chameleone, Radio and Weasel, Pallaso among others.

Andy Events on the other hand has been able to keep three talented artistes (B2C) together and also maintain a good relationship with them. Anyway the true narrative will be written over the coming years.

By Our Reporter

On Wednesday this week, a report appeared in the Daily Monitor indicating that DFCU bank had been dragged to High Court by disgruntled former employees who claim they were unjustly laid off. The report states that the central bank had allegedly assured all the employees that no one would lose their job as dfcu bank took over Crane bank in January 2017. However, after the takeover some of the employees unfortunately were sacked.

Was this justified?

When dfcu bank decided to take over Crane Bank in January this year, it was after careful consideration by its board to make sure it was in line with its growth aspirations. To ensure this, different checks had to be put in place which, of course, included vetting of all their would-be employees, like any shrewd business. Like it would later emerge, some of the former employees were expatriates while others had been involved in fraudulent activities that may have contributed to the demise of Crane.

It had always been public knowledge that a significant number of Crane Bank employees were expatriates earning salaries way higher than the Ugandans which had always been an issue. These included even some of the bank’s security personnel who were often seen suited manning the entrances at the bank.

This was finally confirmed after BoU dragged Sudhir Ruparelia to Commercial court. According to the filed court documents, Crane Brank had been employing several Indian experts who were brought in to work for Crane Bank but did not appear on the regular payroll of the bank. This after a whistleblower made a cry to National Social Security Fund (NSSF) over their unremitted worker’s contributions to the fund which were calculated to be Shs52 billion. With such fraudulent activity going on with in the bank, it was expected some of the individuals would have to be dropped.

In addition to this, when dfcu Bank took over Crane Bank there was a duplication of positions at head office level and therefore it would not make business sense to retain all the employees. It also became inevitable that some of the branches would have to be merged as dfcu was already well established in some of the areas where Crane bank operated also leading to laying off of some of the employees.

So was dfcu justified in letting go of some dead weight? The answer is as obvious as light and day.