Africa Tech News Roundup 12.10.08

worn saturday wall, via Meg Rorison's photostream

Regulation | Minister Orders Audit of Safaricom's M-Pesa Service [Business Daily Africa, 12/10]
http://tinyurl.com/62l6xc
A day before Zain re-launched their own money transfer service, Finance Minister John Michuku ordered an audit of M-Pesa.

Apps | Africa Tech Year in Review 2008 [AppAfrica, 12/8]
http://tinyurl.com/6y6xuc
Jon ranks Google's push into the continent as the number two Africa tech story. Sign up for Jon's podcast, which discusses the use of Twitter in the Ghanaian election, here.

Mobile Internet | Mobile Internet Usage on the Rise in Nigeria [Balancing Act, 12/7]
http://tinyurl.com/33n85
During Q2 and Q3, the percentage of Nigerians accessing the Internet via mobile phones rose 25% while the percentage accessing via a PC grew only 3%, according to a Nielsen survey.

Infrastructure | Nigeria's Suburban Set to Operate a Lagos-Abidjan Regional Terrestrial Fibre Link [Balancing Act, 12/7]
http://tinyurl.com/q7yc8 "As the west coast of Africa prepares for cheaper international bandwidth from three possible contenders (Glo One, Main One and WACS), the race is now on to provide terrestrial fibre links to take traffic to the cheapest landing station."

Politics | Ghana's Elections Go To a Runoff [BBC News, 12/10]
http://tinyurl.com/69yx6p
"Ghana's presidential election must be decided in a second-round vote, the electoral commission has announced." An in-depth analysis is here.

Politics | Why Somalia Matters [Vanity Fair, 12/5]
http://tinyurl.com/6b6wt3
Hartlay argues that if America is not careful, Somalia will become the next Afghanistan.