The Communication Commission of Kenya ( CCK) has a nice advertisement gracing the television screens.
The advertisement is obviously designed to attract the attention of all and sundry. The setting, the grammar and the presentation is above par. The actors are brilliant and the voicing professionally done.
In the advertisement, the CCK makes it clear that come September 30th, it will switch off all fake handsets.
A similar message on CCK’s website advises all subscribers to confirm whether their handsets are genuine through a certain procedure that one has to have some level of education to understand.
The advice ends by stating that if necessary, people who find that their handsets fake should replace their mobile phones in good time to avoid disconnection. Here is where the problem starts.
CCK carefully avoids completing the sentence that such acquisition will be done at the cost of the handset holder.
The problem with the well-intended CCK advert is that it transfers to the innocent customer its inability to carry out its mandate of ensuring that only genuine phones are available in the country.
Before it spends taxpayers’ money again CCK needs to ask itself some questions.
Is it the mistake of the innocent customer to have a fake handset when practically the market has more fake phones than genuine ones?
Village granny
Has CCK thought of the old granny in the village who neither has a television set nor the capacity to follow the procedure of verifying whether handsets are genuine or fake?
What will be the economic cost of switching off the fake handsets come September 30th?
