Why Wangusi is not sitting pretty at Communications Authority

Communications Authority of Kenya Director General Francis Wangusi‘s term expires in August this year but is yet to re-apply. [PHOTO: JENIPHER WACHIE/STANDARD]

Right from the start it was clear that Francis Wangusi’s term at the Communications Authority (CA), then the Communications Commission of Kenya (CCK) was not going to be an easy one. His predecessor, Charles Njoroge was hounded out of office after court and boardroom wrangles that went on for more than a year, challenging his re-appointment by former Information Minister Samuel Poghisio for a second term.

Mr Wangusi took over the leadership of one of Kenya’s most important regulator on August 2013 as the director-general for a three-year period which ends in August this year. At the time, mobile phone operators Safaricom and Airtel were still smarting from a vicious price war that had seen voice call rates fall by up to 75 per cent.

His first business was to drastically cut the mobile termination rate against a tide of aggressive lobbing that had gone all the way up to the office of then President Mwai Kibaki. Last week, CA put out an advert for the position of the director-general, saying that prospective candidates should have at least 10 years’ experience working in a senior management position.

According to Wangusi, who is yet to decide on whether he will re-apply for the position, prospective candidates should also have a ‘thick skin’, endurance for protracted battles and be media savvy. “There are people who do not want me to do my job and I have been fought by people who do not want the regulator to do its work,” Wangusi told journalists at the CA headquarters last week. The briefing was called to address the impending regime change at the institution. The advertisement by CA seeking a new director-general has been met by speculation in the industry as to the motive and timing of Wangusi’s exit.

Emerging needs

At the Connected East Africa summit earlier this month, Information and Communication Cabinet Secretary Fred Matiang’i said the Government is set to restructure the CA in line with emerging needs in Kenya’s Sh600 billion ICT industry. “We intend to see a restructured CA in place by 2016 made for a new ICT sector in Kenya which will be complete with effective research and development facility,” he stated. The restructuring is expected to be the final phase of an overhaul in the regulator kicked off by the Kenya Information and Communications Bill of 2013 that re-branded the Authority from the previous Communications Commission of Kenya.

Wangusi’s term at the CA has put him in the middle of several storms, from the digital migration fiasco that saw three TV stations shut down for three weeks; to being accused of taking sides in the war between corporate giants Equity Bank and Safaricom in the control over the mobile money transfer business.

This June, Wangusi is set to make important announcements that will open a new battle front in Kenya’s telecommunication’s industry. After several years of listening to arguments that mobile service provider Safaricom should be declared dominant player, the CA is set to publish new industry regulations that could see a realignment of the industry. “Our position as a regulator has been that we did not have regulations that spell out who is a dominant player and what qualifies one to be declared as one in the past,” he stated.

“So we have been drafting the regulations which I will be announcing as soon as June this year,” he stated.

Wangusi was however, tight-lipped on whether the authority will break up Safaricom into smaller units to allow for a level playing field as suggested by Airtel but stated that there will be definite policy actions taken despite any change in leadership at the CA.