By Jackson Okoth
A timetable for the roll-out of the Government sponsored The East African Marine Systems (Teams) fibre optic cable has been released by contractors.
Alcatel submarines network systems announcement comes barely weeks after Seacom, a rival private-sector driven cable, gave indications that it will start operation by July this year.
"We expect a lot of movement to take place in the month of April," says Nzioka Waita, a Teams board member.
Activities lined up for April include the completion of loading and commencement of the dropping of the cable, a visit to Fujairah by the board members to inspect the equipment before the ship starts laying the cable in the sea.
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This announcement now flies on the face of earlier concerns that Teams had run into funding bottlenecks. Safaricom CEO Michael Joseph, who is Teams chairman told the press, "I don’t believe anybody has put in money yet. Many of the shareholders are taking the documents to their boards to get approval."
Shareholding ratio
The $130 million Teams project shareholding ratio includes Safaricom, Telkom Kenya and the Government of Kenya all with 20 per cent of the shares, Kenya Data Network with 10 per cent, Wananchi Online with five per cent; Jamii Telkom; 3.5 per cent and Access Kenya and Flashcom; 1.25 per cent.
Others are Econet and Africa Fibre Net of Uganda.
"We are receiving a lot of co-operation from shareholders to make sure the project happens in time and within the budget," said Waita.
The Kenyan shareholders have pledged $110 million (Sh8.6 billion), while the difference will be raised by Dubai Telecom Operator, Etisalat.
