Dominance report on Kenya’s telecommunication industry out in February

Communications Authority of Kenya headquarters (PHOTO: FILE)

NAIROBI, KENYA: The Communications Authority of Kenya has said it will this February make public a controversial report on the state of competition in the telecommunications sector, close to a year after the conclusion of the study.

The telecoms industry regulator had commissioned the study and among the areas of probe was the extent of Safaricom dominance in voice and mobile money against the background of reports that the firm could have used its position to frustrate competition.

The study was undertaken by Analysys Mason in 2016 and the UK research firm handed in a draft report early 2017. CA has however failed to publish the report throughout last year.

“The Authority is planning to host a stakeholders’ workshop to share the findings of the study and receive further inputs from the public and other stakeholders on February 20,” said CA in a statement.

“Subsequently, the Authority shall release the final report including a roadmap for implementation of the adopted competition study recommendations.”

CA was reacting to accusations by the Consumer Federation of Kenya (COFEK) a segment of the industry that it had started piecemeal implementation of the report without consulting the public. This followed the pilot implementation of mobile money interoperability, which was also part of the recommendations by Analysys Mason.

“The pilot on mobile money interoperability rolled was indeed an independent initiative of mobile telecommunications industry that had nothing to do with the outcome of the competition study,” said CA.