Communication Authority gives Safaricom a week to explain network glitch

Safaricom CEO Bob Collymore

Communications Authority of Kenya (CA) has given Safaricom a week to provide a comprehensive explanation on what caused a major outage of its network on Monday.

The glitch, which saw its services go offline for hours, affected millions of its customers and businesses countrywide.

The telecommunications industry regulator said yesterday the report will inform the action it will take, including imposing penalties on the telco.

Director-General Francis Wangusi said if the regulator finds that there was negligence on the part of Safaricom, it could pay a fine of up to 0.2 per cent of its revenues, which would translate to Sh350 million based on the company’s Sh177 billion service revenue in the year to March 2016.

“If we find there was an act of negligence or a deliberate action, then we will penalise them,” said Mr Wangusi.