Telcos operating in Kenya have been given a fresh reason to sweat as a bill has renewed attempts to separate their mobile money business from their other operations.
The parliamentary bill seeks to create legislation that would see telcos separate their core business from ALL other ventures, on top of which they will have to seek regulatory approvals for them.
Kenya Information and Communications Bill(Amendment), 2019 proposes that the companies will only be granted the permission to operate these extra ventures once they have legally split the telecommunication business from other business and provide separate accounts and reports.
The bill reads, “A person may engage in any other business provided that such person shall; obtain the relevant licenses from the respective regulators of any industry or sector ventured into.”
Safaricom, Airtel, and Telkom Kenya will be forced to separate their activities in mobile lending, e-commerce, health, education, and agriculture, among others, should the Bill eventually become the law.
Initially the Bill had been tabled by former MP Jakoyo Midiwo, it promptly failed, and has been tabled once again by MP Elisha Odhiambo.
The telecommunications Regulatory body, Communications Authority of Kenya (CAK) has yet to address the report on the dominance in the telecommunication sector which recommended the separation of M-Pesa from Safaricom.
Related article: Safaricom loses market share for 5th straight quarter
Last year, in a guest column in a local daily, Safaricom CEO Bob Collymore alleged the firm was being targeted for its successes, and was far from the monopoly its competitors and regulators claimed it to be.
Safaricom currently enjoys 63.3% of the market share putting it miles ahead of it’s closest competitor Airtel which enjoys 23.4% of the market. Safaricom has however been losing subscribers for the past 5 consecutive financial quarters.
Should telco’s be separated from their mobile money operations? Let us know what you think in the comments.
