Eighteen-year-old Safaricom has released their sustainability report for the year April 2017 – March 2018 and the report reveals that the company paid Kenya’s Communication Authority (CA) a total of two hundred and ninety-three million five hundred and twenty-seven thousand, eight hundred and thirty-six shillings (Kes.293,527,836) in fines, for poor quality services as per CA’s standards.
This huge figure is actually an increase of 46.5% over what Safaricom was fined for poor services in 2016, which stood at over Kes.157 million. This is a worrying trend as Safaricom is Kenya’s largest telco, a position that warrants the company to be offering better services and not declining in quality like it was witnessed.
Despite the decline in service quality evidence by the increase in fines, Safaricom’s contribution to Kenya’s economy has increased. The company now accounts for 6.5% of Kenya’s GDP with its value chain growing by Kes.57 billion to stand at Kes.543 billion.
The company does not state exactly what tests it failed, neither does the watchdog, CA. However, it is hard to imagine what the competitors faced in fines over the same period. Speaking of which, the latest data from CA shows that Safaricom has a market share of 71.9% towering over other players, who have slowly been gaining some piece of the pie.
