Mobile firms and CCK in drive for service fund
Communications Commission of Kenya director-general Francis Wangusi. The Communications Commission of Kenya and mobile phone companies will unveil a roadmap to the launch of the Universal Service Fund. PHOTO/FILE
What you need to know:
- The fund was set up to help step up telecommunication infrastructure in rural and remote areas, which are normally considered financially unviable.
- The committee had summoned the regulator to explain why the fund was still dormant almost five years since it was set up.
The Communications Commission of Kenya and mobile phone companies will unveil a roadmap to the launch of the Universal Service Fund.
The fund was set up to help step up telecommunication infrastructure in rural and remote areas, which are normally considered financially unviable.
Safaricom, Airtel, Orange and yuMobile are meeting with the regulator under the Universal Service Advisory Council.
They hope to iron out issues that had threatened to scuttle the fund’s administration.
The firms had protested their exclusion from the fund’s board which is now on the table for resolution.
“We have opened an account and banked Sh1 billion. The council is meeting to determine where the funds will be used and to chose who will implement it,” Communications Commission of Kenya director-general Francis Wangusi said when he appeared before the House committee on Energy, Communications and Information.
The committee had summoned the regulator to explain why the fund was still dormant almost five years since it was set up.
