Airtel Kenya Loses Ksh 670 million in Airtel Money through Fraudulent Staff

Kenya’s second-leading mobile operator Airtel-Kenya has lost 670 million shillings through employee fraud in its Airtel Money Platform in 2018.

The revelation was made by its founding company Airtel Africa when it listed its prospectus which highlighted high capitalization costs as it tightened its regulatory environment mostly in the mobile money sector where a number of loopholes seem to be in existence risking the Company’s growth and sustainability.

Airtel Africa noted that it had heightened security which included segregating roles and daily reconciliations.

Airtel has promised to embark on enforcing technical restrictions on the transfer of funds to non-Airtel accounts in a move to safeguard its finances.

Sadly, the telecommunication company has noted that it cannot completely eliminate the risk of fraud from a number of individuals it has employed given that it has a large number of employees.

This is not the first time the telecommunication company is losing millions through a section of its employees.

“In 2018, incidents of cash control frauds were identified in the group’s Airtel Money operations in Kenya and Niger, which involved circumvention of the group’s controls by Airtel Money employees and resulted in losses of 6.7 million dollars which is 670 million shillings in Kenya and 670,000 dollars which is 67 million shillings in Niger,” Airtel noted.

“The group has received 860,000 dollars (86 million shillings) as an insurance claim against the fraud in Kenya,” the telecommunication noted.

“Additionally, technical or administrative errors could result in customer losses for which the group could be responsible, and the group may be liable for fraud and problems related to inadequately securing group payment systems,” Airtel said.

Airtel Money has 14.2 million subscribers spread across 14 countries in the African continent, including Kenya.

Telecommunication companies have since their time of establishment faced the risk of fraud not just from outsiders but from their employees.

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