About Time We Finalized the Airtel-Telkom Merger For The Sake Of The Consumer

Telkom Kenya customers get to enjoy amazing data offers from the telecommunications company.

Currently, Telkom has an amazing data offer of 30GB at a cost of 1,000 shillings with 1GB daily for 30 days. To the customer, this is the first-ever offer in the telecommunications industry where the service provider gives a customer 1GB of data, daily, for 30 days, at an overall cost of 1,000 shillings.

READ: Telkom Kenya Rolls Out New Data Product Giving 1 GB Daily For 30 Days At Ksh 1000

Many Telkom Kenya customers were thrilled and filled with so many expectations, when the company announced a merger with Airtel, in what has come to be known as Airtel-Telkom Merger, nine months ago.

To them, the merger between Telkom Kenya and Airtel meant the following four key things:

• Better services. Two are better than one. The fact that two telecommunications giants were coming together with a common goal of serving their customers better, simply meant better services to the end-user.
• Demolishing the dominance myth. With Telkom Kenya and Airtel coming together to form a united entity, discussions of one player dominating the telecommunications sector were to become history and customers would be free to choose the kind of service that they need.
• Affordable services. Both Telkom Kenya and Airtel have had affordable services compared to other players. The two companies coming together meant more affordable services for customers in terms of calls/voice and data bundles.
• Reliable services. The coming together of Telkom Kenya and Airtel meant a combination of infrastructure that will enable them to give stronger and more reliable services.

READ: Unpacking the Spectrum Question in the Airtel-Telkom Merger

Many customers looked forward to the merger being finalized as soon as possible, so that they could start enjoying the benefits, including the four that have been mentioned above.

As seconds turned into minutes, minutes into hours, hours into days, and days into weeks and now months, their expectations are beginning to melt away.

There is an urgent need to fasten the process of merging the two entities and change the current wave and dominant trend in the telecommunications sector.

Customers believe that there are certain players in the sector that are scared of the merger between Telkom Kenya and Airtel. They are scared of the type of services Airtel-Telkom will be able to offer; services that could better compete against those on offer from the dominant player.

In May this year, the Communications Authority of Kenya (CA), issued a conditional approval on the intended merger between Telkom Kenya and Airtel. A Gazette notice from the CA on the transaction was issued in July. This was to pave way for the eventual approval of the merger after a 30-day window, post the issuance of the Gazette Notice.

The 30-day period came to an end. Customers expected the transaction to be complete but their hopes were almost crashed when the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission (EACC) wrote to Telkom Kenya requiring information in connection with investigations the EACC was carrying out  “on allegations of misappropriation of public funds in the process of recapitalization and restructuring of Telkom Kenya’s balance sheet.” Telkom has made it public that they have been cooperating with the EACC and handed over the information that the EACC had asked for.  We have now seen a letter from the EACC’s Chief Executive Officer, Twalib Mbarak, giving a green light to the regulatory bodies, the CA and the Competition Authority of Kenya to continue with the approval processes for the merger.

According to the EACC’s letter: “the merger of the two entities namely Telkom Kenya and Airtel Networks Limited is a commercial transaction that has been agreed upon by two private entities.”

The EACC goes ahead to ask for both the Communications Authority (CA) and the Competition Authority of Kenya (CAK) “to promote competition through fair practices.” The letter from EACC also asks the “Competition Authority to ensure the interest of employees at Telkom Kenya are protected.”

“The Commission, therefore, recommends that these issues be considered in the approval process of the proposed merger.” In other words, the EACC has no issues with the merger and the CA and CAK can pick up with their respective approval processes, from where they left off.

READ: Customers: The Force That Drove The Airtel-Telkom Merger

When will the CA and the CAK give an update of what they are doing to approve the merger? When will this merger take place? Looking forward to it.