Corporate News
Director-Generals Wang’ombe Kariuki, Competition Authority of Kenya
(CAK) and Francis Wangusi, Communications Authority of Kenya (CA) are
set to end a supremacy battle on who has powers to monitor the abuse of
dominance in the telecoms sector with the signing of a memorandum of
understanding (MoU). FILE PHOTOS | NATION MEDIA GROUP
By OKUTTAH MARK, mokuttah@ke.nationmedia.com
In Summary
- CAK is the regulatory agency in charge of competition matters in all sectors of the economy while the CA is the telecommunications and broadcast regulator.
- Wang’ombe Kariuki, the CAK director-general, said Tuesday that the MoU will enable the two regulators define areas of specific mandate and those that need joint or converged operations.
- The two regulators have in the recent past engaged in a supremacy battle on procedures and processes of declaring an operator dominant in the telecommunications sector.
The competition and telecommunications regulators are
Wednesday set to end a supremacy battle over who has powers to monitor
the abuse of dominance in the telecoms sector with the signing of a
memorandum of understanding (MoU).
Wang’ombe Kariuki, the director-general Competition
Authority of Kenya (CAK), said Tuesday that the MoU will enable the two
regulators define areas of specific mandate and those that need joint or
converged operations.
“The MoU will eliminate the friction between us and
the CA (Communications Authority of Kenya), outline how we operate in
areas of overlap and convergence, and as a result reduce duplication,”
Mr Kariuki told the Business Daily in a telephone interview.
“This will also help reduce the pronouncement of contradictory decisions,” he added.
The CAK is the regulatory agency in charge of
competition matters in all sectors of the economy while the CA is the
telecommunications and broadcast regulator.
The two regulators have in the recent past engaged
in a supremacy battle on procedures and processes of declaring an
operator dominant in the telecommunications sector.
On March 10, for example, the CA published a set of
11 regulations, including Fair Competition and Equality of Treatment
Regulations, that would see any telecommunication or broadcasting firm
that controls 51 per cent market share automatically declared dominant.
The regulations are meant to come into force by mid-June.
But the competition watchdog has refrained from
declaring any such operator as dominant before a number of factors are
established.
For instance, such a firm must have the market power to raise prices without suffering a drop in sales.
Safaricom, which controls 67.4 per cent of the mobile telephony market, has been at the centre of the fights between the two watchdogs.
One of the clauses in the CA regulations saw the
communications regulator delete a section of the Kenya Information and
Communication (Amendment) Act 2013 – which requires it to prove that a
firm is abusing its position before declaring it dominant.
Safaricom protested that it should not be punished for “growing organically”.
Declaring Safaricom dominant would put it in a more
restricted business environment with additional obligations on
transparency, marketing and product pricing. The company could also be
required to split its massive business into independent units.
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