CA director general Francis Wangusi.[Photo/the-star.co.ke]Local mobile phone firms have incurred losses in excess of Sh280 million arising from the destruction of communication infrastructure by terrorists and hooligans in the past two years.
Communications Authority of Kenya (CA) Director General Francis Wangusi yesterday revealed that eight Base Transmitter Stations (BTS) have been destroyed.
The latest incident occurred on Friday last week when goons destroyed a perimeter wall and vandalized a telecommunication booster, carted away a generator in Kisumu County.
“There is a deliberate destruction of communications infrastructure under the false belief that it belongs to a particular operator is indeed misleading. Most of the stations deployed in the country accommodate a multiplicity of players through infrastructure sharing and co-location arrangements. This only serves to compromise access to quality services by subscribers for whom the very infrastructure has been set up,” Wangusi said.
In June this year, terrorists suspected to be Al-Shabaab militants destroyed Safaricom communication mast in Fafi, Garissa County. The same happened in August in Mandera County. In December last year, suspected Al-Shabaab terrorists also damaged Safaricom and Orange telecommunication masts in Kotulo, Mandera County, among other incidences.
The DG revealed that one BTS costs about Sh35.5 million to set up and the indiscriminate destruction of this infrastructure is causing the sector to lose billions of shillings as they are compelled to spend substantial resources to restore services in the affected areas. Wangusi said that 17 years ago, there were only 15,000 Kenyans living in Nairobi and its environs ho had access to mobile telecommunications services.
To address the recent upsurge in incidents of destruction of ICT infrastructure, the Director-General said that the government has already initiated a bill seeking to designate telecommunications infrastructure as critical infrastructure.
“This will ensure that such infrastructure around the country is protected as an important national asset. The Critical Infrastructure Bill, which awaits passage by the National Assembly, offers remedy by prescribing stiff penalties for those bent on crippling such infrastructure,” he said.