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{
    "id": 512382,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/512382/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 439,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Hon. Keynan",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 41,
        "legal_name": "Adan Wehliye Keynan",
        "slug": "adan-keynan"
    },
    "content": "10 per cent of its shareholding, bringing down its shareholding in the company to 30 per cent. That is where we are today. The privatisation of Telkom Kenya has no value to the taxpayer. The Office of the Auditor-General was not involved at all in terms of validating the transaction. Having looked at the entire transaction and the entire privatisation process, the Committee made a number of observations: Firstly, the Communications Commission of Kenya (CCK), the Privatisation Commission, and the Office of the Auditor-General were never involved in the entire privatisation process of Telkom Kenya. Although the chief advisor to the Government of Kenya, the entity that has been created to oversee privatisation issues in Kenya, and the entity that is supposed to play an oversight role in the telecommunications sector has not been involved, we were told that this was the most successful privatisation processes that have taken place in Kenya. That is why today Telkom Kenya is in serious financial and operational difficulties. It is because of this that taxpayers are not getting value for money in terms of communications, cheap mobile network and other communication infrastructure-related issues. It is our considered opinion that, to date, the Kenyan taxpayer has not benefited from the privatisation of Telkom Kenya. Secondly, the Committee has observed that the dilution of the Government shareholding in Telkom was in breach of the licence conditions of the regulator. The CC K was not consulted. The Kenyan authorities never sought the approval of the CCK in ceding the Government’s shareholding to France Telecom (Kenya) Limited. In this case, the provisions of Section 23 of the Act, on licensing of Telkom Kenya, have been breached. When an entity has to transfer frequencies, the Act requires that entity to get a pre-approval from the CCK. Telkom Kenya Limited and those who were involved in the privatisation of the company did not find it fit to bring the matter to the attention of the CCK. Again, we realised that something terrible must have gone wrong."
}