/ 6 May 1999

KENYA TO PRIVATISE TELECOMS

KENYA’S posts and telecommunications monopoly is to be split in June to facilitate liberalisation and privatisation of the country’s telecommunications and postal sector, officials said on Tuesday. A communications commission has already been established to oversee privatisation of the state-owned Kenya Posts and Telecommunications Corporation ). The Communications Commission of Kenya is expected to license an initial three independent entities by the end of June. They are to be Telcom Kenya, which will provide telecommunications services, Safaricom, a mobile telephone provider already in existence but currently a subsidiary of the KPTC, and Postal Services of Kenya.