[kictanet] Introducong Consumers Federation of Kenya (Cofek) on Kictanet

[alice at apc.org]

From: Stephen Mutoro [mailto:stephen at cofek.co.ke]Sent: Monday, April 04, 2011 9:13 AMTo: 'kictanet at lists.kictanet.or.ke'Subject: Introducong Consumers Federation of Kenya (Cofek) on Kictanet:  
 

Dear Alice & Others:

 

Greetings from Cofek and I. We are very grateful to have been invited on this forum. Clearly, we have a lot to learn from you as we offer our counter views and lessons. Please allow us to make our maiden submission here. Indeed, we must hasten to mention that at Cofek we are keen to discuss 

issues and not personalities. We hope this forum will live to this expectation. As a credible and umbrella federation of consumer organizations, we are equally realistic – we are well aware that sustainable consumer benefits are best reaped when the market is fair, just, competitive and predictably stable. Bottom line, we hope we can agree to disagree on certain matters without being personal!

 

From the foregoing, we are friends of all service providers. This is because without any of them, the consumer is in serious trouble. On telecommunications sector for instance, the Cofek Sector Unit responsible is a “friend” of all MSPs (Yu, Orange, Airtel and Safaricom and any other). We had the first meeting with MSPs on 25th January and hope to host another one before end of April. We will, therefore, be disappointed if the arguments posted on this forum appear to suggest that perhaps one or other MSP is better than the other without credible supporting evidence. Remember, they are all in business to make money. They wil apply different formula and strategy to this end. Cofek has no problem with their reasonable profits. Without regret, however, we are ever ready and willing to take drastic action, including seeking legal redress, should any of them go against Article 46 of the Constitution as well as Kenya Information and Communications Act (2009). 

It is for this reason that Cofek’s first point of entry into the sector is with the quality and performance of regulatory regimes, in this case the CCK. We are interested to be assured that the CCK board of directors and management does not only comply with the law but is one that can be relied upon to deliver against world benchmarks. On occasions, we will be keen to discuss various issues – such as the tariff structure and promotions, innovations, consumer IEC, possibility of a 5

th operator and why not?, MNP among others. In so doing, we work closely with media houses for instance Cofek will be on KTN Business Live discussing MNP at 2.00 pm today. In a nutshell, we are pleased to be on this forum and wish each of you a great week ahead!

 

Kind regards,

 

Stephen Mutoro

Secretary General, COFEK

www.cofek.co.ke