Port sued over Cable Cuts

Last Updated 14 years ago by Kenya Engineer

Kenya Ports Authority (KPA) could once again be facing charges from the East African Marine Cable System operator, TEAMs who threatened to go to court following a cable cut which occurred last Thursday.

 “We will sue KPA again as soon as we establish the cause of the cut”, said the Information and Communication PS Bitange Ndemo.

TEAMs had earlier this year sued KPA and a shipping firm for Sh1.2 billion over a cable cut by an Athena ship sailing on a restricted water path. The cable cut interrupted voice and data business for a month causing cable users like Safaricom, Kenya Data Networks (KDN) and Access Kenya to incur extra cost of seeking alternative carriers like the satellite and from rival fibre optic firm, Seacom.

TEAMs, under a joint public-private venture-is owned by the government and telecom operators like Jamii Telecom,Safaricom,Wananchi,Esser,KDN,Telkom Orange and Bandwidth& Cloud Services. The repair works of the cable are expected to take a month. The firm has tapped corporate law firm Daly and Figgis to handle the brief.

The Coast is a hub to four marine cables-EASSY-owned by Bharti, MTN Group and Vodacom, Seacom, TEAMs and LION which connect the entire East African region to the other parts of the world.

The East African region got connected to the global undersea fibre optic cable in 2009, which helped wean Kenya off the reliance on the satellite services which happen to be more expensive and offer slower voice and data services.

The frequent cable cuts have however thrown a lifeline to satellite operators as internet providers tap them to cushion their operations from interruptions.

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