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Kenya: Press Releases: Corporate Sabotage Fears as Telkom Kenya Arrests Cable Vandals |
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Monday, 08 February 2010 |
Nairobi, 7 February 2010 --- Integrated telecommunications service provider Telkom Kenya’s bid to curb rampant cases of copper and fibre optic cables vandalism took a new twist over the weekend with the arrest of three dealers from a local communications company in the act in Nyahururu.
In a suspected case of corporate sabotage, the three sales agents were arrested a few kilometers from Nyahururu town in the wee hours of Friday morning as they attempted to vandalise the main Telkom Kenya area transmission line.
According to the Nyahururu Police Station OCS Mr Ogola, the three suspects were arrested following the sounding of an alarm alerting Telkom Kenya engineers of a system cut. Speaking in Nairobi, Telkom Kenya’s Head of Corporate Communications Angela Ng’ang’a-Mumo condemned the act and reiterated the firm’s call to the government to consider handing down stiffer penalties on all suspected vandals.
“This incident brings to the fore the magnitude and extent of cable vandalism and as we have said severally before, we cannot rule out the case of corporate sabotage even as we leave the police to finalise their investigations,” she said, adding: “Given the evidence and confessions received from the suspects in Nyahururu, we are once again asking the government to come out strongly and support our bid to curb cable vandalism on all fronts.”
The Nyahururu incident is the third arrest of cable vandals in this week alone and comes hot on the heels of a similar arrest in Eldoret town where vandalised copper and aluminium cables worth more than KES7m were recovered in Kapsoya estate during a joint sting operation between Telkom Kenya and the Kenya police. Telkom Kenya continues to incur heavy losses as a result of the vandalism with Ms. Ng’ang’a-Mumo indicating that this week alone, the company has incurred losses amounting to KES150m.
While thanking the public for providing information leading to the arrest of the five suspected vandals in Eldoret and the trio in Nyahururu, Ms Ng’ang’a-Mumo confirmed that the firm’s adoption of community policing strategies was bearing fruit with more than a dozen arrests already made in a fortnight. In Eldoret, she explained that scrap copper has now been nicknamed ‘dawa’ and is retailing at between KES160 and KES200 in the backstreets.
“It is our sincere hope that the arrest of the five has however moved to effectively smash the racket by breaking this commercial chain,” She said.
Given the increase in cable cuts on Telkom Kenya’s network, the firm has also reiterated the fact that it’s still not ruling out the possibility of corporate sabotage.
Increased strategic cuts by evidently specialist technicians on both the firms copper and fibre optic lines have served to fuel the fear by Telkom Kenya that corporate saboteurs may be at play. The firm has repeatedly also warned that such cuts are increasingly eroding the country’s national security as the acts border on economic terrorism.
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