Telkom Kenya to sack 575 employees in Airtel merger - CEO

NAIROBI - Telkom Kenya plans to send home 575 employees in its planned merger with Airtel Kenya, its chief executive has announced in an internal staff memo.

In a redundancy notice sent to staff and seen by the Star, the firm’s chief executive Mugo Kabati issued a 30-day consultative period between the business and staff, for any suggestions, ideas and queries.

“As a consequence of the transaction, Telkom Kenya will discontinue the transferred business and must terminate the employees that are currently deployed to serve in these functions,

“Other employees who provide administrative and or support services are also likely to be impacted,’’ the notice reads.

The announcement comes just two weeks after the Communications Authority of Kenya (CA) said it will approve the merger which will give rise to a new operator, Airtel-Telkom.

The regulator gave many parties opposed to the merger a month to present any objections.

Airtel and Telkom Kenya in February announced plans to merge in a bid to take on Safaricom.

In March, the Public Investment Committee raised a red flag on the proposed merger, saying there are outstanding issues in the deal that should be addressed before it is given the seal of approval.

The Parliamentary committee claimed the deal has all the hallmarks of a scandal where private individuals are buying off a public entity through the backdoor for a song.

Telkom Kenya is majority owned by private equity firm Helios Investment Partners (60 percent) while the Government of Kenya holds the remaining 40 percent stake. -