2022 Sustainable Business Report

42 | SAFARICOM SUSTAINABLE BUSINESS REPORT 2022 KPI SUMMARY OUR STAKEHOLDERS OUR BUSINESS OUR MATERIAL TOPICS In 2020, together with other industry members, we collaborated on a Tax Study conducted by the GSMA who presented the report to National Treasury and engaged with the latter on the report’s findings and recommendations. This led to a stay on further tax increases in FY21 and FY22. However, in FY23, we anticipate the signing into law of the Finance Act, 2022 and this could negatively impact digital inclusion and the telecoms sector. Kenya's Universal Service Fund (USF) aims to extend broadband to underserved areas. The CA has been working to close the digital gap between urban and rural areas of the country, largely relying on the USF. This supports the updated national broadband strategy, which aims to: 1 • Make a 10Mb/s service available to all schools, healthcare centres and government facilities by the end of 2022. • Provide a broadband service of at least 3Mb/s to 90% of the population by 2023. • Deliver a 10Mb/s service nationally and a 100Mb/s service to 80% of the population by 2030. 1 https://www.centralbank.go.ke/uploads/press_releases/1691854698_Press%20Release%20-Mobile%20Money%20Merchant%20Interoperability.pdf Eleven companies participated in the tendering process. Safaricom was one of five companies who tendered successfully and was awarded the contract by the CA. We will now be playing a key role in rolling out mobile network infrastructure to un-served and under- served areas in the country under phase 2 of the USF. The tender was structured into multiple bidding lots. Companies were either awarded tenders for active or passive components and then tasked with deploying the infrastructure components within 24 months. We were awarded the bulk of the active component tender and have been commissioned to provide a minimum of 3G technology. Kenya’s national plan of action to tackle Online Child Sexual Exploitation and Abuse (OCSEA) is under development by the CA and the Ministry of ICT. It aims to guide Government, industry, policymakers, civil society organisations and communities to take the right measures to ensure the internet is safe for children by mitigating the increase of online sexual exploitation and abuse. Recognising that this issue impacts 63% of children in Kenya, we joined other stakeholders in championing and participating in the plan’s development . (See page 75 of this report for details of our partnership with UNICEF: Spot it! Stop it!) Other activities included input into the Central Bank of Kenya (Amendment) Bill 2020 , which seeks to regulate digital money lenders and defines a digital money lender as “an entity that offers credit facilities in the form of mobile money lending applications”. The final document incorporated our recommendations. We also engaged with the Office of the Data Protection Commissioner (ODPC) regarding data protection regulations, provided input to the proposed amendments to the Kenya Information and Communications Act (KICA) regulations on electronic signatures and provided feedback on the Kenya Film Classification Board (KFCB) co-regulation framework for audio-visual content classification for broadcast and over the top (OTT)/video on demand (VOD) services. Given our emphasis on being a responsible corporate citizen, we welcomed the approval of the National Sustainable Waste Management Bill 2021 by the National Assembly and Senate (expected to be ratified by the President after the end of the reporting period). The regulation seeks to address the issue of solid waste through the adoption of a waste hierarchy based on waste prevention, minimisation, reuse, recycling and composting. “Without merchant interoperability of mobile money services, customers were forced to use alternative payment methods, including making transfers across networks, when making payments to merchants that are on different networks. This new service will further deepen the digitalisation of payments to large and small businesses using the already extensive mobile money rails, and therefore enabling customers to conveniently make payments.” Central Bank of Kenya 1