The Treasury has paid Safaricom Sh1.5 billion after the giant telco threatened to disconnect a security and surveillance system it built on behalf of the National Police Service, parliamentary records reveal
The National Assembly’s Budget and Appropriations Committee (BAC) said Safaricom had signalled it would disable the surveillance system over the unpaid bill, an outcome that could have derailed police pursuit of criminals through CCTV cameras mounted in Nairobi.
Under the terms of the security contract, Safaricom in 2014 started installing a Sh14.9 billion communication and surveillance system that is linked to police stations to help combat crime in Nairobi and Mombasa.
The State was expected to make quarterly payments to Safaricom to clear the bill, but the repayments have been trailing the agreed schedule.
Safaricom had completed construction of the system by March 2016 and the contract demanded that the government reimburse the firm quarterly over a period of five years. Parliamentary documents show that the government paid Safaricom Sh9.27 billion in 2016 and Sh881 million in the three years to end of June 2019, leaving a balance of slightly above Sh5 billion.
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