Kenyan operators Safaricom and Orange Kenya have lost their bid to stop the reduction in mobile interconnection charges in June. The fee is set to drop from KES 2.21 per minute to KES 1.44 in July and KES 1.25 in July 2012. In February, Orange Kenya and Safaricom asked the government to put on hold for two years the annual reduction in interconnection charges that started in 2006, arguing that it would intensify the ongoing price war and hurt the operators' profits, jeopardise job security and slow new investments. This prompted the Prime Minister's office to form a task force to determine whether to hold off revising the charges or let the cuts run as earlier set by the Communications Commission of Kenya (CCK). The taskforce returned a verdict that charges should run their course. CCK Director-General Charles Njoroge told the Daily Nation that nothing has changed and mobile termination rates were done through consultation and they shall remain as such. He added that the downward fall in the connection charges does imply that calling rates will fall, adding that tariffs are mainly influenced by market forces. The interconnection charge has come down from KES 6.28 in July 2007 to KES 2.21 last July.
