Four Short-listed for Kenyan GSM License

Four companies have been short-listed for Kenya's 3rd GSM license. One of the five pre-qualified bidders, One Cellular (partnership between Swedtel of Sweden and Al Byte Information Technology of Kenya), did not submit their final bid. The four firms submitted both technical and financial bids. The technical component comprise, among others, details on the experience and capacity of the bidding consortium, business plan, and network planning, quality of service targets, network development schedule, and frequency plan.

The Commission opened the technical bids, in the presence of representatives of the four bidding consortiums, in readiness for the evaluation, which is set to end on 19th September 2003. The financial bids are scheduled to be opened on 19th September 2003 on which date, the winning consortium will be announced.

For a technical bid to qualify, it will have to score a minimum of 75 % in line with the set scoring matrix. Once deemed technically qualified, no point distinction will be made among the applicants. The tender process will immediately convert to an auction, where the firm that submitted the highest amount for the license shall automatically be the tender winner.

The winning consortium shall then be gazetted for 60 days to invite representations from individuals, companies and members of the public.

The license will be awarded to the winning consortium on 4th December 2003.

The firms that submitted their bids today are:

• Econet Wireless Group of South Africa (comprising Econet Wireless International, and Rapsel Ltd and the Kenya National Federation of Cooperatives, among other local investors)

• Mobile Systems International (MSI) Cellular Investment Holdings BV of Netherlands (with Investment Promotion Services as the local partner)

• Kenya Telecommunications Investments Group (a partnership between Detecom International GmbH of Germany and Kenya Telecommunications Investment Group)

• Telsar Solutions (pty) Limited/Telecel International of South Africa (with Caribbean Holdings Ltd as a local partner)

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Posted to the site on 25th August 2003