Last Month, the Communications Authority of Kenya issued a notice to postal and courier services of its intent to shut them down for failing to adhere with industry guidelines. The notice followed an announcement by the regulator that 90% of couriers in Kenya operated without a license thereby denying the country revenue in the form of taxes. As per the Q2 status report by the Authority, Kenya has a total of 2,117 courier operators. Some of the couriers in the list for shutting operations included Dial-a-Delivery, EasyLink Courier, Western Parcel Express Courier among others.
The Authroity has been looking to grow the courier sub-sector by taking steps in this direction. Last year, CA unveiled new guidelines for the for adoption of E-commerce as well as Postal and Courier security management framework following consultations with the Public. The review of courier guidelines required courier operators to implement mechanisms that provide for remote payment options incorporating a payment platform through a licensed financial payment services provider. They also required them to come up with enhanced security for packages through faster parcel delivery and tracking of the courier delivery service by the company.
According to Business Daily, CA has now revoked the licenses of 38 courier operators for failing to comply with these new standards. Some of these include Transworld Courier Services, Upesi Delivery Services, End to End Logistics, Dakika Ltd, Ferdinand Freight and Fowarders and Tomic Express Services. This firms will therefore not be eligible to conduct business in the sub-sector.
