Integrated telecommunications solutions provider Telkom Kenya is now resorting to community policing tactics and increased criminal intelligence solutions to curb rising cases of transmission cable cuts.

In a strategic attempt to nail down marauding cable vandals who are occasioning the firm more than Kshs 60million ($800,000) losses monthly, Telkom Kenya has now adopted an integrated community policing approach.

Confirming the new approach to solving the cable cut problem, Telkom Kenya CEO Mickael Ghossein said the firm is hoping to harness the immense public goodwill that has so far enabled it to arrest some suspects in the act.

And even with community policing, Telkom Kenya, he explained would continue to lobby the government to consider classifying cable vandalism as a serious criminal offence due to the magnitude of the economic and social effects that such cable cuts extend to the country.

“Today, I am pleased to confirm that a pilot community policing project on our transmission route appears to be paying off well with nearly a dozen arrests in less than two weeks,” Ghossein said. Such positive results encourage us to upscale our efforts on community policing and criminal intelligence gathering even as we continue to lobby the government to rein in the culprits.”

Given the increase in cable cuts on Telkom Kenya’s network, the firm has also reiterated the fact that it’s still not ruling out the possibility of corporate sabotage. Increased strategic cuts by evidently specialist technicians on both the firms copper and fibre optic lines have served to fuel the fear by Telkom Kenya that corporate saboteurs may be at play. The firm has repeatedly also warned that such cuts are increasingly eroding the country’s national security as the acts border on economic terrorism.

Attesting to the success of the new community policing move, Telkom Kenya this week managed to arrest a notorious suspect following a tip off by members of the public.
The suspect identified as Simon Magondu was arrested last Saturday night near Kitengela Township and locked up at Kitengela Police Post before being arraigned at the Machakos Magistrates Court earlier this week.

Another suspect, Stephen Kamau was also caught red handed attempting to vandalise a copper cable line in Ngong Township in the wee hour of Monday morning. In Kericho, a suspected vandal identified as Alex Musesa Uzibiza was also arrested on Tuesday night by James Finlay Guards as he also attempted to get away with a roll of copper cables within the precincts of the vast James Finlay tea plantations.