Gambler threatens to sue Safaricom for recent M-Pesa outage
A Kenyan gambler intends to sue Safaricom following the recent mobile money transfer outage which affected 24 million subscribers.
In an ‘intention to sue’ notice dated December 11, 2018 Martin Muiruri Ndung’u has blamed the giant teleco for, among other, making it impossible for him to place bets with gambling firms.
“As a result, our client and all M-Peas users/subscribers could not pay electricity and establishment bills let alone send out money, place bets with gambling firms and settle debts,” the notice reads in part.
COMPENSATION
The only way Safaricom could escape a suit, according to the petitioner, is to pay each of their subscribers Sh10,000, a compensation that totals Sh2.4 trillion.
“Our client proposes that in reparation for the inconvenience, you credit each of the 24 million subscribers with Sh10,000 seeing that you move an average of Sh16.3 billion daily,” the demand letter states.
M-Pesa users were on December 8, 2018 were left stranded after a technical hitch blocked communication through its servers.
Safaricom has later apologised for the outage while the government has commenced investigations into the outage that lasted for more than five hours.