NAIROBI, Kenya Jan 19 – Safaricom’s mobile money transfer service M-Pesa will be down on Saturday night due to a planned upgrade.
The company says the upgrade will be carried out between 8pm on Saturday and 6am on Sunday, during which time customers will be unable to transact business through M-Pesa.
“The upgrade is expected to enhance the M-Pesa offering and ensure that the platform continues to deliver more innovative services,” Safaricom CEO Bob Collymore said.
“We wish to thank our customers for their continued support and understanding and assure them that this upgrade is necessary in order to grow the M-Pesa service menu and improve overall customer experience.”
He assured customers that all funds and records on the M-Pesa platform remain safe.
In September last year, millions of subscribers were inconvenienced after an outage which Collymore said at the time was linked to the increased cuts on their fibre cable network.
The outage on M-Pesa followed a network fault affecting Voice, Wimax and Data outage at the Coast and parts of Nairobi.
Cases of fibre cuts have increased in the recent past with the government reading mischief among competitors in the sector.
Some operators have in the past alleged sabotage from disgruntled employees or rivals in the industry where there is tough competition.
The government has already warned that those responsible would face dire consequences and would even face sentences in jail for economic sabotage.
