The head of Kenya’s telecoms watchdog said new regulation on anti-competitive behaviour is not targeted at Safaricom, the country’s largest operator.

Proposed amendments to the telecoms sector’s competition law will give the Communications Authority of Kenya more power to declare a firm to be dominant, said Reuters.

But Francis Wangusi, the watchdog’s director general, stated no operator would be penalised merely for being dominant, defined as having more than 50 per cent of a market segment. A dominant operator would only be punished if it was found to have abused its position in the market. Then an operator could be fined millions of dollars.

The regulator’s next step will be to hire an international law firm to analyse the telecoms and broadcast sectors. The study will then determine if dominance exists across a range of market segments.

Wangusi said market analysis and market power reports will take 18 months to complete, which means any market dominance laws can only come into force by early 2017 at the earliest, said Business Daily, which defined the regulator’s action as “a retreat” from putting forward a law that would have automatically classified Safaricom as a dominant operator.

According to GSMA Intelligence, Safaricom accounts for 24 million out of the country’s 36 million mobile connections (Q2 2015 figures), equivalent to a two-thirds market share. It comfortably leads rivals Orange and Airtel.

In addition, Safaricom, which is 40 per cent owned by Vodafone, is the clear leader of the country’s mobile money market with its M-Pesa service.