Nairobi, July 9 -- Word from a well-placed insider: the government is about to go shopping, again, for a strategic investor to run and refinance Telkom Kenya. It is the height of irony that a multibillion-shilling national security asset is being left to bleed out in a regulatory and ownership wasteland.

Privatised in 2007, Telkom Kenya's ownership has been a game of pass-the-parcel - from France's Orange to the private equity group Helios, to full renationalisation, and finally to a little-known Emirati entity called Infrastructure Corporation of Africa (ICA).

The Cabinet announced ICA's entry on October 3, 2023. Nearly three years later, the deal still hasn't closed. Insiders say the milestones agreed with ICA keep being quietly pushe...