Safaricom customers who fail or delay to pay their okoa jahazi debt will have their bonga points deducted automatically as recovery.

This is the latest move by the leading telecommunications firm to curb on okoa jahazi defaults and compel users to utilize their bonga points.

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“Dear customer, we have deducted 2,500 Bonga points for Sh. 750 to repay your Okoa loan,” one user has been quoted in the media as having received this message from Safaricom. The message has been interpreted to mean that Safaricom is giving each bonga point a valuation of 30 cents.

The new measure comes after Safaricom backtracked from a decision that would have  caused bonga points to expire from January 2023 following intense public criticism.

Safaricom started the Bonga Points loyalty programme in October 2017. The program is designed to give both prepaid and postpaid subscribers a point for every Sh. 10 spent on airtime.

“Bonga points is a loyalty scheme that lets Safaricom Prepay and Postpay subscribers earn points immediately once registered to the programme. You earn 1 Bonga point for every Sh. 10 spent on voice calls, SMS, or data,” says Safaricom.

These points can then be redeemed for rewards including talk-time (minutes), data bundles, and messaging bundles.

50 Bonga Points earns a customer four minutes of talk time with a validity of seven days. Six hundred points give 3,500 SMSs valid for 30 days. Users can also use their bonga points to pay for goods and services at selected retailers across the country.

For those redeeming airtime, the redemption ratio ranges from Sh. 3 worth of airtime for 10 points, up to Sh. 600 worth of airtime for 2,000 points.

For SMS redemptions, the award ranges from 20 texts for 15 points, to 3,500 texts for 600 points, with expiry ranging from 24 hours to 30 days.

“Bonga Points can be redeemed for rewards ranging from Talk-time (Minutes), Data bundles, MMS and SMS bundles to merchandise redeemable at select retail outlets and at Lipa na MPESA Buy Goods till number and select Pay bill numbers countrywide,” says Safaricom.