Engineer building house in Mombasa wins Sh7.8M Safaricom apartment

An electrical engineer who hails from the coastal town of Mombasa has become the fifth winner of an apartment in the Safaricom Maisha Ni M-Pesa Tu promotion.

Mzee Juma Saidi, a maintenance manager at a cement company in Kampala received the keys to the Ksh7.8 million house located in Kahawa West from Safaricom Enterprise and Business Unit Director Rita Okuthe on Friday.

The father of three said M-Pesa has contributed immensely towards accomplishing his family’s financial obligations, especially as he works far away from his family. “Working far away from my family isn’t easy, but mobile money transfer has made it a little easier to manage things back home … even when I am away, I feel comfortable that I can still take care of my family,” he said.

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Mzee Saidi who travels back home at least once every three months also revealed he has been building a house in his Mombasa hometown and that he uses M-Pesa to pay for the construction.

The apartment winner also met with Safaricom CEO Bob Collymore on Friday morning after the giant telco’s chief resumed active duty this week following a nine month medical absence for cancer treatment in the United Kindgom.

Today’s lucky winner Mzee Juma Saidi and his family also got a chance to meet and chat with @bobcollymore and he is all smiles over his newly won #MaishaNiMPESATu apartment#SimplifyingLives ? pic.twitter.com/coDE6aET3E

— Safaricom PLC (@SafaricomPLC) August 10, 2018

Regarding the promotion, Collymore said, “Over time, M-Pesa has enabled Kenya to contribute to Africa’s Digital transformation, and this is just one of the many ways in which we would like to thank our customers for being with us for the last 11 years.”

Mzee Saidi is the fifth winner in the promotion that was launched two months ago and joins Jeniffer Kathure, a single mother of three from Muthara, Meru County, James Njagi, a metal artisan at Gikomba market, Eric Lindenberg, a South African designer residing in Nairobi and Benson Kilonzi, a small-scale farmer and jua kali artisan from Ithumula, Kitui County.

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Safaricom says more than 400,000 M-Pesa customers and 1,900 agents have won instant prizes including cash and float amounts of Ksh2,000, Ksh5,000 and Ksh10,000.