Leading mobile phone service provider Safaricom has declared it is ready to be investigated after NASA leader Raila Odinga accused it of tilting the August 8 election outcome in favour of President Uhuru Kenyatta.
In a statement issued on Tuesday evening, the company's CEO, Bob Collymore, dismissed the accusations as “reckless, callous and unnecessary” and warned that the allegations could endanger the lives of Safaricom members of staff and families.
According to the statement released by the Safaricom, their role in the elections was;
1. Providing a dedicated secure tunnel to transmit the encrypted data from KIEMs kits to the IEBC server, also known as a Virtual Private Network or VPN
2. Provide Technical support to the IEBC before, during and after the general election day including a dedicated project manager
3. Provide a record of transmission from all the SIM Cards provided to the IEBC under the contract for purposes of the General Election
Mr Odinga had earlier stated that Safaricom routed results from polling stations to OT-Morpho servers in France without ensuring that the outcome ended up in the servers of the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC).
He alleged that the mobile phone firm knew that 100 electronic (Kiems) kits had been stolen from the IEBC and never reported the theft of the gadgets, which were later used to transmit results from fake polling stations to sway the outcome in favour of the Jubilee presidential candidate.
Collymore reiterated that Safaricom played its role of routing the results from Kiems kits to the IEBC servers in areas that it had been allocated and that the figures were captured on the IEBC portal.
“Contrary to what is alleged in the NASA statement, results from Kiems kits from Safaricom zones were transmitted and are on the IEBC web portal.
“Safaricom is ready to face any investigations and/or private prosecutions brought by any party on this matter,” said Collymore, criticising Odinga for claiming that the firm was aware that 100 Kiems kits had been stolen from IEBC and failed to report.
