Following a statement issued by National Super Alliance (NASA) on Tuesday, Safaricom has come out to refute claims made by NASA flag-bearer Raila Odinga that the mobile network company had been involved in the rigging of the August 8th General Elections.
Safaricom through a written statement issued by Bob Collymore came forward to clarify the role they played in the general election. According to the statement released by the company they were responsible for:
- 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;
- Provide Technical support to the IEBC before, during and after the general election day including a dedicated project manager; and
- Provide a record of transmission from all the SIM Cards provided to the IEBC under the contract for purposes of the General Election
The mobile company went on to explain that the transmission conducted was done by dividing the country into zones given to Safaricom, Telekom Kenya and Airtel Kenya.
According to Safaricom the results were transmitted from their respective areas throughout the country using KIEMS kits which were equipped with a primary and secondary SIM card.
The NASA coalition claimed that the results were terminated after passing through the server in France instead of being transmitted directly back to the IEBC servers.
“It has come to our knowledge that one of these VPNs (Virtual Private Networks) terminated at a cloud server registered in Spain but operated in France under control of OT-Morpho. Both VPNs were fully paid for by IEBC.” Raila said in his press statement.
However, as contracted by the IEBC the mobile operators maintained that they used their respective VPNs to transmit the data to the IEBC cloud servers and from there the IEBC was given the responsibility to transmit the results from its servers to its tallying centers which was then relayed the public.
Read:Exclusive: Raila Opens Up About Elections, DP Ruto, Says He Suffers From Amnesia
“The following individuals had intimate knowledge of this conspiracy and either actively participated or concealed the same,” Odinga added.
Among the staff memers Raila listed were: Thibaud Rerolle (Director Technical and I.T.), Anthony Gacanja (Head of Technology Security), Shaka Kwach (Head of Special Projects), Robert Mutai (Head of Technology Strategy, Assurance and Governance), Farouk Gaffour (Head of Network and Service Operations) and Andrew Masila (Senior Manager, Strategy and Architecture).
The company added that the allegations made by NASA were ‘factually incorrect and unsupported’ by any evidence.
Safaricom denied the allegations and expressed their concerns that the statements made about the staff members had endangered their them and their families terming the allegations ‘callous and unnecessary.
Safaricom maintained that it adhered to its contract and the constitution and is willing to face any investigations and or private prosecutions brought forward by any of the respective parties.
Do you have a story you want told? Do you know of a sensitive story you would like us to get our hands on? Email your news TIPS to Editor@kahawatungu.com
Email your news TIPS to Editor@Kahawatungu.com — this is our only official communication channel
