Election 2017: Communications Authority wants Raila to stop attacking Safaricom in public

NAIROBI, KENYA: The Communications Authority of Kenya wants National Super Alliance (NASA) leadership to report its case against  Safaricom to the police and stop attacking the company in public.

In a statement signed by its Director-General Francis Wangusi the Authority, which regulates Kenya’s telecommunication industry, said public attacks erode gains made in the ICT industry. Also, he says, such attacks scare investors in the communications industry.

Wangusi said the Authority believes ICT can aid Kenya’s electoral process just as it has proved its worth in the banking, business, education, health, agriculture and government services.

On Tuesday, NASA presidential candidate Raila Odinga linked Safaricom to the August election results failure.

Raila said Safaricom was contracted by the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) to transmit election results from the Kenya Integrated Electoral Management Systems (KIEMS) kits at the polling stations to the IEBC servers, but alleged Safaricom’s system never relayed results to IEBC’s public web portal.

“Consequently, results from the polling station KIEMS kits left the country but never found their way back to IEBC. None of the kits under Safaricom’s network ever got their results onto the IEBC’s public web portal,” Raila said.

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Safaricom has however defended itself against the allegations saying contrary to Raila’s claims, results from the KIEMS kits from Safaricom zones were transmitted and are on the IEBC web portal.

Its CEO, Bob Collymore, explained that Safaricom was to provide a dedicated secure tunnel to transmit the encrypted data from the KIEMS kits to the IEBC server, also known as a Virtual Private Network or VPN.

The firm was also meant to provide technical support to IEBC before, during and after election day, including a dedicated project manager. In addition, Safaricom was to provide a record of transmission from all the SIM cards provided to IEBC under the contract for purposes of the General Election.

Collymore also said Safaricom was not aware that 100 KIEMS kits had been stolen from IEBC and was never asked to disable its SIM cards.

Wangusi said none of the three telecommunication companies contracted by IEBC to electronically transmit results during the election period reported cases of transmission failure.

 “ICTs have been successfully deployed and embraced in all facets of life in the country, including banking, business, education, health, agriculture and government services just but to mention a few.  Elections are no exception and the Authority is confident that ICTs can be deployed successfully to support this important national activity,” he said.

“As the country prepares for the repeat presidential poll, CA wishes to implore on Kenyans not to lose faith and confidence in technology.”

"In the same vein, we implore politicians to report any alleged election malpractices on the part of industry players to the relevant law enforcement agencies instead of engaging in blanket ‘lynching’ of investors in this strategic sector."