Safaricom rejects Makueni polls job, citing anomalies

Safaricom has withdrawn its support services to the electoral commission ahead of the July 22 Makueni by-election.

CEO Bob Collymore said his company was not satisfied with the level of preparedness for the by-election caused by the death of Senator Mutula Kilonzo in May.

Safaricom had asked the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) to first test the transmission of results before the day of voting.

The firm had wanted IEBC to send results from at least 80 per cent of its polling stations in Makueni within 15 minutes of each other.

It had also asked the commission to ensure that its data storage capacity was sufficient to prevent a system crash and that poll officials were trained ahead of voting day.

It had also demanded evidence that the data sent was tamper-proof to ensure its integrity and had also asked for an audit trail to trace at what point changes were made. However, these conditions had not been met.

On Friday, however, IEBC wrote to Safaricom, saying that the simulation set for Saturday had been called off “due to unavoidable circumstances”.

IEBC said its phones had not been configured and the presiding officers had not been trained on how to use them.

In a letter to IEBC dated July 4, Mr Collymore said: “We have, therefore, decided to withdraw our support for the IEBC in this by-election”.

The Makueni by-election has been at the centre of controversy over the eligibility of both the Cord and Jubilee candidates for the seat.

Properly registered

The candidature of Cord’s Kethi Kilonzo has been questioned on the grounds that she was not properly registered as a voter.

Ms Kilonzo has contested the charge.

Jubilee’s Prof Phillip Kaloki has also been accused of flouting the Political Parties Act by decamping from the Wiper Democratic Party after the deadline set by the law.

Prof Kaloki at the weekend, defended himself against claims that he was cleared by the IEBC after his time had elapsed.

“I resigned from the Wiper party on May 23 and wrote to the leadership about my move, I became a member of Narc on June 3; for one to move around and point accusing fingers at me is to be insincere,” he said. “The IEBC slotted me for clearance on June 27, and that is exactly what happened.”

Ahead the March 4 General Election, Safaricom had raised the red flag over the capability of IEBC’s electronic vote transmission systems. The mobile phone services company had given IEBC bandwidth through which its returning officers were to send provisional results to the national tallying centre at the Bomas of Kenya.

The system later collapsed, compelling IEBC to suspend the electronic tallying of votes for the presidential election. Safaricom later absolved itself from blame over the failure of the transmission of results.