Wangusi: Elections result relay system ‘never failed’

What you need to know:

  • Unlike in 2013 when Safaricom singularly transmitted the results, Telkom and Airtel were also contracted to do the work this year.
  • Opposition leader Raila Odinga accuses Safaricom of working with a French firm to tilt the outcome in favour of President Kenyatta.
  • Before the polls, IEBC said a quarter of polling centres did not have adequate mobile network coverage for results transmission.

No result transmission failures were reported during the August 8 election, the Communications Authority of Kenya has said.

Director-General Francis Wangusi Wednesday said the agency directed mobile phone operators contracted to support the transmission system of the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission to report any hitches.

Unlike in 2013 when Safaricom singularly transmitted the results, Telkom and Airtel were also contracted to do the work this year.

Opposition leader Raila Odinga accuses Safaricom of working with a French firm to tilt the outcome in favour of President Kenyatta.

He says the company sabotaged results transmission by routing figures from polling stations to OT-Morpho servers.

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“Upon our advice, the country was divided into three zones and the mobile operators were assigned one region each to support the transmission systems of IEBC. In each of the three zones, an additional mobile operator was assigned the responsibility of providing backup,” Mr Wangusi said.

Safaricom CEO Bob Collymore Wednesday said the firm was ready to be investigated on the role it played in the General Election.

Before the polls, IEBC said a quarter of polling centres did not have adequate mobile network coverage for results transmission.

As a result, officials in 11,155 polling centres out of 40,883 would have to move to other areas to transmit results, while returning officers would use satellite phones.