The Kenyan chief prosecutor has ordered a criminal investigation of six employees of mobile operator Safaricom for allegedly conspiring with election board officials to rig the 08 August presidential poll. Safaricom has dismissed the accusations as “reckless, callous and unnecessary” and warned that the allegations could endanger the lives of its members of staff and families.
A letter from public prosecutions director Keriako Tobiko says a team of senior prosecutors will assist in investigating six staff members named by opposition politicians under the National Super Alliance (Nasa) for possible meddling with the election results, which were later nullified.
Tobiko ordered the investigations be completed in 21 days and the file forwarded to his office in his letter, copied to anti-corruption commission. Nasa, through lawyer Anthony Oluoch, wrote to Tobiko on 29 September demanding the investigation of Thibaud Rerolle (French National Director Technical and IT Safaricom), Antony Gachanja (Head of Technology Security), Shaka Kwach (Head of Special Projects-in charge of elections), Robert Mutai (Head of Technology Strategy, Assurance and Governance), Farouk Gaffour (Head of Network and Services Operations) and Andrew Masila (Senior Manager, Strategy and Architecture).
Nasa claimed that between 25 July and 11 August at the Safaricom offices, the six employees, acting in concert with others, intentionally and or recklessly damaged and interfered with Kenya Integrated Election Management System (Kiems) kits used in the polls.
Safaricom CEO Bob Collymore said the company was ready to be investigated by any agency for the role it played in the elections. Kenya used two systems to transmit results from polling stations - paper forms and the electronic transmission of the vote tallies plus scanned copies of the forms, using three local telecoms firms and hardware from French IT firm OT-Morpho.
