Tag: Safaricom

Safaricom’s Tendency of Withholding Crucial Mobile Data Obstructing Justice

Safaricom CEO Bob Collymore

Kenya’s leading telecom, Safaricom is yet again on the receiving end for declining to avail crucial data that would help the investigators in Lawyer Willie Kimani’s murder probe. The Law Society of Kenya, faced with non-corporation and impediments from the telecommunication giant, has made an application at High Court to compel Safaricom to release information relevant to the investigations.

LSK had requested the company to give communication data from calls and text messages for Willie, Josephat and Joseph. In a quick rejoinder, Safaricom said that they are unable to retrieve text messages since they’re not stored me their database. This, as it sounds, a big lie, calls and messages including mobile money transfers records are stored in a database as a requirement.

Willie Kimani and company were kidnapped on the 23rd of June and allegedly held in a container (which has since been torched by unknown persons) inside Syokimau Police station. LSK requested for Safaricom to use forensic data analyses techniques to get all phone numbers that were active around the container between 12pm-4pm when it is believed the three were held inside the container.

This would be a significant breakthrough in identifying the numbers and registered details of people who held the murdered captives before taking them away for butchering. Calls that were going and incoming around the container where the three were being held could be a major opening.

Anti Extra Judicial killings Protestors in Nairobi streets. (Photo: Getty)

They were probably held at the spot shortly awaiting communication from someone or persons, and the call logs will determine the who and who. For the truth to be known entirely, Safaricom must, therefore, come out clean.

In justification, Safaricom is saying they risk losing their operations licence if they released such details to third parties, that’s the LSK. The information Safaricom is withholding could be used to nail the suspects further if the data could tie them to the location.

Also, communication details where JosephatMwendwa was always getting death threats together with Willie. Delaying to release this information is obstructing justice as Kenyans sweat day in to bring to an end the legion of extra-judicial killings.

Willie’s case is not isolation, and Safaricom is on record having refused to cooperate and release call logs for blogger Bogonko Bosire, who went missing years back and is yet to be traced up to now. During ICC cases, the prosecution too accused Safaricom of non-corporation and vehemently refusing to corporate with the court and release M-Pesa statements for President Uhuru, who was charged with being a financier to the Mungiki Sect.

Ironically, the telco says its contravention of policies to release such data to a third party, yet it’s public knowledge that at times they corporate with the police to use their database in trailing down criminals. In investigations, there’s no minor evidence, and every loophole is a big breakthrough. Safaricom should corporate with the courts and investigators principally on public interest cases like this of extrajudicial killings.

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July 7, 2016
Blogger Cyprian Nyakundi Arrested over Leakage of KPMG Audit Report on Safaricom

Blogger Cyprian Nyakundi

Trouble has once again caught up with Kenya’s most controversial blogger. Nyakundi was arrested on Friday at Galleria Shopping Mall on Friday evening while in the company of a friend. The incident where over twelve CID officers were involved caused a major stir and standoff at the venue.

He was later transferred to CID headquarters in Kiambu for questioning before being put under custody in Muthaiga Police Station where he is still being held. While the initial reason for the arrest was unclear, Kenya Insights can now authoritatively confirm that leakage of KPMG report online and sustained campaign, serialising the report by the blogger held the bulk of arrest.

The damning dossier by accounting firm KPMG — which is now the subject of a parliamentary investigation — details a review of 23 questionable tenders awarded between September 2013 and August 2015.

The telco hired KPMG to do an in-depth audit of the two-year period following concerns about integrity and value to shareholders.
Safaricom Chief Finance Officer John Tombleson(has since been recalled by Vodafone following the allegations) and four other senior executives are named as having influenced the purchase of a Sh1.15 billion five-acre piece of land at Garden City, where the telco plans to build its headquarters.

KPMG auditors also questioned payments of Sh1.2 billion to seven firms for marketing activations that promote the Safaricom brand and its products.

Safaricom CEO Bob Collymore

The report also examines the company’s procurement of corporate promotional merchandise worth Sh201 million from Vajas Manufacturers Ltd, Chinese technology firm Huawei’s Sh1.25 billion contract to upgrade the M-Pesa platform and payments of Sh1.2 billion to media services company Scanad, which is a subsidiary of WPP Scangroup.

Doubtful deals include South Korean firm Kaon Media’s Sh161 million contract to supply set-top boxes, My 1963 commuter card project with Fibre Space (Sh15 million), purchase of network spares management from GSM Systems (Sh201 million) and a billing system from Huawei (Sh839 million).

Safaricom’s CEO had earlier tasked the CID to investigate those behind the leakage of the KPMG report. He exonerated his staff of any wrongdoing saying the report was still in its draft form and not conclusive.

Ironically, Nyakundi started serialising the report on his website days after some other blogs had already begun doing it. He then followed up with a series of sustained Twitter campaigns highlighting the scandals poked in the report. The other main outlets as Nation Media Group have also steadied their serialisation on the report. From the information available, Safaricom has reviewed their adverts contract with large outlet following the serialisation of KPMG report.

Bob Collymore and Michael Joseph have also sued the blogger for defamation and due for a court appearance on 28th, June. The Safaricom CEO sued Nyakundi for calling him corrupt and one without moral integrity, MJ sued because he was called Mr Ten per cent a reference to taking tips over any tender issued during his time at Safaricom.

However, it’s not only Safaricom who are the bloggers case but currently, National Bank and Bidco also have ongoing cases with him over posts that he made on his popular site and social media outlets. Bidco is under probe by the UNDP following claims that the company was involved in land grabbing and environment destruction in Uganda. Bidco has also been sued for tax evasion in Kenya amounting to Sh.5.7BILLION.

The blogger who has made a name out of exposing scandals in the major sectors, a course that has since gained him high profile enemies amongst them Chris Kirubi, William Kabogo, Hassan Joho amongst others.

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June 25, 2016
Law Suits Have Proven Ineffective in Taming Blogger Cyprian Nyakundi This Is What To

Safaricom CEO, Bob Collymore the latest executive to sue Blogger Nyakundi for defamation.

Civic gadflies and self-styled watchdogs in Kenya who accuse local politicians and companies are getting slapped with lawsuits. Safaricom’s current and former CEOs suing blogger Cyprian Nyakundi for defamation over articles in which he said to accuse the telecommunications giant of exploiting Kenyans is nothing but a motivating factor to him.

I have known Nyakundi for years. He is an introvert who would rather tweet a girl that he likes than talk to her in person. “[As] a personal blogger, when the only readers are you and your mother, you don’t think that someday you are going to be hearing from law offices,”
Web sites and other entities do not want to be tasked with having to weigh the facts of any situation and making a judgment call.

Therefore, most will not delete content just because a party alleges a post is false.
Most websites will, however, remove content declared false by a court, even though court orders are typically against the actual posters of the content and not the websites themselves.

In short, the court ordered removal involves obtaining a judgment against the poster of defamatory content online and then presenting the court order to the sites (or, when relevant, Google) on which the malicious content is appearing.

Of course, obtaining a judicial decision involves filing an actual lawsuit with legitimate claims and pursuing the authors of the harmful content. When a defendant is known (or can be identified and later named as a defendant), the parties might settle and each sign an agreed order, which can be presented to the court to grant the requested judgment.

Blogger Cyprian Nyakundi

Be it real-life or a Blog, controversy is one of the best way to start a debate and raise some eyeballs. Especially, when you have a new blog, and you like to get mass social media attention, a perfect controversial blog post is your best friend.

It can do wonder and might take your blog to next level. But is it that easy and is it ethical to create controversy to get attention and popularity? We will look into some of these topics below, and you can add your suggestions and ideas for creating perfect controversial posts via comments.

Nyakundi has perfected the art of blogging too well to understand each and every situation he puts himself in. Which ingredient makes a simple post a controversial one ?? Controversial blog posts are the ones that are not expected to be written.

Like say, that Facebook hasn’t yet launched the “Dislike” button and if you publish a post about “Facebook launches a dislike button” which is not at all true, but then also people will rush in to see how to use it and will only get fooled.

Not just that, you can create controversy targeting any particular product or any famous personality. Writing stuff about people that no one knows, and no one even expects it to go public are referred as “Controversial Blog Posts“.

You can pick any trending debatable topic and choose one side and create a buzz with your writing.
So basically suing Nyakundi is the same same as multiplying traffic to his blog times 1000 the regular he get per day which translates to so much money regarding Google Adsense.

Maybe Bob should have just invited it for some traditional ugali at some restaurant in town, if it worked for Raila Odinga and Moses Kuria, it doesn’t hurt to behave like an ostrich and bury your head in the sand at times.

Leon Lidigu
Journalist .

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June 24, 2016