The Computer Society of Kenya

Since 1986

wangusiCITNATION By KENNEDY KIMANTHI

September, Wednesday 27, 2017

The Communications Authority of Kenya has said no cases of election result transmission failures were reported to them during the August 8 election.

Director-General Francis Wangusi said in a statement that the authority had directed mobile operators contracted to support the transmission of systems of the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) to report any transmission hitches.

Nasa leader Raila Odinga has accused Safaricom of working with a French digital security firm to tilt the August 8 elections outcome in favour of President Uhuru Kenyatta.

READY FOR PROBE

But Chief executive Bob Collymore, said they were ready to be investigated by any agency on the role they played in the elections.

Unlike in 2013 where Safaricom was singularly transmitting the results, Telkom and Airtel were also contracted to do the transmission during the August 8 poll.

“The authority is aware that IEBC contracted the three mobile operators to provide a medium of the end-to-end transmission of election result in line with the Election (Technology) Regulation, 2017.

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

ICT GAINS

The director-general stated that political statements are likely to jeopardise gains made in the ICT sector and asked politicians to be responsible.

Mr Wangusi also asked them to report any election malpractices by different players in ICT industry to the relevant law enforcement instead of “engaging in blanket lynching of investors in the sector.

“The country stands to benefit in a big way if the current levels of investment and adoption of ICT are sustained. It is therefore the responsibility of all well-meaning Kenyans investors in the sector and to underling public confidence in ICTs,” he said.

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