There we’re a KPMG Audit leak of the Safaricom Telecom Company in Kenya, which was released through a blogger called Cyprian. He found and released article relating to a Draft Report, that he in the latest twist released on Twitter. Why I comment on it, after even releasing it. It is to brighten the days of the corruption hunters and pundits. To prove that not all writers can be bought. You feel me right? Why I say that because money talks, everybody knows that right?
While this report circulated and even some findings came to the limelight, CEO Bob Collymore we’re able to dodge the release as the blogger had to take down his article and later even send the Blogger direct text message. The blogger got now after this text messages from Red Cross and Inter Religious Council of Kenya. And he have nothing to do with this organizations before, so there are something up with the Safaricom model of the moment.
The Safaricom CEO continues with suspect behavior as even reports of entering Kenyan Media-houses with Police Officers following his tail. When he, the CEO of Safaricom Bob Collymore where he initially threaten them. If they did exposes the maladministration of the company into the society and into the public sphere through the media.
The marked interest for this company is the structure and its importance in Kenya. The Government of Kenya owns 60% of it and the rest is owned by Vodafone, which means 40% of it is in the private interest. The Markie exposure of the company is not only how much having been squash the Audit that we’re unfortunately released, but by what extent the leadership have gone to silence it.
And when a business, a company and their leaders get orders from the “mother-company” to shut the noise, when they order media-houses and threaten them with the Police Officers holding the hands of the CEO; then you know that there are shady people eating the cakes that was not intended to. The Safariacom have even ordered an advertisement operation with ScanGroup for Ksh. 2.1bn and that proves to what extent they goes to bury the legality of the KPMG audit.
The Public Petition of Michael Ngugi that states this:
“That it is unfortunate though that Safaricom is in itself a corrupt institution and as evidenced by the forensic audit report from KPGM which examines the period of September 2013 to August 2015. Copy Enclosed. In this report many instances of malpractices have been cited in regards to tender processes, award and general shortcomings of ethical practice and governance as far as supplier selection and management are concerned” (…)”THAT, Safaricom in contravention of their own Procurement policy as enshrined in their Policies and Procedure manual and use it only selectively to suit selfish interests of some senior staff who collude to defraud the company and deny well deserving Kenyan companies a chance to offer services even after satisfying all the necessary requirements in a tender and emerging victorious. This is an act of impunity and no one in Kenya is above the law, justice must therefore be pursued for the victims for this scheme” (..,)”That I confirm that I am aware that it is not possible to raise any issue regarding Safaricom with any organ, institution or media because Safaricom has corruptly infiltrated all segments of society and used its corporate advising might and huge financial resources to oppress any dissent or complaints”.
There even been more implications between the Media Houses and the Bob Collymore scandal of the KPMG reports as central men in the media have been bribed to silence or not talk about the company in an unfavorable way, these men are for instance Tom Mshindi (Nation Media Group) and Linus Kaiaki (NTV Kenya). So there are many big fishes who are being fried and more to come as the information getting leaked. These men are not alone, as Safaricom even bribed Citizen TV Kenya, who got Ksh. 50m to not highlight the report on the TV screen on the 9th May of 2016.
As an example of the leaked information that Safaricom wants to silence is the M-Pesa Second Generation agreement we’re the report stated this:
“Safaricom partnered with Huawei to upgrade its M-Pesa mobile money payments system, a decision which we were driven by Michael Joseph (Joseph) the previous Chief Executive Officer. We were informed by Donald Twesiga, the former Head of IT Service Operations (Twesiga) that a procurement process had been initiated which included major international vendors, but Joseph singlehandedly settled on Huawei. We were further informed that although the cost of this project was borne largely by Safaricom, it does not retain exclusive use of intellectual property on the project and similar mobile money projects can be rolled out in other territories without any benefits to Safaricom. We were also informed that there was no evidence of negotiation of prices on this project between Safaricom and Huawei”.
When you have agreements like this and there are nobody earning on it, directly the Safaricom company doesn’t earn on an upgrade, but still does it, without even negotiation of prices or have followed procedure of procurement process, it sends signals of direct corruption between the men who has been behind the agreement between Safaricom and Huwei, that can be the case as the levels of transparent procurement for the company and their rules for doing so. That should be even more important by a significant company of this size; the level of government ownership and the state of importance the M-Pesa mobile money have in Kenya alone. Just when you thought M-Pesa was dirty enough, even Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA) have reported in recent days that the profits made through M-Pesa mobile money have gone direct to a Tax-Haven so that the Kenyan Government can’t earn the direct tax money on the revenue. Another way of securing higher yields of profits for the CEO and the board, also second owner of the Company Vodafone!
That the CEO of Safaricom Bob Collymore have denied and claimed that the reports is lies, is expected; a man who is earning so much and have such treasures would not jump on the sword, as he is used to tool with government entities and media as they are waiting for the money and for the services rendered by the Safaricom. With the knowledge of the monies that Safaricom can bring Media-Houses and needed Ad-Revenue, Aga Khan of the Nation Media Group (NMG) would easily be corrupt; that has been showed in the Ugandan General Election period where he was donated land to publish a positive poll in the same manner as the one was delivered towards the 2011 election there. So if Safaricom can come with good money than they surely can silence the media for their cause.
And as there was a blogger who got the hunch of the report and dropped certain knowledge of what it did say, the Safaricom could use the media they are paying high salaries to and gives lots of advertisement revenue.
Just to give you an indication on the value of money there earned inside the board of Safaricom, CEO Bob Collymore earned in the last 12 months, the net amount of Ksh. 109.5. So it’s a well-paid position and he has earned a living salary and surely could afford to pay of somebody just with his salary alone. Though I am sure the company coffers have enough to do and to silence the ones that need to be.
As much it is not only the Huawei and Safricom deal that is questionable when comes to Procurement procedure, you have also this one.
“In relation to the Fibre Space partnership dated 10th April 2015, the following documents were not provided;
- Invoices and payments to card manufacturers in relation to Safaricom purchased cards and purchase orders.
- Actual payment patterns with supporting payment documentation.
- A documented breakdown of the aggregate revenues to date Safaricom has earned from the partnership and;
- Information on the distribution count and location of all the points of sale and cards by Safaricom in relation to the partnership.
- A velocity report from the CMS indicating the time taken at each stage of contract drafting was not provided for review.
- The CBS reconciliations done by the Credit Control together with the resulting payable refunds for the month of July 2015 provided for review was no approved by HOD credit control” (thaVibe.com, 12.05.2016).
So again you see shade agreement between the Safaricom and co-partnership with Fibre Space. This again shows the agreement done without due diligence or even a review, henceforth done directly instead of through the procurement agreement. This does not say who did what, but certainly something suspicious.
That Bob Collymore have to enter a Media House with Police Officers to silence them and think that this can go away, pay for Blogger Awards while the Report is circulating, even I got the papers, and I am miles away from shores and streets of Nairobi. I know the boats are in Mombasa, still the point is that I, far away can get them and paste them on my blog. So the old fashion fear driven policy of Collymore doesn’t work in the digital age. The exposed stays exposed. That is why Wikileaks and Panamapapers can do as they please.
So Safaricom has showed its face is not accountable, transparent or just in their actions as their procurement and agreements are made for the beneficiaries and not after procedure. This is just the ones that have surfaced through the reported pages from the draft report. What more that are under surface is something only Collymore and the rest of Board of Safaricom knows. The Company and owners of Vodafone only knows the whole picture, as the Government also is connected and the ability to silence the media as the Ad Revenue counter the Integrity of the set amount of journalist or editors ethical behavior. Peace.
MinBane 