Safaricom Lawyer Daniel Ndaba is fighting efforts to be cross-examined by Blogger Cyprian Nyakundi’s lawyer, HSC Apollo Mboya, we can report.
Lawyer Apollo Mboya had filed a notice to cross-examine the lawyer on his affidavit sworn and signed on 3rd June 2016 in support of motion dated the same day.
Safaricom sued Blogger Cyprian Nyakundi in 2015 after he run a series of articles exposing the company over various malpractices.
The suit highlighted several issues:
Cyprian Nyakundi had published a series of defamatory articles, a fifteen-part exposure on Safaricom’s operations
1. In the first article of the series in this blog, “How Safaricom steals from Kenyans with third parties” Nyakundi had portrayed Safaricom as fraud & a thief by claiming they are obtaining money and profits in form of airtime from its subscribers through non-existent subscriptions
2. In the next article of the series named “Your privacy and Safaricom are two different worlds”, Safaricom claims the blogpost defamed Safaricom claiming that the company is infringing on its customer’s privacy
3. In the third article of the expose, “Time to put Safaricom back in its box before it seriously hurts Kenyans”, Nyakundi discussed the plight of Safaricom employees who were allegedly laid off as a result of falling ill and that in fact the contents in paragraph five relate to an ongoing civil suit in court (explicitly mentioned in the suit as Suit No. 241 of 2013- Josephine Wanjiru Boro vs Safaricom Limited)
4. In the fourth article of the series expose “Are Safaricom lone wolves preying on our security What they don’t want you to know”, Nyakundi was accusing Safaricom on breaching the security of Kenyans
In Lawyer Apollo Mboya’s notice to cross-examine, the lawyer stated what the cross-examination would focus on various issues
It will be remembered that Cyprian Nyakundi single-handedly managed to expose Safaricom’s Cheza Games scam, which guzzled subscribers airtime to the tune of billions of shillings. Because of the blogger, Safaricom refunded these monies to subscribers in the form of airtime.
Apollo Mboya has cited this incident as one of his cross-examining points, together with matters raised by the damning KPMG Audit Report, which was exclusively serialized by Cyprian Nyakundi.
Matters arising from this audit report include corruption in the awarding of tenders, where the names of senior officials of the firm feature prominently. Apollo has also sought to cross-examine Safaricom Lawyer on the nature of the CCTV contract with the Government, where issues were raised over the cost and execution of the project.
The synergy between Kenya’s top blogger and Safaricom presents a fresh headache for Safaricom, who for long capitalized on manipulating other lawyers who have previously been assigned to the case.
Safaricom have been banking on backroom shenanigans and financial inducements to stall cases and evade accountability. The arrogance of Bob Collymore and his staffers showed that they had confidence as a result of gaming the system to their favor.
Safaricom Lawyers are opposing the cross-examination efforts and a ruling will be made in June.
Safaricom CEO Bob Collymore and former CEO Michael Joseph will also be cross-examined soon to shed more light on issues they have sued Nyakundi about.
