Safaricom’s Chief Customer Officer Sylvia Mulinge was fired in July 2022, and it was made to look like a choice for her as she landed a top role in a Ugandan Telco.
This September, the most corrupt of Safaricom’s directors will be taking over as CEO of MTN Uganda.
This September too, Kenyans will know their next president.
If it is William Samoei Ruto, we urge that he blocks the export of one of Kenya’s worst as an expatriate until a criminal charge is brought to conclusion.
Sylvia Mulinge’s case of drunk driving and killing a minor is still unsolved.
The Case
Sylvia Mulinge has a bad record in the public limelight.
In February 2015, a drunk Ms Mulinge behind a Toyota Prado registration number KBU 483M knocked dead young Mary Kusa Etale along the southern bypass road in Nairobi.
The case under occurrence book as entry 3/01/02/2015 was mishandled by the traffic police officers based at Langata Police Station.
To this day, Mulinge has never been charged in a court of law but illegally claims to have agreed on an out-of-court settlement with the family.
When the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) Noordin Haji took over that office, many Kenyans became hopeful and indeed he revived a staled case.
The DPP’s office following public pressure appealed the judgement by Judge Odunga who had prohibited the agencies from arresting or prosecuting Ms Mulinge for the offence of causing the death of a minor by dangerous driving.
@SafaricomLtd's Sylvia Mulinge to appear in court on 20/11/17 to plead to charge of causing death by dangerous driving pic.twitter.com/czuvE2pX30
— Office of The Director Of Public Prosecutions (@ODPP_KE) November 13, 2017
The appeal date was set for 14th April 2019 as cnyakundi.com was notified.
However, since then the tracks grew cold and Sylvia cemented her position at the Telco and is now heading to Uganda as MTN CEO, is she above the law and escaping justice?
Ms Mulinge from the time she knew she was in trouble in 2015 compromised the relevant authorities. The girl’s family members said that the only compensation they received after the accident was just Ksh. 200,000 from Sylvia.
READ: Safaricom’s internal wrangles over tenders threaten to knock out the ‘outsider’ CEO Peter Ndegwa
This case would later cause the Tanzanian government to deny Mulinge a work permit after she found a job in one of the top telecommunication companies in the country.
Inhumane would be an understatement to describe a woman who valued the life of little Mary Kusa at just a few hundred thousand.
There was a lot of pressure from this blog and other quarters to even have DPP given the appeals date of 14th April 2019. It wasn’t easy.
Other issues
Ms Mulinge is also accused of colluding with Fibre Space Limited which was single-sourced for electronic payment in the transport sector. The project collapsed a few weeks later, but the paper works were never found. It is alleged that paperwork for the project which was floated unprocedurally without a Request for Proposal (RFP) document was disappeared by the then head of business unit Sylvia Mulinge
The case against Safaricom for stealing intellectual properties of upcoming startups and youthful inventors points to Sylvia Mulinge’s office.
One of the biggest of such intellectual property infringements is that one between Safaricom and Transcend Media Group, which we covered here.
As she head to Uganda, Ruto or Raila, as president must block such as sacrilegious and taint to our national conscious.
Maybe the Gods know that she might kill more kids with drunk driving.
