IEBC chair Wafula Chebukati. [Photo/businessdaily]
Airtel Kenya and Telkom Kenya will not be used in transmitting poll results during the repeat presidential polls.
Giant mobile service provider Safaricom has been retained by IEBC for the purpose.
According to IEBC, the move is aimed at avoiding hitches that were among reason behind nullification of August 8 polls by the Supreme Court.
The embattled Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission has cited Safaricom’s wide network coverage for the award of the transmission deal.
“M/S Safaricom will be requested to deploy KIEMS kits tablet SIM cards in all the 40,883 polling stations across the country,” IEBC chairman Wafula Chebukati said in response to the opposition National Super Alliance (Nasa).
During the August 8 polls, the three telcos were hired to provide connectivity between polling centers and IEBC’s national tallying centre in 78 per cent of the country with 3G and 2G network connections, while the remainder was to be covered by satellite phones.
But the announcement that a quarter of all polling stations in the country do not have adequate mobile network coverage for transmission of elections results raised suspicions.