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Safaricom accused of patent infringement

May 18, 2020
3 Min Read
Safaricom accused of patent infringement
Anyona Obutu – innovator

East Africa’s biggest Telecommunications company Safaricom Plc has once again been caught red-handed stealing an idea which is patented.

Last week, Safaricom launched a TUWAANIKE, a feature that makes it hard for anyone to register someone’s National Identity Card Number (ID) without their authorisation. This was necessitated due to the rising cases of fraud where a person’s ID number is used to register a new line, which in turn causes them to lose money in their mobile wallets mostly MPESA.

Criminals also exploited this to rob close family members of cash through MPESA.

Anyona Obutu, an innovator, went on Twitter to complain that Safaricom had stolen this idea after he had submitted it on Zindua Cafe Portal.

Zindua Cafe Portal is run by the Telco; it encourages people to submit their ideas to be considered by Safaricom.

Anyona’s case makes it more interesting because he had tweeted about it in April, a month later, Safaricom launched it as theirs, but the problem is, they didn’t contact him and to make matters worse, they deleted the link to his submission.

All this pointed to criminal behaviour bu the Peter Ndegwa-led company and a cover up.

Peter Ndegwa, Safaricom CEO

Slayqueens and innovations

This is not the first time that Safaricom Plc s being accused of swindling an idea from an individual or company.

In the past, Safaricom has been accused of stealing Mshwari from Faulu Bank, Reverse call idea, MPESA 1-tap and other innovations.

Most of the giant Telco’s departments are headed by women, most of whom have questionable characters and their ascendency to the top is highly doubted if it was through merit, if any.

They’ve made a name through stealing and implementing those ideas, some have won awards through stolen ideas.

Others like the CEO of Integrated Payment Services Limited (IPSL) which runs Pesalink a platform where banks in Kenya use to execute bank to mobile payments, a competitor of MPESA, she is a rare breed of those who cut their teeth inside the stealing monopoly that is Safaricom.

Though Pesalink idea is being contested in court, she went on to steal another idea from Kibo Capital Group Limited and won an award with it. I wonder if these awarding firms even do due diligence, but the problem doesn’t stop there, the problem is the media houses and journalists who publish their stories as successful women in business, they don’t even ask the hard questions. It is due to Brown Envelope Journalism.

Anyona Obutu, the innovative young man is calling for justice.

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