Safaricom is set who received Sh3 billion from the National Youth Service (NYS) through the M-Pesa platform. This follows a request by the firm to parliament asking for time to gather together details of the individuals who received the cash.
Safaricom chief executive officer Bob Collymore pleaded with the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) to allow it seven days to ascertain the identities of 18,000 individuals who were paid by the NYS through the National Bank of Kenya (NBK).
He said the data is with the NBK, which made payments through the M-Pesa platform.
The Safaricom CEO had been invited to PAC to shed light on the outcome of a special audit conducted by Auditor-General Edward Ouko who listed a number of youth cohorts as beneficiaries of the NYS scandal.
“We do not have any relationship with NYS. However, we have a mobile banking agreement with NBK where we provide a pay bill number for the bank to administer a single payment to multiple recipients,” Mr. Collymore told the MPs.
He said Safaricom was not in a position to indicate how much the recipients received and the identity of the beneficiaries until it scrutinizes the mobile telephone contacts that should be provided by NBK.
