Smartmatic, a Greek company contracted by the IEBC to supply voting technology, has declined a Supreme Court order to provide access to the National Tallying Centre.
The agency, in a letter dated August 31, 2022, to parties in the ongoing presidential election petition at the Supreme Court, reads to show that Smartmatic International Holding B.V has declined to provide full access to servers hosting Form 34C, saying that would infringe its intellectual property rights.
“As per your request regarding the provision of an image of NTC server(s), we would like to clarify that such images contain software owned and copyrighted by Smartmatic and is thus IP protected. Providing full access would infringe our intellectual property rights,” reads the letter by F. Gunnik, Smartmatics’ managing director.
This comes as Philip Murgor, a lawyer defending Raila Odinga in the case, raised the concern of the IEBC refusing to comply with the court’s order.
“IEBC failed to provide forensic image off all the servers. They provided a limited access to server 5 and we observed a large number of deletion. We suspect the delay and non-compliance could be to delete vital data and when time runs out they may provide irrelevant information,” Mr. Murgor said.
The court, however, said it had received a report on the server’s scrutiny last night and requested the lawyers to make oral submissions in their rejoinders tomorrow.
Here is a copy of the letter.
WKT is your go-to digital media platform committed to telling the stories that shape lives, spotlighting the diverse voices of Western Kenya, and empowering readers with real-time updates, in-depth analysis, rich perspectives, and powerful stories that matter.
