Kenneth Kiplagats hostility on safaricom aside, perhaps a minute or two to look at the other side of the coin would help us understand Whats the root of this entire hullabaloo surrounding it and KPMG.

It’s known that for any person or firm to succeed, challenges and impasse are expected. It’s no different for Safaricom as a brand which has positioned itself as a key contributor to this country’s economy. It has faced it before and it’s facing it now!

Lest we forget, from supporting healthcare to SMEs, Technology to Music, Sports to Environment, Kenya’s largest corporate firm; safaricom Ltd has positioned itself as a key contributors to Kenya’s GDP hence boosting the country’s economy.

This is basically proven by the amount of funds they set aside to solely support programmes in this sectors or donate to institutions to do the same year on year. In the spirit of delivery and giving Kenyans the better option, this is despite the ongoing scandal facing the mobile service provider, the firm has gone ahead to unveil BLAZE Kenya, a platform aimed at giving the Kenyan youths of upto 26 years of age an opportunity to showcase their talents and skills and when good enough, get funding.

In this alone, they set aside upto 25% of its marketing budget which is an equivalent of 700 million to invest in the youths. Still on the youth, the brand also invested Ksh.150 million to benefit talented young boys and girls who will join My Proffessional Dreams Academy (MDA) through the Safaricom Next Generation programme.

Early last month, the firm banked an additional 36 million Kenya shillings to its safaricom foundation programme to increase access to health care services for Kenyans for the next two years.

How has the firm contributed to transforming lives and sustainable living in Kenya?

As recorded in its  14th annual sustainability report, the firm has involved itself in spearheading a number of projects which include and not limited to Jihusishe project which allows Kenyans to understand the roles and importance of the government as they exchange ideas with local politicians through an SMS platform,Mtiba which is an E-Wallet that helps  low income earners to save towards their healthcare expenses and the fertilizer E-Subsidy which allows small scale farmers to access government fertilizer subsidy directly.

Having recorded a profit of 31.8 billion in profits, in its 2016 financial year report safaricom was in 2014 for the seventh consecutive year ranked as Kenya’s largest taxpayer, highlighting the strategic importance of the Telco to the country.

In the report, it recorded that atleast 1.47 bn was disbursed to Kenyans as loan by 31st march 2016 in the KCB –MPESA platform and 10 bn in loans through M-shwari. This shows its commitment to champion for sustainable living among Kenyans. Atleast two or three of you can attest to have benefitted from the above in you hour of need.

Interms of Job creation, the true value report released by the same KPMG in 2015, records that Safaricom operations sustained about 682,000 jobs in Kenya representing about 4% of the total economically active labour force in Kenya.

During the same year, the report confirms  they generated a total of Kshs 315 Billion in revenues to Kenya’s GDP which accounted for a total of about 6% of GDP in total in the F/Y ended 2014/2015

The above is  debatable,but atleast we all agree that the firm has largely impacted the country’s economy

We all comprehend the stiff competition Safaricom is giving its competitors, and truth be told, an enemy will use all means possible to fight its rival to death .This includes painting propaganda on a draft report made only for the chosen few. well that’s a story for another day.