From: Constantino Kudoja

Safaricom CEO Bob Collymore. FILE | NATION MEDIA GROUP.

Chief executives of Kenyan mobile services firms Safaricom, Airtel and Telkom Kenya recorded police statements Tuesday morning over unregistered SIM cards linked to crime.

The operators are accused of being in violation of regulations for SIM card registration, as it emerged that police are trying to trace telephone numbers they suspect were used by the terrorists who attacked Nairobi’s Westgate Mall last month. The attack left 67 people dead and hundreds injured.

Safaricom boss Bob Collymore was questioned at CID headquarters as Airtel’s Shivan Bhargava appeared before another CID office in Nairobi to record his statement.

Telkom’s Kenya CEO Michael Ghossein said that he was grilled for two and half hours on Monday night.

“I was picked by the CID at Telkom Kenya headquarters at around 7.30 pm or 8.00 pm. I was leaving the office for my house when I found them downstairs waiting for me. We went to Kilimani CID offices (in Nairobi) where I was questioned about the unregistered SIM cards on our network,” Mr Ghossein said.

On Monday, four mobile phone firms’ bosses and their vendors were warned they risked arrest over criminal offences committed through any unregistered SIM cards on their network.

The Cabinet Secretary in charge of ICT, Mr Fred Matiang’i, said since Sunday, officials from the Communications Commission of Kenya and the police are carrying out a swoop around the country on mobile phone companies and their agents to determine whether they comply with the Communications Act and regulations that were issued last December.

“Despite the regulations, some agents have been selling pre-activated SIM cards or fail to register the cards at the point on sale,” he said during a press briefing in Nairobi.