Sustainability Report 2016

Safaricom Sustainability Report 2016

MEDIA

The media play an important role in society through

providing a platform for discussion and debate. They are

also an important stakeholder of ours as they provide us

with a channel through which we can communicate with

our other stakeholders, such as our customers.

Accordingly, we need to make sure that the relevant

members of the media are presented with the right facts

and information and that significant issues are identified

and fully explained so that topics and events are reported

in an accurate and balanced manner.

We maintain good working relationships with a wide variety

of media representatives to ensure that our voice is also

heard on pertinent issues and to help provide information

and guidance topics that are related to our areas of

expertise.

Safaricom is proud to be closely associated with Kenya’s

first business journalism fellowship program at Strathmore

Business School. As Kenya, and East Africa’s most

successful company by many measures (turnover, profit,

customer base, market capitalization), Safaricom is also

arguably the most closely scrutinized company.

Its business and social performance is of great interest

to its large local customer and shareholder base, the

government, and international portfolio investors, while

the phenomenal success of M-PESA in Kenya attracts the

interest of the technology and development community

worldwide. Safaricom, therefore has a major interest in

the quality of journalism in Kenya, and financial reporting

in particular. In an age when many news organizations

no longer have the resources to tackle complex, time-

consuming stories, the Safaricom Business Journalism

Fellowship Program will enable journalists to develop the

analytical skills needed not only to connect the dots across

a wide range of complicated topics, but also to produce

impactful journalism that will set them apart. Safaricom

decided to partner with the Strathmore Business School for

this important project due to the fact that it has

become a significant guiding force in our business

community.

Through this program we hope to prepare

journalists to perform a vital and challenging

function in free societies: finding the truth in

complicated situations, usually under a time constraint,

and communicating it in a clear engaging fashion to the

public.

FY17 GOALS

Ensure that 100% of FAQs from the

media are answered satisfactorily

and that our response time and

queries reduce from our current

baseline.