Google Reportedly Fires Its Country Manager in Kenya Over Mocality Saga

Following the recent Google PR disaster involving Kenyan start-up, Mocality over allegations of data scraping and misrepresentation, Google has reportedly fired its Country Lead for Kenya, Olga Arara-Kimani, according to several local tech blogs.

In mid-January, Google’s Kenyan operation was caught with evidence of scraping Mocality’s database of businesses and lying about its relationship with Mocality while contacting those businesses.

Google had since apologised to Mocality saying that they were “mortified” by the anti-competition allegations and pledged to investigate and take necessary action.

Last Friday, Google’s VP for EMEA, Nelson Mattos said that “appropriate action” had been taken. According to Mattos:

“We’ve concluded our investigation into the serious allegations about our use of data from Mocality’s website in Kenya. We’re very sorry this happened. We’ve taken appropriate action with the people involved and made changes in our operations to ensure this doesn’t occur again,” he posted on his Google+ page.

While this is not in any way an official Google statement, we can assume that Google’s “appropriate action” would mean firing those responsible or involved with the Mocality data scrap saga.

Olga represented the company in all of its business development projects and partnership opportunities in the region and served as the voice of the Kenyan user at Google.

She was recently listed by Forbes as one of the top 20 youngest power African women.

[Image via: Business Daily Kenya]