'We are self-sponsored': InfoTrak dismisses claims of being funded by politicians

InfoTrak CEO Angela Ambitho has refuted allegations about the market and social research company being financed by politicians to influence their survey findings.

Ms Ambitho who spoke on Citizen TV’s JKLive on Wednesday clarified that the firm is fully independent and without any external links to political factions or leaders.

She pointed out that the top research company which boasts more than 10 years in operation is self-sponsored and single-handedly conducts its own surveys without the knowledge of the politicians or the subjects of its study.

The Infotrak boss cited the just-released survey titled Countrytrak Performance Index 2024 which provides in-depth data on how Kenyans perceive county governments' performance of devolved functions and their leaders, saying that the respective front runners only learnt about their ratings after the report was released.

“The survey that we have just released, and we have done it since 2014 and we are commemorating the 10th anniversary, is actually funded wholly by InfoTrak,” she said.

“The beauty of releasing the polls today is for the first time we invited the top performers into a room to interact with them, many of them did not know their index, and some of them knew because it was released by some media yesterday but indeed we were meeting them for the first time certainly Gathoni was in Boston but only knew about it when I reached out and she was surprised.”

The CEO however opined that politicians ought to invest in data analysis as a surest scientific way of gauging their performance in the eyes of their electorates.

Ambitho referred to Embakasi MP Babu Owino who was also on the platform and who emerged as the best-performing MP in the country, noting that Babu had been on the frontline in monitoring his performance during the survey.

“Babu only knew about his index because he is constantly calling to find out how he is doing and when we finished with the survey, we of course told him what his rating was we didn’t tell him what his rank was, but he knew his rating,” she stated.

“Politicians do not fund for a rating but certainly they should invest in data because it is the only scientific way to find out how their constituencies feel about their service delivery and performance based on what they promised in their campaigns…maybe there are other ways but this is the best that I know works best.”