Fall-back plan for electoral team

The polls agency will use its current biometric voter registration kits if the new tender fails to deliver on time.

The Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) on Monday said there was a possibility of a delay in the supply of some 9,750 kits.

In that case, it said, it will use kits sent out to register voters ahead of the 2010 referendum in a pilot project that covered 18 constituencies.

“Once we have awarded the tender, we can be able to manipulate and use the software and configure our current equipment.

“They can be sent to the 1,450 wards so that we have at least one per ward. That is the worst scenario because we are hoping to get the equipment on time,” IEBC chairman Issack Hassan told a press conference in Nairobi on Monday.

The commission also said it had noted questions over selection of Systems Integrated Limited, which trades as Symphony, as the probable supplier of the kits and promised to ensure that all the issues are cleared.

Mr Hassan said the evaluation committee will on Tuesday give a report on how much time will be needed to carry out due diligence on Symphony.

Queries are being raised over past records, political connections and ownership of Symphony, which has been cleared by the commission for the award of the Sh3.9 billion tender.

Due diligence

The previous tender committee, he said, quit after the commission received information that the company they had chosen, 4G Identity Solution, would not be able to deliver.

He added that the other company, Face Technology, which had been recommended by the committee, had quoted Sh810 million above the IEBC budget.

“We are now conducting due diligence on Systems Integrated Limited, trading as Symphony, which was the second lowest bidder. We have asked the secretariat to write to Parliament and also the Registrar of Companies to answer some of the questions being raised on whether it was the same firm that was blacklisted and who the owners of the company are,” said Mr Hassan.

According to documents seen by the Nation, Symphony has applied for the tender as a consortium with a German company, Dermalog, experts in fingerprint identification. Dermalog is to offer the core technical components of the system, including finger- prints and solar solution.

Elsewhere, Nairobi Metropolitan minister Jamleck Kamau asked IEBC to be independent in its work.

He said the commission must be impartial to avoid violence similar to the one that erupted after the 2007 elections. The MP said IEBC must avoid being influenced by external forces.

“Politicians are capable of rigging elections and IEBC must be alert to that fact,” said Mr Kamau while speaking at a rally in his Kigumo constituency.