Inside the IEBC Sh3.9bn tender scandal

Doubts about the electoral team’s ability to successfully procure the Sh3.9 billion biometric voter registration equipment began the moment the names of the top four bidders became public.

Immediately, there were reports that the big names in the industry were not on the list, experts pointed out that the world over, only a handful of companies had the capacity to offer large-scale automatic fingerprinting identification systems with reasonable accuracy.

Parallels were drawn with the ongoing procurement of second generation identity cards where the shortlist included such big names as Iris Corporation, Zetes Industries, Indras Systemas and Nadra Gemalto.

In the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission case, the best bidder was 4G Identity Solutions of India followed by Symphony of Kenya and Face Technology of South Africa.

The first signs that the process had been compromised emerged when the minutes of the tender committee’s meetings were leaked to the Press by the vendors. The process had divided the commission into camps.

The battles by the warring groups reached fever pitch the moment it emerged that the Indian firm was ahead of the pack. There were unsubstantiated claims and literature casting doubt on its credibility.

Against this backdrop, the electoral commission sought the assistance of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to instruct the Kenya High Commission in India to conduct background checks on 4G Identity Solutions. The intervention only served to add fuel to the conflict.

Now it has emerged that internal suspicions, backstabbing, blackmail and sometimes open defiance characterised the tendering.

Allegations of corruption and attempts to bend procurement procedures also cropped up before the electoral commission cancelled the tender.

Investigations by the Saturday Nation revealed that tension was high at a crisis meeting called by the commission last Monday to discuss the controversy after four officials were openly accused of having lobbied in favour of various companies.

Internal cracks emerged within the commission and its secretariat, with two groups gravitating around chairman Ahmed Issack Hassan and another loyal to acting chief executive James Oswago disagreeing over the tender.

Though Mr Oswago is an absolutely powerful figure at the commission, some directors and junior staff drawing their powers directly from the chairman’s office now openly defy him.

Some commissioners have been pushing for Mr Oswago’s ouster but there is a group supporting a court ruling that ordered the commission to honour the full life of his contract, expected to expire in 2014.

Sources who attended the Monday meeting, which ended at 2am, revealed that three commissioners insisted on biometric voter registration while five wanted the tender cancelled to save the commission from a credibility crisis.
Only Dr Yusuf Nzibo, who was out of the country, missed the meeting.

Though commissioners are not expected to involve themselves directly in the tendering process, our investigations revealed that two commissioners on an official trip abroad surprisingly met some bidders to discuss the tender.

Dangerous precedent

Mr Hassan has, however, insisted that electoral commission tenders are handled entirely by the secretariat and not the commissioners.

Another commissioner, Mr Mohammed Alawi, said the allegations of commissioner’s involvement in tenders were outrageous, adding that the claims were being made by individuals bent on destroying the commission.

“That is total rubbish and mere speculation. In fact, those allegations are juvenile,” Mr Alawi thundered when we reached him.

Asked whether the commission planned to conduct its own internal audit on the tender, Mr Oswago said: “We know what the problem was and as a commission we will deal with it.”

Mr Oswago also complained of internal rot within the commission which, he said, must be nipped in the bud to ensure its integrity was not undermined.

“This place is rotten and we need to clean it up so that we can have a respected organisation. I can tell you it is rotten,” Mr Oswago said without elaborating.

But he denied there was bad blood between him and Mr Hassan, saying they were working well together to ensure the electoral process remained on course.

However, sharp divisions at the commission have been manifest in the manner in which some staff have openly defied his orders.

On Monday, procurement manager Benerd Nyachieo cancelled an advert from the chief executive’s office informing the public and vendors that the controversial tender had been cancelled.

Mr Nyachieo is a junior officer answerable to the director of finance and procurement, Mr Edward Karisa.

But on Tuesday night, Mr Hassan issued a press statement endorsing an earlier decision that the tender had been cancelled after most commissioners declined to award the tender.
“The commission wishes to make it known to Kenyans that we have terminated the process of acquiring the Biometric Voter Registration kits. All the tenderers have been so notified. This tender has attracted considerable public attention,” said Mr Hassan

Mr Hassan declined to discuss details outside his Press statement with the Saturday Nation.

The magnitude of the tender generated so much excitement in political, business and diplomatic circles that a diplomat from an influential Western power stormed the commission offices demanding that a company from his country be considered.

Certain individuals within and without the commission have been accused of cutting deals worth millions of shillings to assist some bidders before the process turned nasty.

The chairman of the Indian firm, 4G Identity Solutions, Dr Sreeni Tripuraneni, last month wrote to the commission complaining that an extortionist had approached the company demanding a Sh30 million bribe, which he refused to pay.

“Having failed to agree to the numerous demands, an official at the Indian High Commission in Nairobi approached our local partner demanding Sh30 million on behalf of officers in the Kenyan Foreign Affairs ministry,” said Dr Tripuraneni.

He also alleged that an official at the Kenyan consulate in Mumbai, a Mr R.A. Goenka, faxed a letter to the company offering to facilitate it to win the tender.

But Foreign Affairs permanent secretary Thuita Mwangi disowned the said official, saying he did not work for the Kenyan High Commission.

“There is no such a person in our High Commission in New Delhi,” he told Saturday Nation.

But a Mr Goeka’s profile is posted on the Kenyan High Commission’s website as the honorary consul.

Mr Gordon Sinclair, vice-president of Code Incorporated, a Canadian company that was dropped from the tender process by the evaluation committee, wrote to the chief executive of Symphony, Mr Rajender Singh, seeking to work with the Kenyan company that nearly won the tender.

“We have a profound understanding, experience, history and ‘inside’ knowledge of the finance section/department of the commisison,” Mr Gordon said in the letter.

Regulations being flouted

But when we sought to confirm whether he wrote the four-page letter, the Canadian curtly said: “Not me.”

But Mr Rajender confirmed receiving the email. “Yes we received the long mail from Gordon. Many others also wrote to us. If he denies that he wrote to us, then I am dumbfounded,” Mr Rajender said.

Former chairman of the tender committee, Ms Praxedes Tororey, wrote several letters to the chief executive and finance director Edward Karisa warning that procurement regulations were being flouted in the tender process. She later resigned with her entire team.

“Director, with all due respect I am shocked and ashamed of you, a Christian, a man I have always held in high esteem that you could pick a statement and blow it out of context instead of focusing on the gist of our discussion and concerns I raised on the failure to strictly follow procurement rules and with specific reference to the handling of the biometric tendering process,” she said in her letter to Mr Karisa.

In dramatic twists and turns, 4G Identity almost won the tender at one point before claims it had been blacklisted came to the fore.

But Ms Tororey’s committee advised that the tender be awarded to Face Technology, a South Africa company whose quotation overshot the commission’s budget by Sh1 billion.

Then came Symphony a Kenyan company that also nearly clinched the tender before the commission cancelled it. (READ: MPs grill Kenya electoral body over voter kits)