Indian High Commission official ‘sought Sh30m bribe in BVR tender’
Former IEBC CEO James Oswago during Public Accounts Committee hearing on the tendering of BVR kits for the 2013 General Elections on July 27, 2015. The electoral commission may have favoured one of the firms that bid for the tender to supply biometric voter registration equipment for use in the 2013 General Election. PHOTO | DIANA NGILA | NATION MEDIA GROUP
What you need to know:
- The letter, which had been written by the firm’s chief executive, referred to reports in the local media that it had been blacklisted.
- Mr Oswago said a Mr Goinka also wrote to the firm and named an MP among the people who were to facilitate the award of the tender to the Indian company.
- Mr Oswago said the commission received three unsolicited letters from the Kenyan High Commission in India and the Foreign Affairs Ministry asking it not to deal with the firm.
An official at the Indian High Commission in Nairobi demanded a Sh30 million bribe from an Indian company to enable it to get the tender to supply biometric voter registration equipment, a parliamentary committee heard Monday.
Former electoral commission CEO James Oswago read to the Public Accounts Committee a letter dated July 2012 and written by 4G Identity Solutions, indicating that its bid had been rejected on the advice of the Kenyan High Commission in India.
The letter, which had been written by the firm’s chief executive, referred to reports in the local media that it had been blacklisted.
The letter said: “We have a strong feeling that the said letter was written after we refused to compromise on corruption.
"We would like to bring to your attention that on various occasions, we received telephone calls from the Kenyan High Commission in India and Kenyan Ministry of Foreign Affairs Nairobi telling us that we needed to pay money to enable them to write a favourable letter to the IEBC.”
The firm said that after failing to agree to the numerous requests, a Mr Hudson Mboya at the Indian High Commission in Nairobi approached its local partner and asked for Sh30 million on behalf of Foreign Affairs officials.
CITED ONLINE ARTICLE
Mr Mboya is cited in an online article as a commercial officer at the Indian High Commission.
Mr Oswago said a Mr Goinka also wrote to the firm and named an MP among the people who were to facilitate the award of the tender to the Indian company.
He did not, however, produce the letter.
The letter from the firm was one of several revealed at the committee’s hearings, showing the intrigues at the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission as it bungled the purchase of the equipment in the 2013 polls.
Mr Oswago said the commission received three unsolicited letters from the Kenyan High Commission in India and the Foreign Affairs Ministry asking it not to deal with the firm.
An evaluation committee he had set up had given the IEBC the go-ahead to procure the equipment from the firm, whose bid was initially Sh3.7 billion — Sh200 million less than the money the commission had set aside.
Due to the detailed presentation by Mr Oswago yesterday, the MPs resolved to have a separate sitting to discuss the process through which the Electronic Voter Identification Devices were procured from Face Technology of South Africa.
