Report was unfair to Issack Hassan, High Court rules

The chairman of the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission was on Friday spared being held responsible for the Biometric Voter Registration kits scandal.

The High Court ordered that Issack Hassan's name be deleted from a report in which he was mentioned adversely.

Justice Isaac Lenaola ruled that the Special Investigation Report on the Procurement of Electronic Voting Devices for the 2013 General Election, which was presented to the National Assembly and blamed Mr Hassan for the loss of over Sh4 billion, was unconstitutional.

In his ruling, the judge said Auditor-General Edward Ouko failed to give Mr Hassan a right to defend himself over the accusations levelled against him before submitting the report to the National Assembly.

Justice Lenaola also ordered all information contained in the special investigation audit as well as any other information that linked him to the BVR kits scandal be deleted.

The judge, however, declined to issue any orders against Parliament and ruled that there was no evidence that the House had acted on the recommendations contained in the report.

“The law is expressed very clearly that a decision is unfair if the decision maker deprives himself of the views of the person who will be affected by the decision. The fact that Mr Hassan was adversely mentioned, he should have been given an opportunity to tell his side of the story,” Justice Lenaola said.

TAKE RESPONSIBILITY

According to the report, Mr Hassan allowed an August 7, 2012 meeting that gave way for the acquisition of the BVR kits.

Mr Hassan had been accused of allowing Canada’s First Secretary for Development Tim Colby to sit in the meeting to discuss a government-to-government procurement option.

The Auditor-General had also recommended a possible claim of 36,989,938 euros (Sh4.4 billion) against Mr Hassan, which was the difference between the additional costs incurred and what had been quoted.

The report had further recommended that Mr Hassan, former IEBC Chief Executive Officer James Oswago and former Finance Minister Njeru Githae take responsibility for the unclear strategy, planning, budgeting and execution of the March 4, 2013 General Election.

Mr Hassan was to face allegations of influencing the single sourcing of the kits, which, along with electronic voter identification devices, failed during the 2013 poll.